DisinfoCast: 57: The Exorcist in the 21st Century – Christian Falch and Fredrik Horn Akselsen

By on May 16, 2013 in News, Podcasts 0

The-Exorcist-poster1

iTunes | Download (mp3) | RSS | iPhone App

Documentarians Christian Falch and Fredrik Horn Akselsen join us to discuss the making of their documentary The Exorcist in the 21st Century.

The Exorcist in the 21st Century takes the viewer into the unknown and sinister world of exorcism in the Catholic Church. We meet one of the few exorcists in Europe, the Vatican approved José Antonio Fortea. He travels around the world on a mission to enlighten the masses about demonic possession. Constanza, a Colombian woman, is desperately looking for Fr. Forteas help. She claims to have been possessed by demons for nearly 15 years and she goes through a ritual of exorcism before she sees the Spanish exorcist as a last hope for spiritual liberation. The film follows both their journeys and gives a unique insight into one of the world most secret and mystical rites – the catholic ritual of exorcism.… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Dairy Associations Lobby The FDA To Alter The Definition Of “Milk” To Include Aspartame

By on May 16, 2013 in News 0

definition of "milk"It’s not quite as bad as some have reported – cancer-causing artificial sweetening additives such as as aspartame likely would still need to be listed in tiny letters as ingredients. But the milk could otherwise be packaged, marketed, and sold as just “milk.” The stated goal is to reverse the trend of lagging dairy consumption by children, particularly in school. From the U.S. government’s Federal Register:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing that the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition requesting that the Agency amend the standard of identity for milk and 17 other dairy products to provide for the use of any safe and suitable sweetener as an optional ingredient.

IDFA and NMPF request their proposed amendments to the milk standard of identity to allow optional characterizing flavoring ingredients used in milk to be sweetened with any safe and suitable sweetener—including non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Bret Easton Ellis on the ‘Reign of the Gay Magical Elves’

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

EllisBret Easton Ellis, author of modern classics Less Than Zero and American Psycho, writes about the lionizing of celebrities who announce they are gay for OUT:

Was I the only gay man of a certain demo who experienced a flicker of annoyance in the way the media treated Jason Collins as some kind of baby panda who needed to be honored and praised and consoled and—yes—infantilized by his coming out on the cover of Sports Illustrated? Within the tyrannical homophobia of the sports world, that any man would come out as gay (let alone a black man) is not only an LGBT triumph but also a triumph for pranksters everywhere who thrilled to the idea that what should be considered just another neutral fact that is nobody’s business was instead a shock heard around the world, one that added another jolt of transparency to an increasingly transparent planet. It was an undeniable moment and also extremely cool.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Outrage Over IRS Targeting of Tea Party Shows Glaring Double Standard

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0
Picture: "Tea Party Bumper Sticker" Matthew Reichbach (CC)

Picture: “Tea Party Bumper Sticker” Matthew Reichbach (CC)

Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:

This week, President Obama expressed “outrage” over the targeting of such groups from the IRS. “I’ve got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it. And we’ll make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this,” he told reporters at a press conference. The New York Daily News reports two Senate committees controlled by Democrats announced investigations on Monday and House Republicans said they would investigate as well. According to CNN, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said “We need to know who knew what, and exactly what mistakes were made.The American people have questions for the IRS and I intend to get answers.”

While it’s certainly troubling (and not surprising) the IRS would be investigating and scrutinizing certain groups with a political agenda more than others, the “outrage” from politicians of all political stripes is nearly laughable when placed in the larger context of law enforcement targeting other political and activist groups.… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

In Search of Disorganised Religion

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

linknotbrokenVia The Spectator:

Theo Hobson attends Grace, an alternative Christian service in west London, and finds it arty, irreverent, postmodern — and full of people seeking a new way to worship

I went to church last weekend. Sort of. It was a Saturday evening service run by a group of laypeople in an Anglican church in Ealing. It’s a monthly event called Grace. What sort of people attend? Quite trendy ones. People who are a bit too trendy for normal church. The sort who know how to link a computer up to sound and visual equipment. No grannies, no kids.

Soft club music pulsed as I entered, and a big screen showed an art installation: furniture made of neon strips. In the middle of the pewless nave were a couple of sofas, a table and chairs, and a fridge; round the edges were some beanbags. I sat on one. This month’s theme was Home.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Confessions of a Sociopath

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

6216824175_df6384f792_oLaw professor, Sunday school teacher, and self-described sociopath M.E. Thomas writes at Psychology Today:

I have never killed anyone, but I have certainly wanted to. I may have a disorder, but I am not crazy. In a world filled with gloomy, mediocre nothings populating a go-nowhere rat race, people are attracted to my exceptionalism like moths to a flame. This is my story.

Once while visiting Washington, D.C., I used an escalator that was closed, and a Metro worker tried to shame me about it.

Him: “Didn’t you see the yellow gate?”

Me: “Yellow gate?”

Him: “I just put the gate up, and you were supposed to walk around it!”

Me: [Silence. My face was blank.]

Him: “That’s trespassing! It’s wrong to trespass! The escalator is closed, you broke the law!”

Me: [I stare at him silently.]

Him: [Visibly rattled by my lack of reaction] “Well, next time, you don’t trespass, okay?”

It was not okay.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

2,300-Year-Old Mayan Pyramid In Belize Bulldozed For Roadway Project

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

mayan pyramidThe Sydney Morning Herald reports that a private company has demolished key Mayan ruins in order to use the debris to fill potholes:

A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project. Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field.

The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico.

“It’s a feeling of incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity…they were using this for road fill,” Mr Awe said. “It’s just so horrendous…To think that today you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroy it.”

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

The Myth of the Lazy Youth

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

As we have seen time and time again, one of the challenges of modern myths is their relative invisibility. It is the outsiders of any age, those who are alien to their own times, that make the best artist shamans, and the same goes for mythic explorers. If you are too close to a culture, you will very frequently mistake the truisms of culture, the myths, as a fact. This is true with “human nature” (as we have seen), and it is also true with our myths of labor and work.

Let’s consider the example presented when one generation judges another,

“Twenge and Kasser analyzed data from the Monitoring the Future survey, which has tracked the views of a representative sample of 17- and 18-year-old Americans since 1976. They compared the answers to key questions given by high school seniors in 2005-2007 to those provided by previous generations.

To measure materialism, the youngsters were asked to rate on a one-to-four (“not important” to “extremely important”) scale how vital they felt it was to own certain expensive items: “a new car every two to three years,” “a house of my own (instead of an apartment or condominium),” “a vacation house,” and “a motor-powered recreational vehicle.” They were also asked straightforwardly how important they felt it was to “have a lot of money.”

To measure their attitudes toward work, the seniors rated on a one-to-five scale the extent to which they agreed with a series of statements, including “I expect my work to be a very central part of my life,” and “I want to do my best in my job, even if this sometimes means working overtime.”

The researchers found a couple of disturbing trends.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Amazing Events Unfolding in Guatemala: “All of the crimes that Rigoberta Menchú just described were crimes not just of General Ríos Montt, but also of the U.S. government”

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

via chycho
Efrain Rios Montt - Reagan

For those who have been following the story, below you will find the initial impact of the genocide conviction of ex-Guatemalan dictator Ríos Montt.

The majority of the coverage in the two videos linked below is with Rigoberta Menchú, the woman largely responsible for making sure that Ríos Montt was brought to justice. It is a powerful interview with an amazing individual, a testament to her courage, and a fitting tribute to the victims of genocide.

In the second segment, Allan Nairn joins the discussion for a short commentary, the highlight of which is the following:

“All of the crimes that Rigoberta Menchú just described were crimes not just of General Ríos Montt, but also of the U.S. government. The U.S. prosecutors in Washington should immediately convene a grand jury with two missions: first, coming to the aid of the Guatemalan attorney general, who has just been ordered by the court to investigate all others involved in Ríos Montt’s crimes, by releasing all classified U.S.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Cultural Illness and the Curse of Shifting Sands, DSM V

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

Cultural Relativity

In evaluating dysfunction or illness, we have long followed the seemingly straightforward model of diagnose, treat, evaluate, iterate.

However, diagnosis has long been the secret — or not so secret — Achilles heel of the psychiatric establishment. Many philosophic issues arise, issues of cultural relativism, ethical issues of financial interests in pharmaceuticals, to name a few. These are issues that ‘by the book’ psychiatrists frequently dismiss as ‘merely philosophical.’ Indeed, it’s been a relatively long time since Freud or Jung were taken entirely seriously by the establishment doling out the meds. ”By the book.” What is “the book”?

Since DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association 1980), disorders have been defined in terms of syndromes—that is, clusters of symptoms that covary together (see the section following, titled “Need to Explore the Possibility of Fundamental Changes . . .”). …

The major focus of field trials for DSM-III was establishing the reliability with which multiple clinicians could come to the same diagnostic conclusions when presented with a patient’s expressed signs and symptoms.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0