Connecticut legislators to consider minimum pay for Uber and Lyft drivers - Connecticut Post
▻https://www.ctpost.com/politics/article/Connecticut-legislators-to-consider-minimum-pay-13608071.php
By Emilie Munson, February 11, 2019 - Prompted by growing numbers of frustrated Uber and Lyft drivers, lawmakers will hold a hearing on establishing minimum pay for app-based drivers.
After three separate legislative proposals regarding pay for drivers flooded the Labor and Public Employees Committee, the committee will raise the concept of driver earnings as a bill, said state Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, who chairs the committee, on Friday night.
A coalition of Uber and Lyft drivers from New Haven has been pressuring lawmakers to pass a pay standard, following New York City’s landmark minimum pay ordinance for app-based drivers approved in December. The legislation, which set an earnings floor of $17.22 an hour for the independent contractors, took effect on Feb. 1.
Connecticut drivers have no minimum pay guarantees.
Guillermo Estrella, who drives for Uber, worked about 60 hours per week last year and received $25,422.65 in gross pay. His pay stub doesn’t reflect how much Estrella paid for insurance, gas, oil changes and wear-and-tear on his car. Factor those expenses in, and the Branford resident said his yearly take-home earnings were about $18,000 last year.
Estrella and other New Haven drivers have suggested bill language to cap the portion of riders’ fares that Uber and Lyft can take at 25 percent, with the remaining 75 percent heading to drivers’ pockets. The idea has already received pushback from Uber, which said it was unrealistic given their current pay structure.
Connecticut legislators have suggested two other models for regulating driver pay. State Sen. Steve Cassano, D-Manchester, filed a bill to set a minimum pay rate per mile and per minute for drivers. His bill has not assigned numbers to those minimums yet.
“What (drivers) were making when Uber started and got its name, they are not making that anymore,” said Cassano. “The company is taking advantage of the success of the company. I understand that to a point, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of the drivers.”
State Rep. Peter Tercyak, D-New Britain, proposed legislation that says if drivers’ earnings do not amount to hourly minimum wage payments, Uber or Lyft should have to kick in the difference. Connecticut’s minimum wage is now $10.10, although Democrats are making a strong push this year to raise it.
As lawmakers consider these proposals, they will confront issues raised by the growing “gig economy”: a clash between companies seeking thousands of flexible, independent contractors and a workforce that wants the benefits and rights of traditional, paid employment.
Some Democrats at the Capitol support the changes that favor drivers.
“I thought it was important to make sure our labor laws are keeping up with the changes we are seeing in this emerging gig economy, that we have sufficient safeguards to make sure that drivers are not being exploited,” said Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown.
But the proposals also raise broad, difficult questions like what protections does a large independent contractor workforce need? And how would constraining the business model of Uber and Lyft impact service availability around the state?
Sen. Craig Miner, a Republican of Litchfield who sits on the Labor committee, wondered why Uber and Lyft drivers should have guaranteed pay, when other independent contractors do not. How would this impact the tax benefits realized by independent contractors, he asked.
Uber and Lyft declined to provide data on how many drivers they have in the state, and the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles does not keep count. In Connecticut, 82 percent of Lyft drivers drive fewer than 20 hours per week, said Kaelan Richards, a Lyft spokesperson.
Last week, Hearst Connecticut Media spoke to 20 Uber and Lyft drivers in New Haven who are demanding lawmakers protect their pay. All drove full-time for Uber or Lyft or both.
An immigrant from Ecuador, Estrella, the Branford driver, struggles to pay for rent and groceries for his pregnant wife and seven-year-old son using his Uber wages.
“A cup of coffee at the local Starbucks cost $3 or $4,” said Estrella. “How can a trip can cost $3 when you have to drive to them five minutes away and drop them off after seven or eight minutes?”
In December, 50 Uber and Lyft drivers held a strike in New Haven demanding better pay. The New Haven drivers last week said they are planning more strikes soon.
“Why is Uber lowering the rates and why do we have to say yes to keep working?” asked Carlos Gomez, a Guilford Uber driver, last week.
The drivers believe Uber and Lyft are decreasing driver pay and taking a larger chunk of rider fares for company profits. Many New Haven drivers said pay per mile has been decreasing. They liked Sen. Cassano’s idea of setting minimum pay per mile and per minute.
“The payment by mile, it went down by 10 cents,” said Rosanna Olan, a driver from West Haven. “Before it was more than one dollar and now when you have a big truck SUV, working long distance especially is not worth it anymore.”
Uber and Lyft both declined to provide pay rates per mile and per minute for drivers. Drivers are not paid for time spent driving to pick up a passenger, nor for time spent idling waiting for a ride, although the companies’ model depends on having drivers ready to pick up passengers at any moment.
Lyft said nationally drivers earn an average of $18.83 an hour, but did not provide Connecticut specific earnings.
“Our goal has always been to empower drivers to get the most out of Lyft, and we look forward to continBy Emilie Munson Updated 4:49 pm EST, Monday, February 11, 2019uing to do so in Connecticut, and across the country," said Rich Power, public policy manager at Lyft.
Uber discouraged lawmakers from considering the drivers’ proposal of capping the transportation companies’ cut of rider fares. Uber spokesman Harry Hartfield said the idea wouldn’t work because Uber no longer uses the “commission model” — that stopped about two years ago.
“In order to make sure we can provide customers with an up-front price, driver fares are not tied to what the rider pays,” said Hartfield. “In fact, on many trips drivers actually make more money than the rider pays.”
What the rider is pays to Uber is an estimated price, calculated before the ride starts, Hartfield explained, while the driver receives from Uber a fare that is calculated based on actual drive time and distance. Changing the model could make it hard to give customers up-front pricing and “lead to reduced price transparency,” Hartfield said. New York’s changes raised rates for riders.
James Bhandary-Alexander, a New Haven Legal Assistance attorney who is working with the drivers, said Uber’s current pay model is “irrelevant to how drivers want to be paid for the work.”
“The reason that drivers care is it seems fundamentally unfair that the rider is willing to pay or has paid $100 for the ride and the driver has only gotten $30 or $40 of that,” he said.
Pursuing any of the three driver-pay proposals would bring Uber and Lyft lobbyists back to the Capitol, where they negotiated legislation spearheaded by Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, from 2015 to 2017.
Scanlon said the companies eventually favored the bill passed in 2017, which, after some compromise, required drivers have insurance, limited “surge pricing,” mandated background checks for drivers, imposed a 25 cent tax collected by the state and stated passengers must be picked up and delivered anywhere without discrimination.
“One of my biggest regrets about that bill, which I think is really good for consumers in Connecticut, is that we didn’t do anything to try to help the driver,” said Scanlon, who briefly drove for Uber.
By Emilie Munson Updated 4:49 pm EST, Monday, February 11, 2019
emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
]]>Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a Rebellion. - The New York Times
►https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/technology/silicon-valley-kansas-schools.html
Silicon Valley had come to small-town Kansas schools — and it was not going well.
“I want to just take my Chromebook back and tell them I’m not doing it anymore,” said Kallee Forslund, 16, a 10th grader in Wellington.
Eight months earlier, public schools near Wichita had rolled out a web-based platform and curriculum from Summit Learning. The Silicon Valley-based program promotes an educational approach called “personalized learning,” which uses online tools to customize education. The platform that Summit provides was developed by Facebook engineers. It is funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician.
Many families in the Kansas towns, which have grappled with underfunded public schools and deteriorating test scores, initially embraced the change. Under Summit’s program, students spend much of the day on their laptops and go online for lesson plans and quizzes, which they complete at their own pace. Teachers assist students with the work, hold mentoring sessions and lead special projects. The system is free to schools. The laptops are typically bought separately.
Then, students started coming home with headaches and hand cramps. Some said they felt more anxious. One child asked to bring her dad’s hunting earmuffs to class to block out classmates because work was now done largely alone.
“We’re allowing the computers to teach and the kids all looked like zombies,” said Tyson Koenig, a factory supervisor in McPherson, who visited his son’s fourth-grade class. In October, he pulled the 10-year-old out of the school.
“Change rarely comes without some bumps in the road,” said Gordon Mohn, McPherson’s superintendent of schools. He added, “Students are becoming self-directed learners and are demonstrating greater ownership of their learning activities.”
John Buckendorf, Wellington High School’s principal, said the “vast majority of our parents are happy with the program.”
The resistance in Kansas is part of mounting nationwide opposition to Summit, which began trials of its system in public schools four years ago and is now in around 380 schools and used by 74,000 students. In Brooklyn, high school students walked out in November after their school started using Summit’s platform. In Indiana, Pa., after a survey by Indiana University of Pennsylvania found 70 percent of students wanted Summit dropped or made optional, the school board scaled it back and then voted this month to terminate it. And in Cheshire, Conn., the program was cut after protests in 2017.
“When there are frustrating situations, generally ki
ds get over them, parents get over them, and they all move on,” said Mary Burnham, who has two grandchildren in Cheshire’s school district and started a petition to end Summit’s use. “Nobody got over this.”
Silicon Valley has tried to remake American education in its own image for years, even as many in tech eschew gadgets and software at home and flood into tech-free schools. Summit has been part of the leading edge of the movement, but the rebellion raises questions about a heavy reliance on tech in public schools.
For years, education experts have debated the merits of self-directed, online learning versus traditional teacher-led classrooms. Proponents argue that programs like Summit provide children, especially those in underserved towns, access to high-quality curriculums and teachers. Skeptics worry about screen time and argue that students miss out on important interpersonal lessons.❞
When this school year started, children got laptops to use Summit software and curriculums. In class, they sat at the computers working through subjects from math to English to history. Teachers told students that their role was now to be a mentor .
Myriland French, 16, a student at Wellington’s high school, said she had developed eye strain and missed talking to teachers and students in class. “Everyone is more stressed now,” she said.
]]>#copyright_madness
Question à la communauté @seenthis
Je viens de me rendre compte qu’une dessinatrice utilise le même nom que moi. Son site est ici : ►https://themadmeg.com
avec cette formule « Copyright © 2019 Madmeg - All Rights Reserved. » et du coup ca me rend mal à l’aise. Voir mon nom sous ces dessins dégoulinants de rose ca me contrarie et je trouve que ces mièvreries sont assez déplacées de la part d’une madmeg (mais on s’en fiche). je me demande aussi si elle ne va touché mes éventuels droits d’autrice à ma place (ou l’inverse) puisqu’elle utilise un copyright @Madmeg pour une activité similaire à la mienne et que parfois dans des publications les éditeur·ices mettent un copyright @Madmeg aussi à mes images. Je sais pas trop quoi faire, si vous avez des conseils ou infos je suis preneuse.
Cartographie numérique : L’Atlas de #Woodbridge et la première carte des isothermes à l’échelle mondiale (1823) : quand la géographie scolaire était en avance sur la publication scientifique
▻http://cartonumerique.blogspot.com/2019/05/atlas-de-woodbrige-1823.html
La commémoration des 250 ans de la naissance d’Alexandre de Humboldt (1769-1859) est l’occasion de (re)découvrir l’oeuvre du célèbre géographe allemand. Son expédition dans les Amériques – Vénézuela, Colombie, Équateur, Pérou, Cuba, Mexique et États-Unis - qu’il a réalisée entre 1799 et 1804 avec le biologiste français Aimé Bonpland, a contribué à en faire un géographe de terrain fondant son approche scientifique sur l’observation. De retour en Europe, il publie une oeuvre monumentale. Considéré comme le père de la géographie moderne, il montre les interactions des phénomènes humains avec les phénomènes géologiques, météorologiques, biologiques ou physiques.
En 1817, il publie « Des lignes isothermes et de la distribution de la chaleur sur le globe », Mémoires de Physique et de Chimie de la Société d’Arcueil (consulter l’ouvrage). Il faut cependant attendre 1838 pour qu’il élabore sa fameuse carte des isothermes à l’échelle mondiale (voir la carte sur la collection David Rumsey). Entre temps, un éducateur peu connu du Connecticut, William Woodbridge, qui a voyagé en Europe et a fréquenté Humboldt à Paris, publie en 1823 un Atlas scolaire qui contient une carte de répartition des isothermes qui est la plus ancienne carte connue à cette échelle. Retour sur une histoire originale à travers ce fil Twitter qui fait suite à un article publié par Gilles Fumey sur le blog Géographie en mouvement de Libération : Alexandre de Humbolt, le premier écologiste (8 mai 2019).
]]>The Terrifying Potential of the 5G Network | The New Yorker
▻https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/the-terrifying-potential-of-the-5g-network
Two words explain the difference between our current wireless networks and 5G: speed and latency. 5G—if you believe the hype—is expected to be up to a hundred times faster. (A two-hour movie could be downloaded in less than four seconds.) That speed will reduce, and possibly eliminate, the delay—the latency—between instructing a computer to perform a command and its execution. This, again, if you believe the hype, will lead to a whole new Internet of Things, where everything from toasters to dog collars to dialysis pumps to running shoes will be connected. Remote robotic surgery will be routine, the military will develop hypersonic weapons, and autonomous vehicles will cruise safely along smart highways. The claims are extravagant, and the stakes are high. One estimate projects that 5G will pump twelve trillion dollars into the global economy by 2035, and add twenty-two million new jobs in the United States alone. This 5G world, we are told, will usher in a fourth industrial revolution.
A totally connected world will also be especially susceptible to cyberattacks. Even before the introduction of 5G networks, hackers have breached the control center of a municipal dam system, stopped an Internet-connected car as it travelled down an interstate, and sabotaged home appliances. Ransomware, malware, crypto-jacking, identity theft, and data breaches have become so common that more Americans are afraid of cybercrime than they are of becoming a victim of violent crime. Adding more devices to the online universe is destined to create more opportunities for disruption. “5G is not just for refrigerators,” Spalding said. “It’s farm implements, it’s airplanes, it’s all kinds of different things that can actually kill people or that allow someone to reach into the network and direct those things to do what they want them to do. It’s a completely different threat that we’ve never experienced before.”
Spalding’s solution, he told me, was to build the 5G network from scratch, incorporating cyber defenses into its design.
There are very good reasons to keep a company that appears to be beholden to a government with a documented history of industrial cyber espionage, international data theft, and domestic spying out of global digital networks. But banning Huawei hardware will not secure those networks. Even in the absence of Huawei equipment, systems still may rely on software developed in China, and software can be reprogrammed remotely by malicious actors. And every device connected to the fifth-generation Internet will likely remain susceptible to hacking. According to James Baker, the former F.B.I. general counsel who runs the national-security program at the R Street Institute, “There’s a concern that those devices that are connected to the 5G network are not going to be very secure from a cyber perspective. That presents a huge vulnerability for the system, because those devices can be turned into bots, for example, and you can have a massive botnet that can be used to attack different parts of the network.”
This past January, Tom Wheeler, who was the F.C.C. chairman during the Obama Administration, published an Op-Ed in the New York Times titled “If 5G Is So Important, Why Isn’t It Secure?” The Trump Administration had walked away from security efforts begun during Wheeler’s tenure at the F.C.C.; most notably, in recent negotiations over international standards, the U.S. eliminated a requirement that the technical specifications of 5G include cyber defense. “For the first time in history,” Wheeler wrote, “cybersecurity was being required as a forethought in the design of a new network standard—until the Trump F.C.C. repealed it.” The agency also rejected the notion that companies building and running American digital networks were responsible for overseeing their security. This might have been expected, but the current F.C.C. does not consider cybersecurity to be a part of its domain, either. “I certainly did when we were in office,” Wheeler told me. “But the Republicans who were on the commission at that point in time, and are still there, one being the chairman, opposed those activities as being overly regulatory.”
Opening up new spectrum is crucial to achieving the super-fast speeds promised by 5G. Most American carriers are planning to migrate their services to a higher part of the spectrum, where the bands are big and broad and allow for colossal rivers of data to flow through them. (Some carriers are also working with lower-spectrum frequencies, where the speeds will not be as fast but likely more reliable.) Until recently, these high-frequency bands, which are called millimetre waves, were not available for Internet transmission, but advances in antenna technology have made it possible, at least in theory. In practice, millimetre waves are finicky: they can only travel short distances—about a thousand feet—and are impeded by walls, foliage, human bodies, and, apparently, rain.
Deploying millions of wireless relays so close to one another and, therefore, to our bodies has elicited its own concerns. Two years ago, a hundred and eighty scientists and doctors from thirty-six countries appealed to the European Union for a moratorium on 5G adoption until the effects of the expected increase in low-level radiation were studied. In February, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, took both the F.C.C. and F.D.A. to task for pushing ahead with 5G without assessing its health risks. “We’re kind of flying blind here,” he concluded. A system built on millions of cell relays, antennas, and sensors also offers previously unthinkable surveillance potential. Telecom companies already sell location data to marketers, and law enforcement has used similar data to track protesters. 5G will catalogue exactly where someone has come from, where they are going, and what they are doing. “To give one made-up example,” Steve Bellovin, a computer-science professor at Columbia University, told the Wall Street Journal, “might a pollution sensor detect cigarette smoke or vaping, while a Bluetooth receiver picks up the identities of nearby phones? Insurance companies might be interested.” Paired with facial recognition and artificial intelligence, the data streams and location capabilities of 5G will make anonymity a historical artifact.
To accommodate these limitations, 5G cellular relays will have to be installed inside buildings and on every city block, at least. Cell relays mounted on thirteen million utility poles, for example, will deliver 5G speeds to just over half of the American population, and cost around four hundred billion dollars to install. Rural communities will be out of luck—too many trees, too few people—despite the F.C.C.’s recently announced Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
Deploying millions of wireless relays so close to one another and, therefore, to our bodies has elicited its own concerns. Two years ago, a hundred and eighty scientists and doctors from thirty-six countries appealed to the European Union for a moratorium on 5G adoption until the effects of the expected increase in low-level radiation were studied. In February, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, took both the F.C.C. and F.D.A. to task for pushing ahead with 5G without assessing its health risks. “We’re kind of flying blind here,” he concluded. A system built on millions of cell relays, antennas, and sensors also offers previously unthinkable surveillance potential. Telecom companies already sell location data to marketers, and law enforcement has used similar data to track protesters. 5G will catalogue exactly where someone has come from, where they are going, and what they are doing. “To give one made-up example,” Steve Bellovin, a computer-science professor at Columbia University, told the Wall Street Journal, “might a pollution sensor detect cigarette smoke or vaping, while a Bluetooth receiver picks up the identities of nearby phones? Insurance companies might be interested.” Paired with facial recognition and artificial intelligence, the data streams and location capabilities of 5G will make anonymity a historical artifact.
]]>La famille Sackler, maître des opioïdes et amie des arts
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2019/04/25/les-sackler-
L’OxyContin, médicament hautement addictif, a fait la fortune de cette famille qui préfère parler de son mécénat plutôt que de sa responsabilité dans la crise sanitaire aux Etats-Unis.
La cuillère a le fond calciné, et son manche est retourné pour lui donner plus de stabilité. Comme celles utilisées par les toxicomanes qui font fondre leur drogue. Sauf que l’ustensile pèse… près de 360 kg. Le 22 juin 2018, il bloquait l’entrée du siège de Purdue Pharma, à Stamford (Connecticut). La firme, propriété de la famille Sackler, produit l’OxyContin, puissant antidouleur fabriqué à partir de morphine de synthèse.
Ce médicament a fait la fortune des Sackler, dont la richesse est estimée par l’agence Bloomberg à 13 milliards de dollars (11,6 milliards d’euros). Hautement addictif, il est surtout accusé d’avoir fait tomber dans la drogue des milliers d’Américains et d’être responsable de la crise des opioïdes qui frappe les Etats-Unis.
L’OxyContin, commercialisé depuis 1995, aurait fait tomber dans la drogue des milliers d’Américains
Depuis un an, l’artiste Domenic Esposito, 49 ans, mène une guérilla contre la famille Sackler avec sa cuillère. Il l’a de nouveau exposée le 5 avril à Washington, devant l’Agence américaine du médicament (FDA), à qui il est reproché d’avoir autorisé l’OxyContin. M. Esposito se bat pour son frère Danny, de dix-huit ans son cadet, qui a sombré dans la drogue au milieu des années 2000, en commençant par l’OxyContin, avant de se tourner vers l’héroïne.
« Il a bousillé douze années de sa vie », confie Domenic Esposito, qui nous reçoit à Westwood, dans son atelier, en face de sa maison perdue dans les forêts du Massachusetts. Sa famille veut croire à une rémission, mais la désillusion n’est jamais loin. « Ma mère m’a souvent appelé en pleurant après avoir trouvé les résidus dans une cuillère, raconte-t-il. Cette cuillère est le symbole du combat macabre de ma famille. »
Epidémie
Ancien gestionnaire de capitaux reconverti dans l’art, M. Esposito a décidé de passer à l’action quand il s’est aperçu que son frère n’était pas un cas isolé.
Le déclic s’est produit lors des journées de charité du diocèse de Boston, pendant le Carême de 2016. Catholique et bon orateur, il vante l’action du diocèse en faveur des victimes de la drogue. Et évoque son frère. Une fois son discours achevé, une dizaine de personnes viennent partager leur expérience. A chaque fois, le même scénario : une blessure banale mais nécessitant un antidouleur, et une ordonnance d’OxyContin. S’amorce alors l’engrenage de l’addiction avec, souvent, un basculement vers l’héroïne. Il s’agit bien d’une épidémie, provoquée par Purdue et les Sackler.
Pourquoi ferrailler avec une œuvre d’art ? Parce que c’est là une des failles du clan. Si le nom de Purdue est peu connu, celui de la famille Sackler est, depuis un demi-siècle, synonyme de mécénat artistique. Au Metropolitan Museum (Met) et au Musée Guggenheim de New York, à la National Portrait Gallery de Londres ou au Louvre, à Paris, avec l’« aile Sackler des antiquités orientales », leur patronyme est omniprésent.
Puisque les Sackler s’abritent derrière les arts, les artistes veulent les faire périr par eux, comme le montre l’initiative de M. Esposito et comme le revendique la photographe américaine Nan Goldin, devenue dépendante à l’OxyContin après une opération. « Pour qu’ils nous écoutent, nous allons cibler leur philanthropie. Ils ont lavé leur argent maculé de sang grâce aux halls des musées et des universités », accuse Mme Goldin, qui a photographié son propre calvaire.
« Un blizzard d’ordonnances »
En mars 2018, au Met, cinquante militants se sont allongés, feignant d’être morts, dans l’aile financée par les Sackler. En février 2019, au Musée Guggenheim, des activistes ont jeté de fausses ordonnances d’OxyContin, cruel rappel adressé à Richard Sackler, 74 ans, fils d’un des fondateurs et ex-PDG de Purdue, qui avait prédit « un blizzard d’ordonnances qui enterrerait la concurrence ».
L’étau se resserre sur le front judiciaire, avec 1 600 plaintes déposées et des poursuites pénales engagées par les parquets de Boston et de New York
Cela paie. En mars, le Guggenheim a fait savoir qu’il n’accepterait plus de dons de la famille, tandis que Mortimer Sackler, ancien membre actif du conseil d’administration (CA) de Purdue et cousin de Richard, a dû se retirer du CA. A Londres, la Tate Gallery a fait de même, et la National Portrait Gallery a décliné une promesse de don de 1 million de livres (1,15 million d’euros).
Parallèlement, l’étau se resserre sur le front judiciaire, avec 1 600 plaintes déposées et des poursuites pénales engagées par les parquets de Boston et de New York. Au point que la société pourrait déposer le bilan. Prolixes sur leurs activités philanthropiques et artistiques, les Sackler sont mutiques sur leur entreprise.
L’histoire débute avec les trois frères Sackler, fils d’immigrants juifs de Galicie et de Pologne nés à Brooklyn. Tous trois médecins psychiatres, ils se lancent dans la pharmacie, en rachetant une petite entreprise de Greenwich Village, qui vend des produits comme la Betadine ou fait le marketing du Valium. Ils conquièrent des patients et, surtout, des médecins prescripteurs (en 1997, le patriarche, Arthur Sackler, a été distingué à titre posthume pour ses talents publicitaires).
« Méthodes agressives »
C’est cette recette qui, à partir de 1995, permet d’écouler l’OxyContin. A une époque où l’on cherche à apaiser les douleurs insupportables des malades du cancer, le produit apparaît comme une solution magique : il n’est pas addictif et soulage le patient pendant douze heures. Cela représente un formidable argument publicitaire, notamment parce qu’il se diffuse en continu.
Cependant, au lieu d’être réservé aux patients en soins palliatifs, il est distribué comme de l’aspirine, à coups d’intéressement (pour les vendeurs) et de séminaires dans des palaces de Floride (pour les médecins). Les dosages très élevés créent une accoutumance mortifère. Les précieuses pilules, qui ont des qualités similaires à celles de l’héroïne lorsqu’elles sont brûlées, attirent l’attention des narcotrafiquants qui organisent un commerce de contrebande très lucratif, avec la complicité de médecins véreux.
Quand il apparaît que le produit est addictif, la firme choisit de blâmer les consommateurs. Dès 2003, l’Agence fédérale de contrôle des stupéfiants (DEA) l’accuse d’avoir, par ses « méthodes agressives », favorisé l’abus d’OxyContin et minimisé « les risques associés au médicament », raconte The New Yorker dans une enquête-fleuve publiée en octobre 2017 et intitulée « Un empire de douleur », qui estime à 35 milliards de dollars le chiffre d’affaires généré par le médicament.
En 2007, Purdue accepte de verser 600 millions de dollars d’amende pour avoir prétendu que son médicament était moins addictif que ceux de ses concurrents. Trois ans plus tard, la firme élabore une nouvelle version de son produit, qui ne peut pas être transformée comme l’héroïne.
Rumeurs de faillite
Mais The New Yorker note qu’il s’agissait aussi de contrer l’arrivée de médicaments génériques, l’OxyContin devant tomber dans le domaine public en 2013. Et que l’effet paradoxal de l’affaire a été d’amplifier le basculement des drogués vers l’héroïne. « C’est un terrible paradoxe de l’histoire de l’OxyContin : la formule originelle a créé une génération accro aux pilules. Et sa reformulation (…) a créé une génération accro à l’héroïne. »
L’Oklahoma, particulièrement touché, est parvenu fin mars à une transaction de 270 millions de dollars. Purdue préfère payer pour éviter un procès public et la publication de documents internes potentiellement désastreux. Des rumeurs de faillite courent, et certains Etats pourraient être tentés de conclure des transactions rapides plutôt que de ne rien obtenir.
Pour d’autres, l’argent ne suffit pas. Il faut poursuivre les vrais coupables, et en premier lieu les Sackler. Les trois frères fondateurs sont morts, mais la famille, qui a touché 4,3 milliards de dollars de dividendes entre 2008 et 2016, dirige de facto la compagnie. Celle-ci ne s’exprime que par des communiqués laconiques, se disant soucieuse de « contribuer à lutter contre cette crise de santé publique complexe ».
Purdue répète qu’elle ne représente que 2 % des ventes d’opioïdes aux Etats-Unis, et ne peut être tenue, à elle seule, pour responsable de ladite crise. La procureure générale du Massachusetts, Maura Healey, ne s’en satisfait pas et a mis en examen huit membres de la famille impliqués dans l’entreprise. Elle s’appuie, entre autres, sur un courriel du patron de Purdue, Craig Landau, qui, selon la plainte, énonçait une évidence : « La famille dirigeait l’entreprise pharmaceutique mondiale Sackler et le conseil de surveillance jouait le rôle de PDG de facto. »
« Les Sackler méritent la peine capitale »
Les héritiers, qui estiment n’y être pour rien, se désolidarisent. C’est le cas des descendants du frère aîné et grand mécène Arthur, disparu en 1987 et dont les parts ont été récupérées non par ses enfants mais par ses frères. « Le rôle de Purdue [dans la crise des opioïdes] m’est odieux », a ainsi déclaré la fille d’Arthur, Elizabeth Sackler. Fondatrice d’un centre d’art féministe à Brooklyn, elle a aussi salué, dans le New York Times, « le courage de Nan Goldin ».
Ses détracteurs ne l’entendent pas ainsi : ils estiment que ce sont les méthodes de marketing adoptées à partir des années 1950 par Arthur qui ont fait merveille pour l’OxyContin – méthodes auxquelles Purdue n’a renoncé que… début 2018. « Leur nom est terni pour toujours (…). Aujourd’hui, il y a des gens qui estiment que les Sackler méritent la peine capitale. Ils sont responsables de milliers de morts », accuse Domenic Esposito.
Dans une manœuvre de sauve-qui-peut, les membres de la famille se retirent tous, depuis deux ans, du conseil d’administration de Purdue. Sans doute trop tard pour échapper aux poursuites de Mme Healey, à qui M. Esposito a offert sa cuillère militante.
]]>First opioid settlement to fund ambitious addiction research center | Science | AAAS
▻https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/first-opioid-settlement-fund-ambitious-addiction-research-center
On 26 March, the state of Oklahoma agreed to drop its suit alleging deceptive marketing practices by Purdue in exchange for a National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment at OSU’s medical complex in Tulsa. Purdue and the Sackler family, which owns the Stamford, Connecticut–based company, will provide a $177 million endowment for the national center, along with $20 million over 5 years for naloxone and other drugs to treat opioid addiction. The state is continuing its suit against several other companies, with opening arguments set for 28 May.
The windfall for the new entity, which aspires “to become the premier addiction research center in the nation,” rewards OSU’s ambition. In October 2017, it opened a modest Center for Wellness and Recovery within its medical school to train future addiction medicine physicians, study the underlying causes of addiction and pain, provide treatment to those suffering from opioid use disorder, and educate the public about the burgeoning epidemic, which claims 130 lives a day in the United States and in 2017 killed nearly 800 Oklahomans. The center now has a staff of eight and a $2.4 million budget.
Pas sûr que l’université qui va recevoir l’argent soit la plus adaptée, mais cela la remet en concurrence avec l’autre université d’Oklahoma.
]]>Lawsuits Lay Bare Sackler Family’s Role in Opioid Crisis - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/health/sacklers-oxycontin-lawsuits.html
The Sacklers had a new plan.
It was 2014, and the company the family had controlled for two generations, Purdue Pharma, had been hit with years of investigations and lawsuits over its marketing of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin, at one point pleading guilty to a federal felony and paying more than $600 million in criminal and civil penalties.
But as the country’s addiction crisis worsened, the Sacklers spied another business opportunity. They could increase their profits by selling treatments for the very problem their company had helped to create: addiction to opioids.
The filings cite numerous records, emails and other documents showing that members of the family continued to push aggressively to expand the market for OxyContin and other opioids for years after the company admitted in a 2007 plea deal that it had misrepresented the drug’s addictive qualities and potential for abuse.
In addition to New York and Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Utah have filed suit against members of the family. Last month, a coalition of more than 500 counties, cities and Native American tribes named the Sacklers in a case in the Southern District of New York, bringing the family into a bundle of 1,600 opioids cases being overseen by a federal court judge in Cleveland.
In 2009, two years after the federal guilty plea, Mortimer D.A. Sackler, a board member, demanded to know why the company wasn’t selling more opioids, email traffic cited by Massachusetts prosecutors showed.
In 2011, as states looked for ways to curb opioid prescriptions, family members peppered the sales staff with questions about how to expand the market for the drugs. Mortimer asked if they could sell a generic version of OxyContin in order to “capture more cost sensitive patients,” according to one email. Kathe, his half sister, suggested studying patients who had switched to OxyContin to see if they could find patterns that could help them win new customers, according to court filings in Massachusetts.
The lawsuits brought by the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts, Letitia James and Maura Healey, named eight Sackler family members: Kathe, Mortimer, Richard, Jonathan and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt — children of either Mortimer or Raymond Sackler — along with Theresa Sackler, the elder Mortimer’s widow; Beverly Sackler, Raymond’s widow; and David Sackler, a grandson of Raymond.
Purdue’s business was fundamentally changed after the F.D.A. approved OxyContin in 1995. The company marketed the drug as a long-acting painkiller that was less addictive than shorter-acting rivals like Percocet and Vicodin, a strategy aimed at reducing the stigma attached to opioids among doctors.
While the Sacklers “have reduced Purdue’s operations and size, Rhodes continues to grow and sell opioids for the benefit of the Sackler families,” the New York suit contends.
By 2016, Rhodes, though little known to the public, had a greater share of the American prescription opioid market than Purdue, according to a Financial Times analysis. Together, the companies ranked seventh in terms of the market share of opioids.
Purdue temporarily abandoned plans to pursue Project Tango in 2014, but revived the idea two years later, this time pursuing a plan to sell naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug, according to the Massachusetts filing. A few months later, in December 2016, Richard, Jonathan and Mortimer Sackler discussed buying a company that used implantable drug pumps to treat opioid addiction.
In recent years, the Sacklers and their companies have been developing products for opioid and overdose treatment on various tracks. Last year, Richard Sackler was awarded a patent for a version of buprenorphine, a drug that blocks opioid receptors, administered by mouth in a thin film. In March, the F.D.A. fast tracked the company’s application for an injectable drug for emergency treatment of overdoses.
Fait très rare, cet article comporte de nombreuses photos des membres de la famille Sackler
]]>William Singer : Fotos trucadas y notas cambiadas : así funcionaba ‘La llave’ para entrar en las universidades de élite de EE UU | Sociedad | EL PAÍS
▻https://elpais.com/sociedad/2019/03/14/actualidad/1552520446_153124.html
Les riches savent tricher : procès aux USA d’une filière pour permettre aux nuls riches de passer avant les méritants, mais pauvres... Je simplifie...
Lo llamaban ‘La llave’. Servía para abrir una puerta en las universidades de élite de Estados Unidos, una puerta que solo algunos privilegiados sabían que existía. Mientras la clase media del país se agolpa para entrar por la puerta de delante y algunos casos especiales entran por la de atrás, un hombre llamado William Rick Singer aseguraba haber descubierto una “puerta lateral”. A veces, consistía en un soborno. Otras, había que organizar un engaño que pasaba por trucar fotos y notas. Él tenía la llave y, por supuesto, cobraba por usarla.
Singer se declaró culpable el martes ante un juez federal de Boston de varios cargos relacionados con una conspiración para manipular el sistema de admisión de las universidades más codiciadas del país a través de fraudes y sobornos, cobrar por ello y además camuflar esos pagos como donaciones a la beneficencia. Así ingresó en total unos 25 millones de dólares desde 2011 hasta 2019 de decenas de padres.
Llevaba desde el pasado septiembre colaborando con el FBI. El martes, la policía federal lanzó una operación en todo el país con 50 órdenes de detención, entre ellas las de 33 padres. Los últimos en entregarse han sido la actriz Lori Laughlin (Padres forzosos), este miércoles por la mañana en Los Ángeles, y Douglas Hodge, ex CEO de la empresa de inversión Pimco. Ese era el nivel de los clientes.
La trama se basaba en dos empresas. Primero, The Edge (la ventaja, en español) College and Career Network, una asesoría para preparar la entrada en la universidad con sede en Newport Beach, uno de los pueblos de costa más privilegiados de California, al sur de Los Ángeles. La otra era The Key (la llave, en español) Worlwide Foundation, una organización sin ánimo de lucro a través de la cual se canalizaban los pagos como si fueran donaciones altruistas. Las universidades implicadas son Georgetown (Washington DC), Stanford (Palo Alto), Universidad de California en Los Ángeles (UCLA), Universidad de San Diego, Universidad del Sur de California (Los Ángeles), Universidad de Texas en Austin, Wake Forest (Carolina del Norte) y Yale (Connecticut).
]]>Exclusive: OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma Exploring Bankruptcy - Sources | Investing News | US News
▻https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2019-03-04/exclusive-oxycontin-maker-purdue-pharma-exploring-bankruptcy-sources
▻https://www.usnews.com/dims4/USNEWS/a731fff/2147483647/thumbnail/970x647/quality/85/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcom-usnews-beam-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2F36%2F18d09dd2aa95
By Mike Spector, Jessica DiNapoli and Nate Raymond
(Reuters) - OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP is exploring filing for bankruptcy to address potentially significant liabilities from roughly 2,000 lawsuits alleging the drugmaker contributed to the deadly opioid crisis sweeping the United States, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.
The potential move shows how Purdue and its wealthy owners, the Sackler family, are under pressure to respond to mounting litigation accusing the company of misleading doctors and patients about risks associated with prolonged use of its prescription opioids.
Purdue denies the allegations, arguing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved labels for its opioids carried warnings about the risk of abuse and misuse associated with the pain treatments.
Filing for Chapter 11 protection would halt the lawsuits and allow Purdue to negotiate legal claims with plaintiffs under the supervision of a U.S. bankruptcy judge, the sources said.
Shares of Endo International Plc and Insys Therapeutics Inc, two companies that like Purdue have been named in lawsuits related to the U.S. opioid epidemic, closed down 17 percent and more than 2 percent, respectively, on Monday.
More than 1,600 lawsuits accusing Purdue and other opioid manufacturers of using deceptive practices to push addictive drugs that led to fatal overdoses are consolidated in an Ohio federal court. Purdue has held discussions to resolve the litigation with plaintiffs’ lawyers, who have often compared the cases to widespread lawsuits against the tobacco industry that resulted in a $246 billion settlement in 1998.
“We will oppose any attempt to avoid our claims, and will continue to vigorously and aggressively pursue our claims against Purdue and the Sackler family,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said. Connecticut has a case against Purdue and the Sacklers.
BANKRUPTCY FILING NOT CERTAIN
A Purdue bankruptcy filing is not certain, the sources said. The Stamford, Connecticut-based company has not made any final decisions and could instead continue fighting the lawsuits, they said.
“As a privately-held company, it has been Purdue Pharma’s longstanding policy not to comment on our financial or legal strategy,” Purdue said in a statement.
“We are, however, committed to ensuring that our business remains strong and sustainable. We have ample liquidity and remain committed to meeting our obligations to the patients who benefit from our medicines, our suppliers and other business partners.”
Purdue faces a May trial in a case brought by Oklahoma’s attorney general that, like others, accuses the company of contributing to a wave of fatal overdoses by flooding the market with highly addictive opioids while falsely claiming the drugs were safe.
Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump also said he would like to sue drug companies over the nation’s opioid crisis.
Opioids, including prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, were involved in 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017, a sixfold increase from 1999, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Purdue hired law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP for restructuring advice, Reuters reported in August, fueling concerns among litigants, including Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter, that the company might seek bankruptcy protection before the trial.
Companies facing widespread lawsuits sometimes seek bankruptcy protection to address liabilities in one court even when their financial condition is not dire. California utility PG&E Corp filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after deadly wildfires raised the prospect of large legal bills even though its stock remained worth billions of dollars.
DECEPTIVE MARKETING
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in June became the first attorney general to sue not just Purdue but Sackler family members. Records in her case, which Purdue has asked a judge to dismiss, accused Sackler family members of directing deceptive marketing of opioids for years while enriching themselves to the tune of $4.2 billion.
Some other states have since also sued the Sacklers. The Sacklers are currently discussing creating a nonprofit backed by family financial contributions to combat addiction and drug abuse, a person familiar with their deliberations said.
The drugmaker downplayed the possibility of a bankruptcy filing in a Feb. 22 court filing in the Oklahoma case. “Purdue is still here - ready, willing and eager to prove in this Court that the State’s claims are baseless,” the company said in court papers.
Sales of OxyContin and other opioids have fallen amid public concern about their addictive nature, and as restrictions on opioid prescribing have been enacted. OxyContin generated $1.74 billion in sales in 2017, down from $2.6 billion five years earlier, according to the most recent data compiled by Symphony Health Solutions.
Purdue Chief Executive Officer Craig Landau has cut hundreds of jobs, stopped marketing opioids to physicians and moved the company toward developing medications for sleep disorders and cancer since taking the helm in 2017.
In July, Purdue appointed a new board chairman, Steve Miller, a restructuring veteran who previously held leadership positions at troubled companies including auto-parts giant Delphi and the once-teetering insurer American International Group Inc.
Mortimer D.A. Sackler no longer sits on Purdue’s board, according to a filing the company made with the Connecticut secretary of state late Monday.
The Oklahoma case and other lawsuits seek damages from Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis. In addition to lawsuits consolidated in an Ohio federal court, more than 300 cases are pending in state courts, and dozens of state attorneys general have sued manufacturers, including Purdue.
Settlement discussions have not yet resulted in a deal.
Purdue and three executives in 2007 pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the misbranding of OxyContin and agreed to pay a total of $634.5 million in penalties, according to court records.
(Reporting by Mike Spector and Jessica DiNapoli in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
Copyright 2019 Thomson Reuters.
]]>Parution : Addiction sur ordonnance, La crise des antidouleurs, par Patrick Radden Keefe
►https://cfeditions.com/addiction
J’ai le plaisir de vous annoncer la parution de :
Addiction sur ordonnance
La crise des antidouleurs
par Patrick Radden Keefe
traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Claire Richard
avec des contributions de :
Frédéric Autran, Cécile Brajeul et Hervé Le Crosnier
C&F éditions, 2019
16 €
ISBN 978-2-915825-90-9
►https://cfeditions.com/addiction
Ce premier livre de la collection interventions traite d’un sujet douloureux, la « crise des opioïdes » qui ronge les États-Unis de l’intérieur et qui s’étend dans le monde entier. 400000 décès par overdose dans la dernière décennie aux USA, dont 70000 l’an passé... pour une addiction qui a souvent débuté dans le cabinet d’un médecin ou un service d’hôpital ayant prescrit des antidouleurs sans prendre les précautions nécessaires pour éviter la dépendance aux opiacés.
Patrick Radden Keefe est remonté à la source en étudiant les stratégies marketing de la famille Sackler, et de sa petite entreprise de pharmacie du Connecticut, devenue une des plus riches du pays... au prix d’une crise de santé publique majeure.
L’article de Frédéric Autran montre la vie quotidienne des personnes dépendantes aux opiacés, et plus particulièrement aux opioïdes de synthèse vendus comme des médicaments.
Celui de Cécile Brajeul expose plus spécifiquement la situation en France.
Dans sa postface, Hervé Le Crosnier considère les trusts pharmaceutiques comme des acteurs de la « société de l’information », pour lesquels l’appât du gain et les mensonges marketing sont le moteur prioritaire. Il appelle à reconsidérer la dépendance des organismes publics (musées, universités...) aux financements privés et notamment au cynisme de la philanthropie.
On peut obtenir un extrait spécimen à :
▻https://cfeditions.com/addiction/ressources/addiction_SPECIMEN.pdf
Bonne lecture
]]>Judge to rule next week on disclosing claims about Purdue Pharma - STAT
▻https://www.statnews.com/2019/01/25/judge-to-rule-on-disclosing-allegations-against-purdue
BOSTON — A Massachusetts judge said Friday she would rule by early next week on a request from media organizations, including STAT and the Boston Globe, to make public redacted portions of a lawsuit brought by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin and other opioid painkillers.
The Connecticut company’s aggressive and misleading marketing of OxyContin has been blamed by addiction experts for helping spawn the opioid addiction crisis. Outside the Boston courthouse Friday, families of people who became addicted to opioids after taking Purdue’s medications rallied, with some calling for criminal charges against the company.
“Every day that goes by where this document is substantially under seal is a day that the public does not have access to newsworthy and important information,” Jeffrey Pyle, a lawyer representing the media organizations, argued before Judge Janet Sanders in Suffolk County Superior Court.
Attorney General Maura Healey accused Purdue of misleading doctors and patients about the addiction and overdose risks of its medications in a lawsuit originally filed in June, which also named current and former Purdue executives and members of the Sackler family, which controls the privately held Purdue, as defendants.
An updated, 300-plus-page complaint from Healey’s office filed last week contained newly public portions that showed Purdue executives and the Sacklers demanding greater sales of their medications despite the risks and pressuring salespeople to push physicians to prescribe higher doses of their drugs for longer periods of time to more patients.
]]>Children’s & Teens’ Suicides Related to the School Calendar
We get very upset by school shootings, as well we should. Every such instance is a national tragedy. We should be ashamed of ourselves for not doing something about gun control, as essentially every other developed nation has. But as serious as this tragedy is, it is dwarfed by another school-related tragedy–suicide.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for school-aged children over 10 years old, and the second leading cause (behind accidents and ahead of homicides) for those over 15 (here). The evidence is now overwhelming that our coercive system of schooling plays a large role in these deaths and in the mental anguish so many young people experience below the threshold of suicide.
Four years ago I posted data (here)—from a mental health facility in Connecticut—showing the relationship between pediatric emergency mental health visits and the school year over a three-year period (2011-2013). Those data revealed that the average monthly number of emergency mental health intakes for school-aged children declined from 185 in May (the last full month of school), to 102 in June (the month in which school lets out), and then down to 74 and 66, respectively, in July and August (the full months of freedom from school). In September the rate started its climb back up again. Overall, the rate of such visits during the school months was slightly more than twice what it was in July and August. When I wrote that article, I did not know of any other studies assessing mental health breakdowns as a function of the school calendar. Since that time, more research has emerged.
Psychiatric Breakdowns and Suicide Attempts as a Function of the School Year
Collin Lueck and his colleagues (2015) examined the rate of psychiatric visits for danger to self or others at a large pediatric emergency mental health department in Los Angeles on a week-by-week basis for the years 2009-2012. They found that the rate of such visits in weeks when school was in session was 118% greater than in weeks when school wasn’t in session. In other words, the rate of emergency psychiatric visits was more than twice as high during school weeks as it was during non-school weeks. It’s interesting to note that the sharp decline in such emergencies occurred not just during summer vacation, but also during school vacation weeks over the rest of the year.
The researchers also found a continuous increase in the rate of psychiatric emergencies during school weeks, but not during vacation weeks, over the 4-year period of the study. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the increase in suicidal ideation and attempts over time is the result of the increased stressfulness of school over this time period and not attributable to some factor independent of schooling. In another, more recent study, Gregory Plemmons and his colleagues (2018), found that the rate of hospitalization of school-aged children for suicidal ideation and attempts increased dramatically—by nearly 300%—over the seven years of their study, from 2008 to 2015, and each year the rate of such hospitalizations was significantly higher in the school months than in the summer.
Actual Suicides as a Function of the School Year
On the basis of the data I’ve described so far, someone could argue that the school-year increase in emergency psychiatric admissions is a result of attentive behavior on the part of school personnel, who referred children for admissions and thereby, perhaps, saved children’s lives. According to that view, parents are less perceptive of children’s problems than are teachers. There are no data suggesting that this is true, however, and there are very strong reasons to believe it is not. If this hypothesis were true, then the rate of actual suicides—as opposed to suicide ideation or attempts—should be lower when school is in session than when it is not. But, in fact, the actual suicide data parallel the data for suicide ideation and attempts.
Benjamin Hansen and Matthew Lang (2011) used data collected from state agencies to analyze suicides for teenagers across the US between 1980 and 2004. This is an older study, with data largely from a time when school was at least somewhat less stressful than it is today and the total teen suicide rate was lower than today. Yet, they found a much higher rate of suicides during the school year than during the summer vacation months. They also—unlike any of the other studies I’ve found—analyzed the data separately for boys and girls. For boys, the suicide rate was, on average, 95% higher during the school months than during summer vacation; for girls, it was only 33% higher. This finding is consistent with the general observation that boys have a more difficult time adjusting to the constraints of school than do girls. Stated differently, when girls commit suicide, school is apparently less likely to be a cause than is the case for boys.
Hansen and Lang also found that the school-year increase in teen suicide rate held only for those of school age. For 18-year-olds, most of whom would be finished with high school, the increase was barely present, and for 19- and 20-year-olds it had vanished. Other research shows that suicides and suicide attempts for adults vary only slightly by season and are somewhat higher, not lower, in the summer than in the fall and winter (Miller et al, 2012; Cambria et al, 2016)—a trend that is opposite to the finding for school-aged children and teens.
Just the Tip of the Iceberg
Actual suicides and emergency mental health admissions are just the tip of the iceberg of the distress that school produces in young people. I have summarized some of the other indicators of that stress elsewhere (here and here). One finding that bears repeating comes from a large survey conducted a few years ago by the American Psychological Association, which revealed that teenagers are the most stressed, anxious people in America; that 83% of them cite school as a cause of their stress; and that, during the school year, 27% of them reported experiencing “extreme stress” compared to 13% reporting that during the summer.
School is clearly bad for children’s mental health. The tragedy is that we continue to make school ever more stressful, even though research shows that none of this is necessary. Young people learn far more, far better, with much less stress (and at less public expense) when they are allowed to learn in their own natural ways, as I have pointed out in many of my previous posts and in my book, Free to Learn.
▻https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201805/children-s-teens-suicides-related-the-school-calendar
#jeunes #calendrier_scolaire #école #suicides #suicide #éducation #santé_mentale #USA #Etats-Unis
]]>Bonne année, par Aretha Franklin :
Auld Lang Syne est une chanson écossaise plus connue des francophones sous le nom de Ce n’est qu’un au revoir. Aux Etats-Unis, elle est souvent reprise pour la nouvelle année. Comme le dit l’adage, Aretha Franklin pourrait chanter le bottin et en faire un chef d’oeuvre d’émotion. La preuve :
Le 31 décembre 1975 au Waldorf Astoria, à New-York :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNDGPj8uj3w
Le 23 décembre 1986, à la télé américaine, avec Billy Preston :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI3Evr_TWHE
Et le 1er janvier 2016, à Uncasville, dans le Connecticut :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zpk_ivkxNg
Autres versions de « Auld Lang Syne »
Jon Batiste (2018) :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HiBKSOeqvg
Harris and His Christmas Avengers (2014) :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvPPhcWSO-g
BB King (2000) :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeB1YLvwQPI
The Black on White Affair (1970) :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkvjLkWly_g
All the president’s men: what to make of Trump’s bizarre new painting | Hannah Jane Parkinson | Opinion | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/15/president-trump-new-painting-white-house-republican
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, unless it’s a shredded Banksy, obviously, which is worth around £1m. But how to put a value on the majestic artwork Donald Trump was revealed to have gracing the wall outside the Oval Office, as eagle-eyed viewers of 60 Minutes spotted?
So far, we know of two other “artworks” that Trump has: that Photoshopped picture of his inauguration crowd (dude, let it go), and the electoral college map. It is no wonder Trump wanted to spruce the place up in his own way, given that he referred to the White House as “a dump”. I still cackle at this, given its sheer, disparaging rudeness – like how when Location, Location, Location’s Phil shows a couple around a three-bedroom semi with a north-facing garden, Kirstie mugs to the camera and draws an imaginary knife across her throat.
#on_est_en_2018 #allégorie #images #propagande #représentation
]]>The Architecture of Food Systems
Spotlighting the #Hudson_Valley Design Lab and Good Shepherd Institute in a conversation with Caitlin Taylor of MASS Design Group.
Few people recognize the interconnectedness of architecture, social justice, and local food systems; Caitlin Taylor is dedicated to changing that. Between roles as an architect with nonprofit firm MASS Design Group, an adjunct professor of architecture at Columbia University, and a founding member of Four Root Farm in rural Connecticut, she is living her dream of uniting food systems and architecture in her life and work.
No Shots Fired
In coercive control, men use guns to threaten, manipulate, and traumatize their intimate partners, without ever pulling a trigger.
▻https://www.thetrace.org/2018/09/no-shots-fired
Abusive partners don’t need a gun to govern their victims, but a gun makes a ruthless tool of intimidation. A husband might keep one on the mantel in the living room, where he and his wife watch TV. A boyfriend might polish his weapon during arguments. While asking his partner where she’s been, a guy might casually remove his coat to reveal a pistol clipped to his belt. “This [phenomenon] is almost exclusively male on female,” says Susan B. Sorenson, PhD, executive director of the Ortner Center on Violence and Abuse in Relationships at the University of Pennsylvania. “When you have a gun, you can control someone without touching them, without even speaking a word.”
Indeed, a lethal weapon allows an abuser to easily establish a “regime of domination,” as Stark calls it — and in a country with an estimated 270 million firearms, countless women are at risk. One 2016 study found that some 4.5 million women have been coerced or bullied with a gun by an intimate partner. In a separate (as yet unpublished) survey, Tami Sullivan, PhD, the director of Family-Violence Research at Yale, found that 33 percent of women in the Greater New Haven, Connecticut, area who were victims of abuse had also been menaced with a firearm. “And that doesn’t count the implied stuff, like when he cleans the gun in front of them,” says Sullivan.
While experts recognize coercive control as a legitimate form of domestic abuse, the threat itself can be hard to describe to friends and family, let alone the police. There are no bruises or bullet wounds, and after constant manipulation, a victim may wonder if she’s seeing danger that’s not really there. Or she may become too terrified to act at all.
]]>Enquête. OxyContin, un antidouleur addictif à la conquête du monde | Courrier international
►https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/enquete-oxycontin-un-antidouleur-addictif-la-conquete-du-mond
Alors que l’usage d’opioïdes antalgiques fait des ravages aux États-Unis, les fabricants de ces médicaments vantent leurs mérites dans le monde entier pour élargir leurs marchés. En minorant les risques de dépendance et les conséquences pour la santé des patients, à l’image de Purdue, producteur de l’OxyContin, sur lequel a enquêté le Los Angeles Times.
Face à l’épidémie d’addiction aux opioïdes analgésiques qui a déjà causé 200 000 morts dans le pays, l’establishment médical américain commence à prendre ses distances avec les antalgiques. Les plus hauts responsables de la santé incitent les généralistes à ne plus les prescrire en cas de douleur chronique, expliquant que rien ne prouve leur efficacité sur le long terme et que de nombreux indices montrent qu’ils mettent en danger les patients.
Les prescriptions d’OxyContin ont baissé d’environ 40 % depuis 2010, ce qui se traduit par plusieurs milliards de manque à gagner pour son fabricant, basé dans le Connecticut, Purdue Pharma.
La famille Sackler, propriétaire du laboratoire, a donc décidé d’adopter une nouvelle stratégie : faire adopter l’oxycodone, l’analgésique qui a déclenché la crise des opioïdes aux États-Unis, dans les cabinets médicaux du reste du monde.
Pour mener à bien cette expansion mondiale, ces entreprises, regroupées sous le nom collectif de Mundipharma, utilisent quelques-unes des méthodes controversées de marketing qui ont fait de l’OxyContin un best-seller pharmaceutique aux États-Unis. Au Brésil, en Chine et ailleurs, les sociétés mettent en place des séminaires de formation dans lesquels on encourage les médecins à surmonter leur “opiophobie” et à prescrire des antalgiques. Elles sponsorisent des campagnes de sensibilisation qui poussent les gens à solliciter un traitement médical de leurs douleurs chroniques. Elles vont même jusqu’à proposer des ristournes aux patients afin de rendre plus abordables les opioïdes sur ordonnance.
L’ancien commissaire de l’agence des produits alimentaires et des médicaments [Food and Drug Administration] David A. Kessler a estimé que l’aveuglement face aux dangers des antalgiques constitue l’une des plus grosses erreurs de la médecine moderne. Évoquant l’entrée de Mundipharma sur les marchés étrangers, il a déclaré que la démarche était “exactement la même que celle des grands fabricants de cigarettes. Alors que les États-Unis prennent des mesures pour limiter les ventes sur leur territoire, l’entreprise se développe à l’international.”
]]>CppCast Episode 166: CppCon Poster Program and Interface Design with Bob Steagall
▻http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2
Episode 166 of CppCast the only podcast for C++ developers by C++ developers. In this episode Rob and Jason are joined by Bob Steagall to discuss his history with C++, the CppCon poster program and his upcoming talks.
CppCast Episode 166: CppCon Poster Program and Interface Design with Bob Steagall by Rob Irving and Jason Turner
About the interviewee:
Bob is a Principal Engineer with GliaCell Technologies. He’s been working almost exclusively in C++ since discovering the second edition of The C++ Programming Language in a college bookstore in 1992. The majority of his career was spent in medical imaging, where he led teams building applications for functional MRI and CT-based cardiac visualization. After a brief detour through the worlds of DNS and analytics, he’s (...)
#News,Video&_On-Demand,
]]>Culture des armes aux États-Unis
►https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2013/02/BREVILLE/48758
Le 14 décembre 2012, dans une école élémentaire de Newtown (Connecticut), un homme équipé d’un fusil d’assaut abat vingt-six personnes, dont vingt …
]]>Le GOP devient trumpiste
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article/le-gop-devient-trumpiste
Le GOP devient trumpiste
Il y a eu quatre primaires pour la désignation des candidats républicains (GOP) pour les élections mid-term, dans les États du Minnesota, du Wisconsin, du Vermont et du Connecticut. Pour la première fois une grande tendance est apparue : pour être désignés par les électeurs du parti, il faut être “trumpiste”, c’est-à-dire radicalisé dans le sens du président (populiste, isolationniste, conservateur-sociétal, etc.). ZeroHedge.comécrit ce 15 août 2018 : « Même le Washington Post admet que “Trump a triomphé lors des primaires” ».
C’était une des grandes inconnues de ces deux dernières années : l’évolution de l’attitude générale du GOP, qui s’était opposé au candidat Trump, vis-à-vis du président Trump. Il semble qu’on puisse avancer que le GOP a évolué vers le soutien du président en place. (...)
]]>Purdue Pharma Cuts Rest of Its Sales Force in Opioids Pullback - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-20/purdue-pharma-cuts-rest-of-its-sales-force-in-opioids-pullback
Oxycontin-maker Purdue Pharma LP cut the remainder of its sales force this week, the latest move by the company to distance itself from opioids as it faces accusations that it contributed to the nation’s addiction crisis.
The Stamford, Connecticut-based drugmaker said it will retain about 550 employees after chopping around 350 positions, including about 250 employees focused on promoting the treatment for opioid-induced constipation, Symproic. That product launched last year in partnership with Japan-based Shionogi & Co. The other employees worked in the company’s headquarters.
]]>Enquête. OxyContin, un antidouleur addictif à la conquête du monde | Courrier international
►https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/enquete-oxycontin-un-antidouleur-addictif-la-conquete-du-mond
Face à l’épidémie d’addiction aux opioïdes analgésiques qui a déjà causé 200 000 morts dans le pays, l’establishment médical américain commence à prendre ses distances avec les antalgiques. Les plus hauts responsables de la santé incitent les généralistes à ne plus les prescrire en cas de douleur chronique, expliquant que rien ne prouve leur efficacité sur le long terme et que de nombreux indices montrent qu’ils mettent en danger les patients.
Les prescriptions d’OxyContin ont baissé d’environ 40 % depuis 2010, ce qui se traduit par plusieurs milliards de manque à gagner pour son fabricant, basé dans le Connecticut, Purdue Pharma.
La famille Sackler, propriétaire du laboratoire, a donc décidé d’adopter une nouvelle stratégie : faire adopter l’oxycodone, l’analgésique qui a déclenché la crise des opioïdes aux États-Unis, dans les cabinets médicaux du reste du monde.
Best-seller pharmaceutique
Un réseau d’entreprises internationales détenues par la famille est en train de s’implanter en Amérique latine, en Asie, au Moyen-Orient, en Afrique et dans d’autres régions, et d’encourager le recours généralisé aux antalgiques dans des endroits très mal outillés pour faire face aux ravages de l’abus d’opioïdes et de la dépendance qu’ils induisent.
Pour mener à bien cette expansion mondiale, ces entreprises, regroupées sous le nom collectif de Mundipharma, utilisent quelques-unes des méthodes controversées de marketing qui ont fait de l’OxyContin un best-seller pharmaceutique aux États-Unis. Au Brésil, en Chine et ailleurs, les sociétés mettent en place des séminaires de formation dans lesquels on encourage les médecins à surmonter leur “opiophobie” et à prescrire des antalgiques. Elles sponsorisent des campagnes de sensibilisation qui poussent les gens à solliciter un traitement médical de leurs douleurs chroniques. Elles vont même jusqu’à proposer des ristournes aux patients afin de rendre plus abordables les opioïdes sur ordonnance.
Les leçons de l’expérience américaine
Le directeur américain de la santé publique [surgeon general], Vivek H. Murthy, a déclaré qu’il conseillerait à ses homologues étrangers d’être “très prudents” avec les médicaments opiacés, et de tirer les leçons des “erreurs” américaines. “Je voudrais les exhorter à envisager avec une extrême prudence la commercialisation de ces médicaments”, a-t-il déclaré dans une interview.
Aujourd’hui, avec le recul, nous nous rendons compte que pour nombre d’entre eux les bénéfices ne compensaient pas les risques.”
L’ancien commissaire de l’agence des produits alimentaires et des médicaments [Food and Drug Administration] David A. Kessler a estimé que l’aveuglement face aux dangers des antalgiques constitue l’une des plus grosses erreurs de la médecine moderne. Évoquant l’entrée de Mundipharma sur les marchés étrangers, il a déclaré que la démarche était “exactement la même que celle des grands fabricants de cigarettes. Alors que les États-Unis prennent des mesures pour limiter les ventes sur leur territoire, l’entreprise se développe à l’international.”
Un marketing agressif
Des représentants de Mundipharma et certains de ses matériels promotionnels s’emploient à minorer les risques d’addiction des patients aux opioïdes. Ces affirmations rappellent la première campagne de commercialisation de l’OxyContin aux États-Unis à la fin des années 1990, dans laquelle Purdue avait trompé les médecins au sujet de la nature addictive du médicament.
En 2007, Purdue et trois hauts responsables de l’entreprise ont plaidé coupable face aux accusations fédérales de publicité mensongère sur leurs médicaments. Ils ont été condamnés à une amende de 635 millions de dollars. L’agence fédérale de lutte contre la drogue [Drug Enforcement Administration] a estimé en 2003 que le marketing “agressif, excessif et inapproprié” de l’entreprise avait “aggravé de manière très importante” l’usage abusif et le trafic illégal de l’OxyContin.
Purdue était une petite firme pharmaceutique new-yorkaise lorsque les frères Mortimer et Raymond Sackler, tous deux
[...]
Harriet RyanLisa Girion et Scott Glover
]]>Pre-Crime Policing Is Closer Than You Think, and It’s Freaking People Out
▻https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmmvy/why-does-hartford-have-so-many-cameras-precrime
Pre-Crime Policing Is Closer Than You Think, and It’s Freaking People Out Hartford is embracing a sophisticated surveillance apparatus that some civil liberties advocates and residents fear marks an ominous trend. The city of Hartford, Connecticut, isn’t all that large—it boasts a population of around 124,000—and is comprised mostly of people of color. If you ask Camille Giraldo Kritzman, a community organizer with the immigration advocacy group CT Students for a Dream, that’s why it’s (...)
#algorithme #CCTV #drone #criminalité #surveillance #vidéo-surveillance #biométrie #facial #ACLU (...)
]]>The #Opioid Timebomb: The #Sackler family and how their painkiller fortune helps bankroll London arts | London Evening Standard
▻https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/the-opioid-timebomb-the-sackler-family-and-how-their-painkiller-fortune-
We sent all 33 non-profits the same key questions including: will they rename their public space (as some organisations have done when issues arose regarding former benefactors)? And will they accept future Sackler philanthropy?
About half the respondents, including the Royal Opera House and the National Gallery, where Dame Theresa Sackler is respectively an honorary director and a patron, declined to answer either question.
Of the rest, none said it planned to erase the Sackler name from its public space. The organisations’ positions were more guarded on future donations.
Only the V&A, Oxford University, the Royal Court Theatre and the National Maritime Museum said outright that they were open to future Sackler grants.
The V&A said: “The Sackler family continue to be a valuable donor to the V&A and we are grateful for their ongoing support.”
Millions for London: Where Sackler money has gone
MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES
Serpentine Galleries
Grants received/pledged: £5,500,000
Used to fund (among other things): Serpentine Sackler Gallery
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Tate
Grants received/pledged: £4,650,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Gallery, Sackler Escalators, Sackler Octagon
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Dulwich Picture Gallery
Grants received/pledged: £3,491,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Centre for Arts Education
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
V&A Museum
Grants received/pledged: £2,500,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Courtyard
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Yes
The Design Museum
Grants received/pledged: £1,500,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Library and Archive
Will you accept future Sackler grants? No reply
Natural History Museum
Grants received/pledged: £1,255,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Biodiversity Imaging Laboratory
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
National Gallery
Grants received/pledged: £1,050,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Room (Room 34)
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
National Portrait Gallery
Grants received/pledged: £1,000,000
Used to fund (among other things): Pledged grant still being vetted
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Being vetted. Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
The Garden Museum
Grants received/pledged: £850,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Garden
Will you accept future Sackler grants? No reply
National Maritime Museum
Grants received/pledged: £230,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Research Fellowships
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Yes
Museum of London
Grants received/pledged: Refused to disclose grants received
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Hall
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
Royal Academy of Arts
Grants received/pledged: Refused to disclose grants received
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Wing, Sackler Sculpture Gallery
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
THE PERFORMING ARTS
Old Vic
Grants received/pledged: £2,817,000
Used to fund (among other things): Productions and projects
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Royal Opera House
Grants received/pledged: £2,500,000
Used to fund (among other things): Won’t say
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
National Theatre
Grants received/pledged: £2,000,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Pavilion
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Shakespeare’s Globe
Grants received/pledged: £1,660,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Studios
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Royal Court Theatre
Grants received/pledged: £360,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Trust Trainee Scheme
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Yes
UNIVERSITIES/RESEARCH
University of Oxford
Grants received/pledged: £11,000,000
Used to fund (among other things): Bodleian Sackler Library, Keeper of Antiquities
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Yes
University of Sussex
Grants received/pledged: £8,400,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
King’s College, London
Grants received/pledged: £6,950,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Institute for Translational Neurodevelopment
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
The Francis Crick Institute
Grants received/pledged: £5,000,000
Used to fund (among other things): One-off funds raised via CRUK to help build the Crick
Will you accept future Sackler grants? N/A
UCL
Grants received/pledged: £2,654,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Institute for Musculo-Skeletal Research
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
Royal College of Art
Grants received/pledged: £2,500,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Building
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Grants received/pledged: £1,170,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Research Fellowship, Sackler Lecture Series
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Royal Ballet School
Grants received/pledged: £1,000,000
Used to fund (among other things): Won’t say
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Imperial College London
Grants received/pledged: £618,000
Used to fund (among other things): Knee research
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
Old Royal Naval College
Grants received/pledged: £500,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Gallery
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
OTHER
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Grants received/pledged: £3,100,000
Used to fund (among other things): Sackler Crossing footbridge
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
Moorfields Eye Hospital
Grants received/pledged: £3,000,000
Used to fund (among other things): New eye centre (pledged only)
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
The London Library
Grants received/pledged: £1,000,000
Used to fund (among other things): The Sackler Study
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
The Prince’s Trust
Grants received/pledged: £775,000
Used to fund (among other things): Programmes for disadvantaged youth
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Subject to vetting that typically takes into account “reputational risk” and “all relevant new information about the donor in the public domain”
Westminster Abbey
Grants received/pledged: £500,000
Used to fund (among other things): Restoration of Henry VII Chapel
Will you accept future Sackler grants? Won’t say
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability
Grants received/pledged: £350,000
Used to fund (among other things): Won’t say
Will you accept future Sackler grants? No reply
cc @hlc
The OxyContin Clan: The $14 Billion Newcomer to Forbes 2015 List of Richest U.S. Families
▻https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexmorrell/2015/07/01/the-oxycontin-clan-the-14-billion-newcomer-to-forbes-2015-list-of-richest-u-s-families/#33de89e275e0
The richest newcomer to Forbes 2015 list of America’s Richest Families comes in at a stunning $14 billion. The Sackler family, which owns Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma, flew under the radar when Forbes launched its initial list of wealthiest families in July 2014, but this year they crack the top-20, edging out storied families like the Busches, Mellons and Rockefellers.
How did the Sacklers build the 16th-largest fortune in the country? The short answer: making the most popular and controversial opioid of the 21st century — OxyContin.
The Sacklers’ OxyContin score came long after the family initially got into the pharmaceutical business. Brothers Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler — each practicing psychiatrists — bought a small, struggling drug manufacturer in New York City in 1952, which would eventually become Purdue Pharma. The brothers initially sold small-time products like laxative and earwax remover.
Arthur, simultaneously, was a standout in the field of medical advertising. He helped Pfizer PFE -0.08% establish itself in the prescription drug arena, and he is credited with writing scientific papers that contributed to Valium becoming the first $100 million drug, according to his listing in the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame.
By the time Arthur died in 1987 at age 73, brothers Mortimer and Raymond had Purdue Pharma dabbling in pain medications. They eventually took generic painkiller oxycodone — invented in World War I-era Germany — and installed a timed-release mechanism, which promised to stymie abuse by spreading the drug’s effects over half-day period. This enabled them to market it beyond the traditional target audience for powerful opioids — cancer patients — and not long after OxyContin’s launch in 1995, primary-care doctors were prescribing it for an array of painful symptoms. Sales hit $1.5 billion by 2002.
]]>Heal the Cracks in the Bell of the World
Martín Espada
For the community of Newtown, Connecticut,
where twenty students and six educators lost their
lives to a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary
School,
December 14, 2012
Now the bells speak with their tongues of bronze.
Now the bells open their mouths of bronze to say:
Listen to the bells a world away. Listen to the bell in the ruins
of a city where children gathered copper shells like beach glass,
and the copper boiled in the foundry, and the bell born
in the foundry says: I was born of bullets, but now I sing
of a world where bullets melt into bells. Listen to the bell
in a city where cannons from the armies of the Great War
sank into molten metal bubbling like a vat of chocolate,
and the many mouths that once spoke the tongue of smoke
form the one mouth of a bell that says: I was born of cannons,
but now I sing of a world where cannons melt into bells.
Listen to the bells in a town with a flagpole on Main Street,
a rooster weathervane keeping watch atop the Meeting House,
the congregation gathering to sing in times of great silence.
Here the bells rock their heads of bronze as if to say:
Melt the bullets into bells, melt the bullets into bells.
Here the bells raise their heavy heads as if to say:
Melt the cannons into bells, melt the cannons into bells.
Here the bells sing of a world where weapons crumble deep
in the earth, and no one remembers where they were buried.
Now the bells pass the word at midnight in the ancient language
of bronze, from bell to bell, like ships smuggling news of liberation
from island to island, the song rippling through the clouds.
Now the bells chime like the muscle beating in every chest,
heal the cracks in the bell of every face listening to the bells.
The chimes heal the cracks in the bell of the moon.
The chimes heal the cracks in the bell of the world.
YouTube, the Great Radicalizer - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html
Par Zeynep Tufekci
It seems as if you are never “hard core” enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes. Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.
This is not because a cabal of YouTube engineers is plotting to drive the world off a cliff. A more likely explanation has to do with the nexus of artificial intelligence and Google’s business model. (YouTube is owned by Google.) For all its lofty rhetoric, Google is an advertising broker, selling our attention to companies that will pay for it. The longer people stay on YouTube, the more money Google makes.
What keeps people glued to YouTube? Its algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with — or to incendiary content in general.
Is this suspicion correct? Good data is hard to come by; Google is loath to share information with independent researchers. But we now have the first inklings of confirmation, thanks in part to a former Google engineer named Guillaume Chaslot.
It is also possible that YouTube’s recommender algorithm has a bias toward inflammatory content. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Mr. Chaslot created a program to keep track of YouTube’s most recommended videos as well as its patterns of recommendations. He discovered that whether you started with a pro-Clinton or pro-Trump video on YouTube, you were many times more likely to end up with a pro-Trump video recommended.
Combine this finding with other research showing that during the 2016 campaign, fake news, which tends toward the outrageous, included much more pro-Trump than pro-Clinton content, and YouTube’s tendency toward the incendiary seems evident.
YouTube has recently come under fire for recommending videos promoting the conspiracy theory that the outspoken survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., are “crisis actors” masquerading as victims. Jonathan Albright, a researcher at Columbia, recently “seeded” a YouTube account with a search for “crisis actor” and found that following the “up next” recommendations led to a network of some 9,000 videos promoting that and related conspiracy theories, including the claim that the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax.
What we are witnessing is the computational exploitation of a natural human desire: to look “behind the curtain,” to dig deeper into something that engages us. As we click and click, we are carried along by the exciting sensation of uncovering more secrets and deeper truths. YouTube leads viewers down a rabbit hole of extremism, while Google racks up the ad sales.
#Zeynep_Tufekci #Google #YouTube #Radicalisation #Pouvoir_algorithmes #Politique_algorithmes
]]>Bonjour,
Comme vous l’avez peut-être appris, John Perry Barlow est décédé le 7 février des suites de ses problèmes cardiaques. Personnage flamboyant, auteur de la "Déclaration d’indépendance du cyberespace" (8 février 1996, hasard des dates), Barlow occupe une place à part dans la "mythologie" de l’internet. Bien que l’on puisse contester ses idées et son approche libertarienne, il faut lui reconnaître une plume, un style, une énergie hors du commun, qui a marqué très largement les discours sur l’internet et le cyberespace.
L’auteur de science-fiction cyberpunk Bruce Sterling décrit Barlow en 1992 comme « un pur extraterrestre de la pratique des réseaux informatiques. Il avait une écriture de poète, concise et imagée. Il avait également la perspicacité d’un journaliste, ainsi qu’un esprit loufoque et le sens profond de l’autodérision. Enfin, il était tout simplement doué d’un charme personnel phénoménal. »
Il est donc tout naturel que John Perry Barlow, et notamment son texte « La déclaration d’indépendance du cyberespace », ait été commenté par les auteur·e·s de C&F éditions. Quelques extraits ci-dessous.
– Olivier Ertzscheid : "L’appétit des géants : pouvoir des algorithmes, ambitions des plateformes"
▻https://cfeditions.com/geants
– danah boyd : "C’est compliqué : les vies numériques des adolescents"
►https://cfeditions.com/boyd
– Fred Turner : "Aux sources de l’utopie numérique : de la contre-culture à la cyberculture, Stewart Brand un homme d’influence"
▻https://cfeditions.com/utopieNumerique
Olivier Ertzscheid
L’auteur de « L’appétit des géants » lui a rendu un hommage très particulier et significatif dans les colonnes de Libération du 9 février. Il propose de ré-écrire la « Déclaration d’indépendance du cyberespace » en version 2018... non plus en s’adressant aux tenants du monde industriel, comme le faisait Barlow en 1996, mais aux géants du monde numérique qui emprisonnent l’énergie des internautes dans leurs systèmes de contrôle et leurs espace privés.
Extrait :
« Plateformes aux tons pastels et aux logos colorés, vous géants fatigués aux CGU d’airain et aux algorithmes d’acier, je viens du temps des internets d’avant, où nous n’avions pas de "comptes" mais des pages, où chacun pouvait disposer d’une adresse et n’était pas contraint d’habiter par habitude et par lassitude sous le même grand F bleu qui orne votre jardin fermé, et de vivre dans cette fausse proximité que vous nous avez tant vanté et qui est d’abord une toxique promiscuité.
Au nom du présent que vous avez institué, je vous demande à vous qui êtes désormais le passé, de nous laisser tranquilles. Vous n’êtes plus les bienvenus parmi nous. Vous avez trop de souveraineté pour que celle-ci ne soit pas enfin questionnée et abolie. »
On peut retrouver le texte complet et l’introduction/hommage sur Libération (►http://www.liberation.fr/debats/2018/02/09/une-nouvelle-declaration-d-independance-du-cyberespace_1628377) et sur le blog Affordance (▻http://affordance.typepad.com//mon_weblog/2018/02/nouvelle-declaration-independance-cyberespace-hommage-john-perry )
danah boyd :
C’est dans la « Déclaration d’indépendance du cyberespace » que John Perry Barlow utilisa le premier la notion de " digital natives ". Jeune geekette à l’époque de ce texte, danah boyd est resté frappée par la verve de Barlow... mais montre elle aussi combien les dynamiques ont changé, et combien cette notion de "digital natives" est devenu la tarte à la crème des spécialiste du marketing, mais ne représente rien pour les jeunes, ni pour les sociologues.
extrait :
« Des manifestes, à l’image de la "Déclaration d’indépendance du cyberespace" de John Perry Barlow en 1996, me parlaient profondément. Barlow disait alors devant les leaders économiques réunis au forum de Davos que la nouvelle « maison de l’Esprit » permettait des « identités sans corps ». J’étais fière d’être une de ces enfants dont il parlait, et qui se vivait comme « native » de cette nouvelle civilisation.
Vingt ans après, les dynamiques de l’identité en ligne s’avèrent très largement différentes de ce que les premiers adeptes de l’internet avaient imaginé. Même si les jeux en ligne et les mondes virtuels sont populaires parmi certains groupes de jeunes, il existe une différence culturelle majeure entre les sites qui permettent d’endosser un rôle et les médias sociaux, largement plus fréquentés, qui tendent à encourager une atmosphère beaucoup moins fictionnelle. Même si les pseudonymes sont fréquents dans ces environnements, le type de travail de l’identité qui se déroule dans les médias sociaux tels Facebook est très différent de celui que Turkle avait imaginé au départ. De nombreux adolescents aujourd’hui vont en ligne pour socialiser avec des amis qu’ils connaissent dans le monde physique, et ils se définissent eux-mêmes dans des contextes en ligne qui interagissent fortement avec des communautés sociales non-médiées. Ces pratiques, qui encouragent une plus grande continuité entre les mondes en ligne et hors ligne des adolescents, étaient bien moins fréquentes quand j’étais jeune. »
et
« La notion de digital natives a des racines politiques, principalement issues du techno-idéalisme américain. Dans sa volonté de contraindre l’élite globale à reconnaître l’importance de la société numérique émergente, John Perry Barlow, un poète reconnu, par ailleurs cyberlibertarien notoire, a forgé ce concept pour diviser le monde entre « eux » et « nous ». Barlow, connu pour avoir été le parolier du groupe The Grateful Dead, savait facilement trouver des mots provocants pour exprimer ses opinions politiques. Ce manifeste lançait un défi explicite aux « gouvernements du monde industriel ». En plaçant ceux qui « venaient du cyberespace » en opposition au monde du passé, il organisait l’affrontement des « natifs » et des « immigrants ».
Barlow n’était certainement pas le premier à suggérer que les jeunes sont, en raison de leur date de naissance, intimement partie prenante de ce paysage numérique émergent. Mais son langage poétique a mis en relief les craintes implicites d’une fracture générationnelle qui accompagnerait les technologies. En écrivant sa déclaration, il voulait susciter des réactions… et il y est parvenu. Mais beaucoup ont pris sa métaphore au premier degré. Il était fréquent de voir des discours publics mettre en avant l’idée que les « natifs » auraient des pouvoirs et des compétences techniques particulières. L’idée sous-jacente de ces lectures de Barlow est que les adultes doivent craindre ces jeunes qui auraient hérité d’un savoir à leur naissance. »
Fred Turner
C’est bien entendu l’historien de l’internet Fred Turner qui offre dans son livre « Aux sources de l’utopie numérique » les hommages comme les critiques les plus soutenues de l’oeuvre et de l’approche de John Perry Barlow.
Extraits :
« Barlow rappelait à ses lecteurs « Je vis à barlow@eff.org. C’est là où j’habite. C’est ma maison. Si vous voulez me parler, c’est le seul endroit où vous êtes sûrs de me trouver, à moins que vous ne soyez déjà en face de moi – physiquement. Il est impossible de savoir où je suis. Depuis avril, je ne suis pas resté plus de six jours dans un même lieu. » Dyson et Barlow s’étaient transformés en paquets d’informations, au sens métaphorique, naviguant de conseils d’administration en conférence et agences de presse. Leur perception de l’espace s’était disloquée et s’ils avaient toujours le sentiment d’avoir un foyer, ce dernier était devenu distribué, collant parfaitement à leur idée d’avoir une maison sur la toile.
De prime abord, la représentation du monde en système d’information telle que le conçoit Kelly s’inscrit fortement dans la pensée d’une époque, celle des années quatre-vingt-dix. Une analogie entre réseaux d’entreprises et écosystèmes naturels sous-tend cette représentation. Une analogie qui imprègne la vision, commune à Barlow et Dyson, d’un monde libéré de sa bureaucratie et guéri de sa schizophrénie grâce à l’internet. Mais à y regarder de plus près, elle pose également une énigme historique. L’idée selon laquelle le monde matériel peut être comparé à un système d’information et modélisé par ordinateur ne date pas de l’internet, mais apparaît bien plus tôt, durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, dans et autour des laboratoires de recherche financés par l’État, notamment le Radiation Laboratory du MIT. Ces laboratoires ont orienté le développement de l’informatique aux États-Unis.
[...]
En 1990, la technologie et les méthodes de management caractérisant le WELL, en sus des réseaux qui s’étaient regroupés autour du système et des organisations proches du Whole Earth, servirent de références pour redefinir le cyberespace lui-même. Cette année-là, John Perry Barlow, expert en informatique, fut unanimement désigné comme la première personne à avoir accolé le mot cyberespace à ce qui n’était encore que le croisement entre les télécommunications et les réseaux informatiques. Puisant largement dans son expérience du WELL, il décrivait ce nouveau cyberespace structuré autour de réseaux informatiques comme une « frontière électronique ». Ce faisant, il bousculait la représentation autrefois dystopienne d’une informatique interconnectée en un espace imaginé pour que les individus puissent se recréer et construire leurs communautés dans les termes provenant des idéaux néo-communalistes. À l’instar des territoires ruraux des années soixante, le cyberespace de Barlow demeurerait au-delà de tout contrôle gouvernemental. Et tout comme un happening ou un Acid Test, il fournirait le décor et les outils au travers desquels les individus entretiendraient des liens intimes et désincarnés entre eux. En invoquant l’image de la frontière électronique, Barlow métamorphosait les normes locales du WELL, notamment son éthique communautarienne dérivée du Whole Earth, son allégeance à une forme de gouvernance non hiérarchique et sa rhétorique cybernétique, en une métaphore universelle de l’informatique en réseau. Dès le milieu des années quatre-vingt-dix, l’image du cyberespace telle que dessinée par Barlow était sans nul doute devenue l’emblème le plus populaire non seulement des formes émergentes de communication via réseaux informatiques, mais également des formes horizontales d’organisation sociale ou encore des modèles dérégulés de transactions économiques.
[...]
Durant l’été 90, Barlow se rendit dans les bureaux du VPL Research de Jaron Lanier et endossa une paire de visiophones et de gants de données VPL. Il publia dans Mondo la description suivante de son expérience : « Soudain, je n’ai plus de corps. Tout ce qui reste du fatras vieillissant qui constitue la plupart du temps mon enveloppe corporelle, c’est une main auréolée d’or qui flotte devant moi telle la dague de Macbeth. Je pointe un doigt vers l’étagère de livres accrochée au mur du bureau et la parcours lentement de haut en bas sur toute sa hauteur... Dans cet environnement palpitant d’inconnu, j’ai été réduit à un seul point de vue. Le sujet “moi” bée intégralement dans un abîme de questions brûlantes. Un véritable Dysneyland pour épistémologues. » Barlow aurait très bien pu décrire là un trip sous acide. Malgré toutes les technologies numériques impliquées, l’expérience dont Barlow fait le récit appartient autant aux années soixante qu’aux années quatre-vingt-dix. Et au cas où le lecteur n’aurait pas percuté, Barlow cite Lanier : « Je pense que c’est le truc le plus incroyable depuis notre virée sur la lune » .
Barlow qui s’était converti plutôt tardivement à la puissance des technologies numériques, était cependant un vieux briscard du mysticisme et du LSD. Fils de propriétaires de ranch dans le Wyoming, il avait été élevé dans un esprit Mormon, attaché au Parti Républicain. Il n’avait pas été autorisé à regarder la télévision avant l’âge de 11 ans et lorsqu’il le put, il regarda essentiellement des programmes de télévangélistes. À 14 ans, il fut envoyé dans une école catholique et, ironie du sort, c’est à ce moment-là qu’il commença à perdre la foi. À la n des années soixante, alors qu’il fréquentait l’Université de Wesleyan dans le Connecticut, il prit régulièrement part aux activités du groupe de Timothy Leary situé à Millbrook, dans l’État de New York. Sa foi refit surface à l’issue de son premier voyage sous acide. « Le sentiment qu’il y avait quelque chose de sacré dans l’univers m’animait de nouveau », raconta-t-il plus tard. Mais cette présence sacrée ne pouvait être contenue dans un dogme en particulier. Barlow se tourna plutôt vers les inclinations mystiques de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, prêtre catholique dont il avait découvert les œuvres lorsqu’il était à l’université, et de Gregory Bateson, dont il avait lu Steps to an Ecology of Mind au début des années soixante-dix.
[...]
Au début du mois de juin, peu de temps après avoir lu le récit de Barlow sur le WELL, dans un geste qui est depuis entré dans la légende de la cyberculture, Kapor qui se trouvait à proximité de Pinedale, Wyoming, à bord de son jet privé, appela Barlow depuis son avion et lui demanda s’il pouvait faire halte chez lui. Ils s’étaient rencontrés auparavant tant socialement que professionnellement (Barlow avait interviewé Kapor pour le compte d’un magazine informatique) mais ne se connaissaient pas vraiment pour autant. Cet après-midi-là, assis dans la cuisine de Barlow, ils échangèrent sur les différentes opérations répressives menées alors par le gouvernement. Ils décidèrent ensemble de créer une organisation nommée la Computer Liberty Foundation. [...]
La première et la plus influente des métaphores auxquelles se référait Barlow fut celle de la « frontière électronique ». Kapor et Barlow, tous deux maîtres incontestés de la mise en réseau, obtinrent rapidement une couverture médiatique pour leur nouvelle organisation ainsi que des propositions de financement en provenance de Steve Wozniak, cofon- dateur d’Apple, et de John Gilmore de Sun Microsystems. Ils initièrent une conférence sur le WELL et recrutèrent Stewart Brand pour étoffer le conseil d’administration de la fondation
[...]
Tous ceux qui étaient présents au dîner s’accordèrent sur l’idée que l’informatique en réseau était selon les propres termes de Barlow « d’authentiques confins ». « J’ai proposé Electronic Frontier Foundation durant le repas », se souvint Barlow, « et tout le monde semblait trouver ça bien. »
En dépit de leur orientation libertarienne, les plumes d’Esther Dyson, de John Perry Barlow et de Kevin Kelly exhalaient un parfum de nostalgie d’un monde égalitaire. Pour ces auteurs, et pour ceux que leurs écrits auront guidé, l’internet public des premiers temps semblait préfigurer et aider à faire naître un monde dans lequel chaque individu pourrait agir dans son propre intérêt et dans le même temps produire une sphère sociale unifiée, un monde dans lequel nous serions « tous un ». Cette sphère ne serait pas gouvernée par les décisions de politiques agonistiques, mais s’en détournerait pour suivre le chemin de la prise de pouvoir individuelle assistée par les technologies et l’établissement d’agoras en pair à pair. Pour les prophètes de l’internet, comme pour celles et ceux qui s’en retournèrent à la terre quelque trente ans plus tôt, c’était le gouvernement, imaginé en colosse bureaucratique écrasant, qui menaçait de détruire l’individu ; l’information, la technologie et le marché représentaient alors le salut. »
La boucle est bouclée. Du Barlow prestidigitateur du discours de l’internet à la situation de concentration et de dépendance actuelle de l’internet à une poignée de géants, il était temps de faire revivre des utopies positives pour que l’internet redevienne ce compagnon de la liberté et de l’action collective. Ce qu’Olivier Ertzscheid a tenté de faire dans son hommage/pastiche de la « Déclaration d’indépendance du cyberespace - V2.0 »
Bonnes lectures à vous.
Hervé Le Crosnier
#John_Perry_Barlow #Fred_Turner #danah_boyd #Olivier_Ertzscheid #C&F_éditions
]]>The Family That Built an Empire of Pain | The New Yorker
▻https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain?mbid=social_twitter
While the Sacklers are interviewed regularly on the subject of their generosity, they almost never speak publicly about the family business, Purdue Pharma—a privately held company, based in Stamford, Connecticut, that developed the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Upon its release, in 1995, OxyContin was hailed as a medical breakthrough, a long-lasting narcotic that could help patients suffering from moderate to severe pain. The drug became a blockbuster, and has reportedly generated some thirty-five billion dollars in revenue for Purdue.
#opioids_epidemic ou quelque chose comme ça
]]>Finding a Fix – Mother Jones
▻http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/12/opioids-users-dealers-police-1
Opioids started seeping into the surrounding counties in the mid-’90s, when Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin and dramatically underplayed its addictive qualities. Thanks to pharmaceutical lobbying, years of liberal painkiller prescribing—the United States consumes more than 70 percent of the world’s opioid painkillers—planted the seeds for widespread addiction to both painkillers and heroin, which is chemically similar to the prescription pills but far cheaper and more potent.
As the demand for opioids grew in suburban areas, capillaries sprang up from the main drug trafficking artery of Interstate 95, which runs from Florida to Maine, bringing opioids to small towns like Bel Air and Aberdeen. But the turning point in Harford—and much of the country—came in 2015 after fentanyl, an opioid up to 50 times more powerful than heroin that is typically manufactured in illicit labs in China, started making its way into the heroin supply. Complicating matters is the fact that, by the time drugs get to Baltimore or Harford County, they have likely changed hands so many times—and mixed with fentanyl and other additives along the way—that dealers often don’t know what they are dealing. Indeed, the customary drug in Baltimore is “scramble”: an amalgamation of heroin and other drugs, sold in gel capsules. “We knew [fentanyl] was coming; we were trying to brace for it,” said Dunbar. He recruited officers to do nothing but heroin investigations, because “we knew we were gonna see this surge.”
Of course, the epidemic is much bigger than Harford. In Ohio, coroners’ offices use refrigerated trucks to store bodies. In Connecticut, medical examiners’ autopsy caseloads have quadrupled in one year. In West Virginia, 1 in 20 infants are born in withdrawal from opioids. And in Maryland, two-thirds of people in jail have a diagnosed substance abuse disorder, according to a 2016 analysis by the governor’s office. Harford County Sheriff’s Office cops are no longer allowed to test seized drugs suspected to contain opioids on the spot, because of reports that interacting with some variants of fentanyl can be deadly. When the drugs are sent to DEA labs, “while one person is testing, another person is ready to treat them with [the overdose reversal drug] naloxone in case they fall while they’re testing,” says Hedrick, the DEA supervisor.
As the wave of fatal overdoses hit Harford in early 2015, county officials sprang into action. Police officers are now equipped with naloxone and trained that addiction is a disease. Cops on the Narcotics Task Force rarely charge users for drug possession in quantities that seem intended for personal use. After every overdose, cops give victims a “help card” with addiction treatment resources. “We’re not going to solve the problem by putting addicts in jail,” said Underhill. “If they’re not going to get effective treatment, it’s not going to change anything.”
Another part of Harford’s response is aggressively tracking down dealers. In 2016 alone, the county arrested and charged 240 people with felony drug offenses. As Dunbar sums up the strategy, “We need to lock up the bad guys—the dealers and traffickers putting out stuff on the street—but we also play a role in getting the victims help.”
It’s not that Harford cops don’t empathize with user-dealers. The guy who gets in a car accident is prescribed painkillers, becomes addicted, and then starts selling to support his own habit—“I’ve seen that story 150 times,” Underhill told me. But where do you draw the line? “They’re selling just enough to get theirs,” he said of user-dealers, “but they’re killing people with what they’re bringing back.” He gets most worked up when he talks about the kids: the toddlers strapped in car seats as he pulls parents over for drugs, the children he terrifies when breaking open front doors with Halligan bars in predawn raids, the teens who come home from school to find that cops have gone through their bedrooms looking for drugs.
When it comes to reforming user-dealers, evidence strongly suggests that prison time isn’t very effective. Instead, stable housing, support services, and employment have been shown to promote long-term recovery. Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, a Seattle program that has been replicated in dozens of jurisdictions across the country, demonstrates the research in action: Rather than jailing people for low-level drug crimes, police divert them to programs offering treatment, housing, and job training. Participants are nearly 60 percent less likely to be rearrested.
]]>Nicholas Fox Weber on #Josef_Albers at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter - YouTube
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOAq4jGLalM
C’était en 2014 à Oslo, mais c’est toujours merveilleux de plonger dans le monde des couleurs et des formes de Josef Albers. Un de nos maître et une de nos sources d’inspiration quotidiennes.
On the occasion of the exhibition “Josef Albers Minimal Means, Maximum Effect” at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Director Nicholas Fox Weber of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation gives a presentation of and valuable insight into a selection of works in the exhibition. The exhibition is curated in collaboration with Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, CT, and Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain. A catalog, To Tricks, No Twinkling of the Eyes is published by HOK on the occasion of the exhibition.
]]>Microsoft sued over HoloLens patent infringement
▻http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-22-microsoft-sued-over-hololens-patent-infringement
Connecticut-based HoloTouch claims that HoloLens actually infringes two of its patents
]]>« La majorité des auteurs de fusillades sont aussi auteurs de violences domestiques »
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2017/11/14/la-majorite-des-tueries-de-masse-sont-le-fait-d-hommes-auteurs-de-violences-
Les Américains se sont habitués au spectacle violent, écœurant, de ces absurdes tueries de masse. Avec le massacre du 5 novembre de 26 fidèles dans une église baptiste de Sutherland Springs, au Texas, trois des cinq fusillades les pires de notre histoire ont eu lieu au cours des dix-huit derniers mois.
Les réactions publiques à ces événements se ritualisent, inévitablement peut-être : d’un côté, les législateurs de gauche appellent à une législation fédérale sur le contrôle des armes, de l’autre, leurs homologues conservateurs n’offrent rien de plus que leurs « pensées et prières », un remède bien faible face à cette épidémie de violence que l’on pourrait pourtant éviter. Et dans une atmosphère de fatalisme montant, les Américains, las, en arrivent à se dire que rien ne sera fait pour empêcher le prochain carnage.
Mais ce n’est pas parce que le débat sur les armes à feu semble dans l’impasse que nous ne pouvons pas prendre de mesures préventives contre de futures tueries.
Commençons par considérer ce point commun frappant que partagent de nombreux auteurs de fusillades : dans la majorité des cas, ils sont également les auteurs de violences domestiques.
Une terreur désespérée
Selon une étude de l’ONG américaine Everytown for Gun Safety, dans 54 % des fusillades perpétrées aux États-Unis entre 2009 et 2016, le tireur a entre autres tué sa conjointe ou un autre membre de sa famille. Et dans une proportion substantielle des 46 % restants, il avait déjà un passé de violences domestiques avant l’événement.
Parmi les nombreuses tragédies qui illustrent ces liens, citons les massacres commis par Devin Patrick Kelley, le tireur de l’église de Sutherland Springs ; Omar Mateen, qui a tiré sur la clientèle du Pulse, une boîte de nuit d’Orlando, en Floride, en 2016 ; John Houser, qui a abattu deux personnes et en a blessé de nombreuses autres dans un cinéma de Lafayette, en Louisiane, en 2015 ; Adam Lanza, qui...
#paywall #violence_masculine #male_entitlment
(si quelqu’une ou quelqu’un dispose de l’article complet je veux bien le lire. )
The Super Wealthy Oxycontin Family Supports School Privatization With Tactics Similar to Those That Fueled the Opioid Epidemic | Alternet
▻https://www.alternet.org/education/notorious-family-contributing-opioid-crisis-and-funding-elitist-charter-sc
Keefe writes, “Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies have long funded ostensibly neutral nonprofit groups that advocate for pain patients.”
The same influence techniques Purdue used to promote painkillers are now being used by Jonathan Sackler to expand charter schools.
Jonathan Sackler, Arthur’s nephew, is a well-known name in the education reform movement. He founded the charter school advocacy group ConnCan, progenitor of the nationwide group 50CAN, of which he is a director. He is on the Board of Directors of the Achievement First charter school network. Until recently, Sackler served on the board of the New Schools Venture Fund, which invests in charter schools and advocates for their expansion. He was also on the board of the pro-charter advocacy group Students for Education Reform.
The GAO report went on to quote the DEA as saying the Purdue’s use of branded promotional items in the marketing of OxyContin was “was unprecedented among schedule II opioids, and was an indicator of Purdue’s aggressive and inappropriate marketing of OxyContin.”
The description of “lavish swag” will sound familiar to anyone who has witnessed one of the no-expenses-spared charter school rallies that are a specialty of Sackler-funded organizations like Families for Excellent schools. Then there is the dizzying array of astroturf front groups all created for the purpose of demanding more charter schools. Just in Connecticut, we’ve had the Coalition for Every Child, A Better Connecticut, Fight for Fairness CT, Excel Bridgeport, and the Real Reform Now Network. All of these groups ostensibly claim to be fighting for better public schools for all children. In reality, they have been lobbying to promote charter schools, often running afoul of ethics laws in the process.
]]>America’s Mass Shooting Problem Is a Domestic Violence Problem
▻https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/11/08/americas-mass-shooting-problem-is-a-domestic-violence-problem
Devin P. Kelley, the 26-year-old man who killed 26 people in a Texas church on Sunday, had a long and documented history of intimate violence. In 2012, Kelley was charged with assault and eventually received a “bad conduct” discharge from the Air Force after he kicked, beat, and choked his first wife. The charges against him included allegations he had pointed a loaded gun at his wife multiple times. Kelley also fractured his toddler stepson’s skull by hitting him with what was described in Air Force records as “a force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm.”
Over the course of the next two years, Kelley was investigated for violence against other women, including, according to a New York Times report, charges that he sexually assaulted and raped someone. He also brutally attacked his dog, hitting the animal repeatedly in the head.
Kelley is emblematic of a strikingly consistent pattern: Most mass killers have histories of domestic violence that went unaddressed. He joins a long list, including Omar Mateen, the Orlando Pulse nightclub killer; Tamerlan Tsarnaev, accused in the bombing of the Boston Marathon; Adam Lanza, who killed his mother before walking into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killing 26 people; Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who plowed a van through a crowd in Nice, France; and Khalid Masood, who did the same in Westminster, London.
]]>Du danger de (trop) s’indigner en ligne
▻http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/big-browser/article/2017/10/20/du-danger-de-trop-s-indigner-en-ligne_5203946_4832693.html
L’indignation de leurs utilisateurs est un des carburants qui font tourner Twitter ou Facebook. Elle est recherchée et encouragée par ces multinationales car elle est au cœur même du fonctionnement des plates-formes qu’elles ont créées. Le contenu à fort quotient émotionnel génère le plus de likes, de commentaires, de partages – une des émotions qui rapportent le plus est la colère. Pour que ces services, que nous utilisons gratuitement, soient rentables, ces entreprises ont besoin de toujours plus de trafic, donc de revenus publicitaires. Elles ont intérêt à ce qu’on y reste le plus longtemps possible.
C’est une réalité qu’on a trop tendance à oublier lorsqu’on traite de polémiques nées sur les réseaux sociaux. Molly Crockett, professeure adjointe de psychologie à l’université Yale (Connecticut), le rappelle justement dans « Indignation morale à l’ère digitale », une étude qui s’intéresse « à la façon dont la technologie peut transformer l’expression de l’indignation morale et ses conséquences sociales ».
Le dernier mouvement qui est apparu, massif et organique, est incarné en France par le hashtag #balancetonporc avec lequel des milliers de femmes ont partagé sur Twitter leurs expériences d’agression ou de harcèlement sexuels. A moins d’une semaine d’existence, on ne peut pas encore dire s’il restera une explosion cathartique de victimes tentant de se libérer d’un poids trop longtemps enfoui, ou s’il aboutira à des avancées tangibles pour lutter contre le harcèlement et les violences envers les femmes.
Il n’est pas surprenant que cette prise de parole collective ait pu naître et essaimer sur les réseaux, mais comme le dit le chercheur Olivier Ertzscheid sur Rue89, « ce serait une catastrophe que ces débats commencent et terminent sur Twitter ou sur Facebook. Comme ce serait une catastrophe de croire que ces plates-formes protégeront ». Si ces espaces deviennent des agoras numériques où des problèmes de société émergent et débordent jusque dans la « vie réelle », c’est qu’ils remplissent un vide laissé par les pouvoir publics et les médias.
Pour Twitter et Facebook, #balancetonporc n’est qu’un hashtag parmi d’autres, intéressant uniquement dans la mesure où il rapporte du trafic. Olivier Ertzscheid rappelle, lui aussi, une vérité qu’on oublie trop souvent :
« Il n’y a pour ces plates-formes ni victimes ni bourreaux, ni opprimés ni oppresseurs, seulement des usagers et des clients. »
]]>Strange Company: The Year of the Witch
▻http://strangeco.blogspot.fr/2017/10/the-year-of-witch.html
The fame that has grown around the “Mary Celeste” mystery tends to obscure the fact that there have been other cases where a ship’s crew inexplicably disappeared. Similarly, the notoriety of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 makes it easy to overlook the numerous “witch crazes” that blighted American colonial history. Hartford, Connecticut does not have the sinister reputation of Salem, but in 1662 and 1663, that town went through an episode—enshrined in history as “The Year of the Witch”—that easily rivals its more well-known counterpart.
The grim saga found its origin in a tragic, but hardly uncommon event—the death of a little girl, eight-year-old Elizabeth Kelly. The child had been suffering from a strange illness. The doctors were unable to diagnose her ailment, but her father, John Kelly, had no doubt what had killed his child. He was convinced that a neighbor, Judith Ayres, had put a spell on Elizabeth.
Goodwife Ayres had long been rumored to be a witch, and, it must be said, this reputation was largely of her own doing. If you go around telling your neighbors anecdotes about how you used to go out on dates with Satan, people will talk. On a more prosaic note, both Judith and her husband William were evidently quarrelsome, difficult people who were constantly rubbing everyone the wrong way. Plus, William had what modern-day police would call “form.” He had been arrested several times for theft and other misdemeanors.
Among those who had reason to dislike Judith Ayres was John Kelly. He claimed that one day, Judith happened to come across his daughter walking home from church. She followed Elizabeth into the Kelly kitchen, where she took some broth out of a pot boiling on the stove, and insisted the child eat it. No sooner had Elizabeth obeyed this odd command that she collapsed with agonizing stomach pains and became feverish. That night, Elizabeth awakened the household with screams of “Help me! Help me! Goody Ayres chokes me!” For the next five days, the girl suffered terribly. She moaned that Goody Ayres was choking her, pinching her, pricking her with pins, sitting on her stomach so that she feared her bowels would break. She begged her parents to have Ayres arrested. “Oh, father,” Elizabeth cried, “set on the great furnace and scald her! Get the broad axe and cut off her head. If you cannot give me a broad axe, get the narrow axe, and chop off her head!” Instead, for whatever reason, the Kellys hired Judith to nurse the child. Perhaps they hoped that being confronted with the girl’s torments would cause the “witch” to feel some pity and release Elizabeth from the “curse.”
Later that same day, after Judith had left, Elizabeth told her father that Ayres had said to her, “Betty, why do you speak so much against me? I will be even with you before I die, but if you will say no more of me, I will give you a fine lace for your dressing.”
If Judith thought this might placate the girl, she was very much mistaken. The very next day, Elizabeth died. Her last words were “Goody Ayres chokes me!”
After all this, it is not surprising that John Kelly insisted that Judith Ayres had murdered his child. An Inquest Committee was soon formed to investigate Elizabeth’s peculiar death. These men examined the little body. They noted that her arms were covered in bruises, which they took as confirmation that the “witch” had indeed attacked the child. Judith was brought in, as the committee wished to see if her presence had any effect on the corpse.
It did indeed. When Judith entered the room, “we saw upon the right cheek of the child’s face, a reddish tawny great spot, which covered a great part of the cheek, it being on the side next to Goodwife Ayres where she stood, this spot or blotch was not seen before the child was turned.” When a physician conducted an autopsy on Elizabeth, he ruled she had died of “preternatural causes.” All this was considered to be more than enough proof of Judith’s guilt, and she was promptly arrested for witchcraft. Just for good measure, her husband William was arraigned, as well.
Judith and William were subjected to that indispensable part of any good witch trial: the “water test.” The couple were bound hand to foot and tossed into a pond. If they floated, that was proof positive they were witches. If they sank, well, at least Judith and William would have the satisfaction of knowing that they would die vindicated.
To no one’s real surprise, the pair floated like a pair of corks. A ghastly death at the gallows awaited them.
Luckily for the Ayerses, there were a few people in town who had not come down with the prevailing hysteria. These supporters managed to arrange a jailbreak, and the couple fled to Rhode Island, leaving behind their two sons, ages five and eight. One wonders what sort of lives those boys went on to have.
Unfortunately, the departure of Judith and William did not signal the end of the Hartford witch panic. In truth, it was just getting started. Next to be victimized was another couple, Nathaniel and Rebecca Greensmith. Like the Ayerses, the Greensmiths were unpopular local figures. Rebecca was described as “lewd, ignorant, and considerably aged in years,” Nathaniel was a liar and a thief, and they both enjoyed squabbling with their neighbors.
Elizabeth Kelly’s “preternatural” death had inspired several other Hartford girls to declare that they, too, were being bewitched. The girls would gather at the meeting house, where fascinated townsfolk would watch them throw fits, make strange cries, and display all the usual signs of demonic torment. It was like a Girl Scout gathering from Hell. One of these girls, Ann Cole, declared that there was a whole coven of witches in Hartford, and one of the worst of the lot was Rebecca Greensmith. She claimed the witches were out to ruin her reputation, so that no man would ever want to marry her. (Why her love life would be of any interest to the coven was never explained.) A man named Robert Stern then added his two cents, stating that he had seen Rebecca and her fellow witches dancing around two large, sinister dark figures while cooking something evil-looking in a kettle. Rebecca was immediately tossed into jail to await her fate.
Ann Cole was the clear star of this Satanic show. Leading clergymen from all over the region came by to interview her—or, rather, to interview the group of devils that spoke “through” her. The chatty demons delighted in forcing Ann to speak unintelligibly, or with a heavy Dutch accent. Naturally, the demons also confirmed that Goodwife Greensmith was a witch.
When Rebecca was confronted with this testimony from the Dark Side, she readily, even eagerly, confessed to being in league with Satan. She was quoted as boasting that “the devil first appeared to her in the form of a deer or fawn, skipping about her, wherewith she was not much affrighted, and that by degrees he became very familiar, and at last would talk with her, moreover she said that the devil frequently had carnal knowledge of her body and that the witches had meetings at a place not far from her house and that some appeared in one shape, and others in another, and one came flying amongst them in the shape of a crow.”
Not content with tales of demonic sex and crow witches, Rebecca readily ratted out a number of local names as being part of her coven. Chief amongst the people she accused was her husband, Nathaniel. Rebecca noted that Nathaniel, despite being a small man, had great physical strength—too great to be anything other than supernatural. “When my husband hath told me of his great travail and labor, I wondered at it how he did it; this he did before I was married, and when I was married I asked him how he did it, and he answered me, he had help that I knew not of.”
Not convinced yet? Hold on, there’s more. Rebecca went on to say, “About three years ago, as I think it, my husband and I were in the woods several miles from home, and were looking for a sow that we lost, and I saw a creature, a red creature, following my husband, and when I came to him I asked him what it was that was with him, and he told me it was a fox...Another time when he and I drove our hogs into the woods beyond the pond that was to keep young cattle, several miles off, I went before the hogs to call them, and looking back I saw two creatures like dogs, one a little blacker than the other; they came after my husband pretty close to him, and one did seem to me to touch him.” When Rebecca asked Nathaniel what the creatures were, he again deadpanned, “foxes.” She added the suggestive words, “I was still afraid when I saw anything, because I heard so much of him before I married him.” She explained her readiness to condemn Nathaniel: “I speak all of this out of love to my husband’s soul, and it is much against my will that I am now necessitated to speak against my husband, I desire that the Lord would open his heart to own and speak the truth.”
I’m sure that was a great consolation to him.
Rebecca gave a full description of a typical night out with the girls witches: “I also testify, that I being in the woods at a meeting, there was with me Goody Seager, Goodwife Sanford and Goodwife Ayres. And at another time there was a meeting under a tree in the green by our house, and there was James Walkley, Peter Grant’s wife, Goodwife Ayers, and Henry Palmer’s wife, of Wethersfield, and Goody Seager; and there we danced and had a bottle of sack...It was in the night and something like a cat called me out to the meeting, and I was in Mr. Varlet’s orchard with Mrs. Judith Varlet, and she told me that she was much troubled with the marshal, Jonathan Gilbert, and cried; and she said if it lay in her power she would do him a mischief, or what hurt she could.”
Rebecca and Nathaniel spent the last month of their lives lodged in the jailer’s home while they waited execution. There is no record of how the couple spent their last few weeks together, but I can imagine Mr. Greensmith had much to say to his wife. The couple, along with another condemned witch, Mary Barnes, were hanged on January 25, 1663. On an unknown date somewhere around this time, another “witch,” Mary Sanford, also met the hangman. Increase Mather wrote triumphantly that “After the suspected witches were executed...Ann Cole was restored to health, and has continued well for many years.”
Ann’s subsequent history furnishes an interesting sequel to this story. After the Greensmiths were hanged, their farm was seized by the court. The home was sold to an Andrew Benton, who moved in with his wife and children. Shortly afterward, Mrs. Benton died. The young widower soon remarried...to none other than Ann Cole. She spent many years raising a large family of children and stepchildren under the roof built by the couple she had sent to the gallows.
I’d like to think it gave her an unpleasant dream or two, but I somehow doubt it.
[Note: In October 1993, the “Journal of the American Medical Society” published an article about the Hartford witch trials, focusing on the seminal event of the case, the death of Elizabeth Kelly. The autopsy of Kelly was described as “a bunch of screwups.” All the “preternatural” features of Kelly’s corpse were easily explained by the normal process of decomposition. Her death, it is now believed, was caused by a combination of pneumonia and sepsis. The latter ailment likely caused delirium, leading the girl to feverishly accuse Judith Ayres of tormenting her.]
]]>Quand un article sur les « bienfaits de la colonisation » fait imploser une revue scientifique | Slate.fr
▻http://www.slate.fr/story/152360/article-bienfaits-colonisation-revue-scientifique
Tout a commencé avec la publication par la revue universitaire Third World Quarterly, au début du mois de septembre, d’un article intitulé « The Case for Colonialism » (« Le bien-fondé du colonialisme »). L’auteur, Bruce Gilley, professeur de science politique à l’université de Portland, estime qu’il est « grand temps de réévaluer la signification péjorative » du mot « colonialisme » :
« La notion selon laquelle le colonialisme est toujours et partout une mauvaise chose nécessite d’être repensée au regard du grave coût humain d’un siècle de régimes et politiques anticoloniaux. »
Gilley estime que la pensée anticoloniale a surestimé les coûts et sous-estimé les bénéfices de la colonisation et a un peu vite écarté la légitimité politique des régimes coloniaux. Pour lui, les bases de cette pensée n’étaient pas scientifiques mais « politiques et idéologiques » : « Le but n’était pas l’exactitude historique mais un plaidoyer pour l’instant présent. » Il cite des exemples de pays qu’il juge détruits par la décolonisation, comme la Guinée-Bissau, et estime que « peut-être que les Belges devraient revenir » au Congo.
]]>Poutine, Antiwar.com et la Catalogne
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article/poutine-antiwarcom-et-la-catalogne
Poutine, Antiwar.com et la Catalogne
Mr. Thomas S. Harrington, auteur connu et professeur d’études hispaniques au Trinity College de Hartford, dans le Connecticut, nous instruit le 24 septembre 2017 sur le site d’Antiwar.com de très récentes péripéties qui concernent la situation en Catalogne, la presse très-libre dans un pays de l’UE qui se nomme l’Espagne, et le plus grand journal de ce pays qui se nomme justement El Pays.
Un journaliste qu’on imagine très-grand et parfaitement conforme, dans ce grand journal qu’est El-Pays, David Alandete (le journaliste en question), juge que la crise de la Catalogne est le produit de l’action venimeuse, pernicieuse et dissimulée, – eh oui, certes, “mais c’est bien sûr”, – en d’autres mots, de Poutine-“who-else ?”. Monsieur Alandete écrit quelque chose comme ça, (...)
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