Concussion

For NFL Fans, 'Concussion' Movie Will Be Heartbreaking, Enlightening, Disturbing

There is a scene in the movie Concussion—which I saw Wednesday at a sneak preview in Manhattan—where former Chicago Bears defensive back Dave Duerson and former Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Andre Waters get into a heated exchange outside the NFL’s offices in Manhattan. The scene, quite frankly, brought tears to my eyes. I knew both men…

The scene from Concussion revolves around Waters saying something was wrong with him and he needed help. Duerson, on that busy street that day, rejected Waters’ concerns, calling him weak. Not long after the confrontation, Waters would commit suicide, in 2006. Later, so would Duerson, in 2011. Duerson shot himself in the chest so he could have his brain examined…

But the biggest threat to the NFL, and perhaps the movie’s greatest accomplishment, is the mainstreaming of the neurological science. The movie explains, in simple terms, how the issue is not thunderous helmet-to-helmet contact but subconcussive hits. It explains how the brain sits in a fluid, disconnected from the skull, and how the trauma of football rips apart the delicate framework of the human mind…

If you have a pulse and a conscience, the movie will cause you to examine this love of football, and at what cost that love comes to the actual human beings who play it…

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/12/elon-university-football-player-dies-after-falling-from-dorm

An Elon University football player has died after falling from a 10-story dormitory on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill…

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/man-found-dead-suv-brooklyn-basketball-star-article-1.2431278

(11/12/2015) Former Knicks draft pick Michael Wright found dead of head wound and covered in garbage bags in SUV in Brooklyn

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/12/us/tommy-hanson-death-baseball-pitcher/

(CNN) Former baseball pitcher Tommy Hanson, one of the sport’s top prospects in 2006, died following an apparent overdose, Georgia authorities told CNN on Thursday…

Objects Are Smaller Than They Appear

Photo taken today. 🙂

Today’s Free Entertainment In The Sky

“The sky is an infinite movie to me. I never get tired of looking at what’s happening up there.” K.D. Lang

“No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.”  Bob Dylan

‘Pastafarian’ Wins Right to Wear Spaghetti Strainer in Driver’s License Photo

http://patch.com/massachusetts/westford/pastafarian-wins-right-wear-spaghetti-strainer-drivers-license-photo-0

A woman from Lowell, Mass. has won the right to wear a spaghetti strainer on her head in her driver’s license photo.

Lindsay Miler, who claims to be a “Pastafarian,” was initially denied the request but recently won an appeal—as the RMV allows headgear in license photos for religious or medical reasons.

Miller is a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an atheist group whose followers wear spaghetti strainers as a religious symbol.

“As a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I feel delighted that my Pastafarianism has been respected by the Massachusetts RMV,” Miller said in a statement. “While I don’t think the government can involve itself in matters of religion, I do hope this decision encourages my fellow Pastafarian Atheists to come out and express themselves as I have.”

Miller got legal help from the American Humanist Association…

It wasn’t the first time a government body has acknowledged Pastafarians’ right to wear spaghetti strainers in official capacities. In 2011, Austrian Niko Alm was allowed to wear one his driver’s license, while in 2014 a member of the Pomfret (N.Y.) town council wore one as he took his oath of office.

Revenge

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2011/october-11/the-complicated-psychology-of-revenge.html

A few years ago a group of Swiss researchers scanned the brains of people who had been wronged during an economic exchange game. These people had trusted their partners to split a pot of money with them, only to find that the partners had chosen to keep the loot for themselves. The researchers then gave the people a chance to punish their greedy partners, and for a full minute, as the victims contemplated revenge, the activity in their brains was recorded. The decision caused a rush of neural activity in the caudate nucleus, an area of the brain known to process rewards (in previous work, the caudate has delighted in cocaine and nicotine use). The findings, published in a 2004 issue of Science, gave physiological confirmation to what the scorned have been saying for years: Revenge is sweet.

A thirst for vengeance is nothing if not timeless. It is as classic as Homer and Hamlet, and as contemporary as Don Corleone and Quentin Tarantino; as old as the eyes and teeth traded in the Bible, and as fresh as the raid that took the life of Osama bin Laden. But while the idea of revenge is no doubt delectable — the very phrase “just desserts” promises a treat — much of its sugar is confined to the coating. The actual execution of revenge carries a bitter cost of time, emotional and physical energy, and even lives. That minute before revenge is savory, as the authors of the Science study recognized; but what about the days and weeks that follow? …

Many early psychological views toward revenge were based on the larger concept of emotional catharsis. This idea, still widely held in the popular culture, suggests that venting aggression ultimately purges it from the body. But empirical research failed to validate the theory of catharsis, and some recent work contradicts it entirely. In a 2002 paper in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, APS Fellow Brad Bushman of The Ohio State University reported higher levels of aggression in people who had supposedly vented their anger than in those who had done nothing at all…

The long history of vengeance in art suggests a basic instinct for retribution ingrained in the human spirit. Indeed, recent facts largely confirm this age-old fiction: Revenge has been cited as a factor in one in five murders that occur in developed countries, and a report from 2002 found that between 1974 and 2000 three in five school shootings in the United States were driven by vengeance…

http://lifehacker.com/5799860/the-smarter-way-to-seek-revenge

“In moments of pain, we seek revenge.”  Ami Ayalon

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”  Marcus Aurelius