The Iran Visa on Arrival information contained here is based on my experience in February 2017. If you have any questions about this process contact me on Facebook or in the comments below.

I applied for a visa on arrival at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport. A friend of mine applied at the international airport in Shiraz instead, the process was identical. Once you disembark from your plane, you should immediately look for signs pointing you towards the visa area. The airport is small so it is not hard to find this area, just look for the signs. The visa process is as follows:

Visa on Arrival Application Process

1. Purchase or Verify Your Travel Insurance

The first step in the visa process is to sort out your travel insurance. To do this, you will need to head to the travel insurance cashier/desk. Please note that even if you already have travel insurance that is valid for Iran, you still need to have this verified at the insurance desk. If you already have insurance valid in Iran, make sure you have printed your policy certificate and show this at the insurance desk. Make sure to point out where on your certificate that it says ‘Iran’. I travel with World Nomads insurance and specifically made sure that Iran was included. The insurance certificate issued to me by World Nomads explicitly stated that it was valid for Iran. If you have travel insurance but your printed policy does not clearly state that it is valid for Iran, you may be forced to buy a separate policy.

If you are forced to buy insurance at this counter, you will need to pay about 14€ for 30 days of coverage. Coverage for other lengths of time are also available with the cost going up and down proportionally.

2. Fill in Visa Application Form

After purchasing or validating your travel insurance, head over to the visa desk itself and get a small (A5) white visa application form. This small form is quick and easy to fill out and requires your passport details, home address, father’s name, job and a few other details. The form also asks for the location and contact details of the place you will be staying at while in Iran. In this section I included the name, address and phone number for my hostel in Tehran. I did not include the details of all my accommodation in Iran, just the place I was staying at first.

There were no questions on the form about previous travel to Israel. I should note that I had previously been to Israel, however my passport contained no evidence of this. I was relieved to find the form did not ask me if I had been to Israel because really I don’t like lying on visa applications.

3. Pay For Your Visa

After filling out the A5 sized visa application form, return to the visa desk and give the attendant the completed form, your passport as well as your proof of travel insurance. He will respond by scribbling a figure in Euro on a small white piece of paper and will instruct you to pay this at the cashier’s counter located next to the visa desk. For me this figure read 145€. A cost schedule by country for the visa on arrival can be found here. It appears to be an accurate list, but I have not verified it 100% and the list is not complete. New Zealand is not on this list, however after speaking to a few Kiwis while in Iran, I can confirm that the cost is 150€ for NZ passport holders.

Once you have paid the correct price at the cashier you will be handed a receipt. Do not lose the receipt, you will need it!

4. Wait For Your Application to be Processed

The final step is to simply wait. You do not need to go back and speak to the visa desk attendant yet, you just need to wait. Once your application has been processed the attendant will call out your name (or maybe just your country’s name). You will then need to hand over the receipt you received from the cashier and in return you will be handed your passport complete with Iranian visa inside it.

If you made any mistakes on the white A5 visa application form, it will be pointed out to you at this stage. I saw one person in particular fail to include a phone number for his accommodation and so they called out his name and made him correct it. He then he had to wait further. Make sure you completed the form described in step 2 above to avoid any delays at this step.

5. Clear Immigration and Collect Luggage

With your passport in your hand, complete with a brand spanking new visa, you can now head to passport control. This step is very quick and you should not be asked any additional questions. Once you have cleared passport control you can collect your bags. If your application process took a while (as mine did) your luggage will probably not be on the luggage carousel but sitting on the ground somewhere nearby.

Do You Need Proof of Onward Travel?

I did have an onward flight booked and I had a printout of the booking details. However at no stage was I required to show this. From my experience, an onward flight is not required to gain entry to Iran. However, as is often the case, you may be required to show proof of onward travel during the check-in for your flight to Iran.

If You Have Valid Travel Insurance. Bring Proof!

An insurance policy certificate clearly stating that it is valid for Iran. If you do not have this you will need to buy insurance at the airport for about 14€/30 days.

Bring Email Confirmation For Your First Accomodation

An email printout with your first accommodation booking details might be needed. You may not need to actually show this to anyone, but you will need the information on it to fill out your forms. At the very least make sure you have an email containing your accommodation booking details, an address and contact information. Contact details for a hostel are accepted, there is no need to book an expensive hotel.

Only accommodation details for your first stop in Iran appears to be required. I do not believe that the authorities called my accommodation to check if I was actually staying their, however have heard that in other cases they will check.

Do I Need to Bring Passport Photos?

The Visa process as it stands does not require you to bring any passport photos. They will take a copy of your photo contained in your regular passport instead.

Which Countries are Eligible for a Visa On Arrival?

A detailed list of countries eligible for a Visa on Arrival is available the following links.

How much does the Visa on Arrival cost?

The cost of a visa on arrival varies depending on your country of origin. However the most common price is 75€ which is the price for most European countries. Australians and New Zealanders on the other hand pay 145€ and 150€ respectively. A complete list for VoA costs can be found at the link below.

(Header image taken by Ellen from https://travellingtheworldsolo.com/)


1. The legislation will allow contractors to be secretly "blacklisted," and excluded from DoD contracting programs.

2. The blacklisting allowed under Section 815 could result in "de facto" debarments of federal contractors across the federal government without due process.

3. Section 815 does not require DoD to notify or justify its decision to blacklist companies.

4. DoD's determinations regarding its secret "blacklist" would be protected from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), protest at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), or action brought in the federal court system.

5. The legislation represents a reduction in competitiveness in federal contracting programs, and as a result could lead to increased costs of goods and services.

6. The legislation consolidates DoD acquisition authority on over $300 billion a year in defense contracts into the hands of a small group of high-level Pentagon officials.

7. The legislation will lead to a reduction in transparency, accountability and oversight in federal contracting programs and opens the door to unparalleled and perhaps unconstitutional abuse.

8. Could allow large contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman with significant clout at the Pentagon to eliminate their competitors with more efficient and cost effective products.


Saint John's overall office vacancy rate has crept up again, reaching 21.5 per cent.

"That's about the highest it's been during my [20 year] tenure here," said real estate analyst André Pouliot, with Turner Drake, the brokerage firm that compiled the numbers.

In comparison, office vacancy rates are 9.5 percent in Fredericton, 13.7 percent in Moncton, 15.3 percent in Halifax and 12.7 percent in St. John's.

Because of the excess of vacant offices in the Port City, some landlords told CBC they've felt pressured to drop their rents and pay up front for improvements or consider other incentives to attract tenants in a highly competitive market.

John Lawson is seeking tenants for the entire fifth floor of Harbour Centre building in Saint John. (Rachel Cave/CBC)

In Saint John's uptown business district, the least prestigious space with the fewest amenities, also known as Class C space, is renting for as low as $7 per square foot.

Pouliot says landlords must be feeling the pressure to move their capital elsewhere or repurpose their buildings.

"When we say the rates are unsustainably high, we're trying to get into the heads of property owners," he said.

"Property owners are capitalists. They expect to earn a certain return on their real estate."

Pouliot said when vacancy rates are topping 20 per cent, owners still have to make their mortgage payments.

"Eventually what they do is they look at the situation and say, 'Hey, can I put my property to better use?'"

Seeking tenants

Over at the Harbour Centre building on Prince William Street, John Lawson is looking for tenants to fill 6,000 square feet, or the entire fifth floor.

John Lawson is seeking tenants for 6,000 square feet of office space at Harbour Centre building. (Rachel Cave/CBC)

As he walks through the empty rooms with their views of the harbour, he says the search for a new tenant began almost a year ago, when the previous renters gave notice they would be leaving by November.

"Right now, it's not great," he said. "We haven't had a lot of inquiries."

Pouliot says employers today are looking for less space per worker and in Saint John he says that trend has not been offset by economic growth.

Some blame the tax rate for stifling that growth.

"We have the highest commercial and property tax rates and it's hurting us," said corporate and commercial lawyer Andrew Costin, who also serves as vice-president for Uptown Saint John, the city's business improvement association.

According to the Real Property Association of Canada, the annual tax on commercial property per $100,000 assessment is $5,043 in Saint John, $4,840 in Moncton, $2,640 in Toronto and $1,386 in Vancouver.

Costin says it's a "serious problem" and he doesn't see any leadership from the province or the city to fix it.

Office stock supply stagnant

Pouliot says Saint John's supply of office stock hasn't changed a lot.

The city had about 2.29 million square feet in 2011 with a vacancy rate of 10.7 percent. Today, there's about 2.53 million square feet.

But that will change when Irving Oil completes its new headquarters.

That building will create more empty office space in the city when some 100 workers leave their current scattered locations and move in.


Around the world there has been a huge increase in the number of children being referred to gender clinics - boys saying they want to be girls and vice versa. Increasingly, parents are encouraged to adopt a 'gender affirmative' approach - fully supporting their children's change of identity. But is this approach right?

In this challenging documentary, BBC Two's award-winning This World strand travels to Canada, where one of the world's leading experts in childhood gender dysphoria (the condition where children are unhappy with their biological sex) lost his job for challenging the new orthodoxy that children know best. Speaking on TV for the first time since his clinic was closed, Dr Kenneth Zucker believes he is a victim of the politicisation of transgender issues. The film presents evidence that most children with gender dysphoria eventually overcome the feelings without transitioning and questions the science behind the idea that a boy could somehow be born with a 'female brain' or vice versa. It also features 'Lou' - who was born female and had a double mastectomy as part of transitioning to a man. She now says it is a decision that 'haunts' her and feels that her gender dysphoria should have been treated as a mental health issue.

This documentary examines Zucker's methods, but it also includes significant contributions from his critics and supporters of gender affirmation, including transgender activists in Canada and leading medical experts as well as parents with differing experiences of gender dysphoria and gender reassignment.


August 28, 2013

NCAA Denies Rakeem Buckles to Minnesota

The NCAA has reportedly denied a waiver request that would enable Rakeem Buckles to compete during the 2013-14 season for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Buckles would be a promising addition to a Minnesota roster that could use help rebounding and blocking shots.

The school can appeal the decision and the ultimate resolution could favor Buckles and the U. However, with Minnesota’s fall semester beginning next week and classes having already started at Florida International, timing is an issue.

The traditional media will display “outrage” at the perceived inconsistency of the NCAA and point to “similar cases”, but there are several issues that could be unique to Buckles.

Who Plays if Buckles Doesn’t?

Before getting into Rakeem Buckles and his situation, let’s quickly consider who else is on the roster.

The Gophers have two redshirt junior centers in Elliott Eliason and Maurice Walker. Neither have logged many minutes during their years at Minnesota, but if they both stay healthy and produce then the situation at center seems relatively set.

Experienced guards Andre Hollins, Austin Hollins and Malik Smith all figure to see a ton of floor time. However, none of these players rebound well.

The need for a power forward to rebound and defend inside is significant. Redshirt junior Oto Osenieks, redshirt freshman Charles Buggs and – if he receives a waiver to play immediately – sophomore Joey King, all are possibilities to help Minnesota rebound the ball this season from the “4” position.

Gopher sophomore Wally Ellenson, a 6’4″ wing, may be a better offensive rebounder than any of the power forward candidates. With great leaping ability and fearlessness, Ellenson can make an impact crashing the offensive glass if given the green light.

Back to Buckles

The arguments and reasoning by the various parties involved in such eligibility matters are rarely made public. Non-disclosure does cause some of the angst and complaining displayed by the public when there is a perception that the NCAA “got it wrong”, but when you’re potentially dealing with issues of academics, health, etc., non-disclosure is appropriate.

We are not opining here as to whether Buckles should be eligible to play for Minnesota this season. Rather, we are taking a non-comprehensive look at what some of the issues could be.

There isn’t a checklist, unbiased computer program, or inflexible rules to look at. Ultimately most decisions include a degree of subjectivity.

1) Multiple 4-4 transfers.

In early April we talked about immediate eligibility for graduate student transfers as it relates to Rakeem Buckles. Although our understanding is that Buckles has not been accepted into a graduate program at the University of Minnesota, the discussion in this article from nearly 5 months ago remains potentially relevant.

Put simply, the NCAA could take issue with the belief that Buckles is following a coach around.

In April we discussed why approval of a waiver could be problematic for Buckles.

Graduate students are generally afforded a one-time exception (i.e., no waiver is required). However, if a student has previously transferred from one 4-year school to another (i.e., Louisville to FIU), the exception is not available and a waiver must be requested.

“A coach leaving is not generally seen by the NCAA as a valid justification for a transfer and in fact Pitino’s move from FIU to Minnesota might hurt the argument of Buckles being eligible up north. Most likely the argument would be that Minnesota has a grad program Rakeem has been accepted into, but the same program is not offered at FIU.

Would the committee reviewing the waiver challenge the reasoning behind the request because of what may appear to be (and might factually be) a player following his coach as opposed to a student-athlete excited by a particular program at the University of Minnesota? With his history of injuries you’d hope he gets a chance to do what he’d like next season, but it’s difficult to tell.”

2) FIU’s Postseason Ban

Contrary to popular belief, if your school is banned from postseason play and you’re going to be senior, you do not automatically receive immediately eligibility at a new school.

The NCAA Bylaws allow one of its groups to award a waiver based on the recommendations of another group in such circumstances.

Remember, this waiver is generally granted when a postseason ban “would preclude the institution’s team in that sport from participating in postseason competition during all of the remaining seasons of the student-athlete’s eligibility”.

Minnesota’s Malik Smith did transfer to Minnesota and was granted a waiver to play immediately, however his history is different from Rakeem’s.

When Buckles and Smith decided to attend FIU before the 2012-13 academic year (and when Richard Pitino decided to coach there), the expectation was that the school would be banned from postseason play in 2013-14.

Malik transferred in from a junior college. He was eligible to compete in 2012-13 and had a chance to participate in the postseason, even though the prospects for being eligible for postseason in 2013-14 looked dim.

Buckles transferred in from Louisville and was not eligible to compete in 2012-13.

Therefore, it could be argued that Buckles essentially knew what his situation would be at FIU. In his one year of remaining eligibility to compete, he’d be at a school that was ineligible for postseason play.

Does this mean it makes sense for Smith and Buckles to be treated differently? In some minds it might.

3) Academic progress

When transferring, student-athletes can run into situations where classes at one school do not help their progress toward degree at another school. A player might not declare a major early on and take some more “general” type classes or certain classes (physical education, for example) that may help toward progress of only specific degrees offered by their school.

Some classes taken previously may not transfer over. Some classes may transfer over only if a specific degree at the new school is being pursued.

In addition, when players are injured (especially early in a semester) they may be able to reduce their course work and still maintain eligibility under NCAA rules. Buckles tore an ACL about a week into the spring 2012 semester and could have withdrawn from some classes after this major injury.

Delaying a decision on your major isn’t unusual and there’s nothing wrong with scaling back your course work if you need to have a major surgery performed during the semester (not to mention the need to dedicate a tremendous amount of time to rehab).

However, such circumstances and decisions can result in cutting it close with regard to your progress toward degree.

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Ethan Indigo Smith, Contributor

Waking Times

Terrorism [noun]: The unlawful use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

War is politically motivated violence. War is, therefore, terrorism, enshrined in the law of one warring party.

By its definition, war threatens and enacts violence on behalf of the State, for its own benefit, at the expense of the lives and livelihoods of countless others. And yet we have come to accept their invasion, their suppression, and even their deaths as necessary to our lives — to our sense of peace. So we occupy lands, we kill leaders, we overturn cities in the hunt for weapons that don’t exist — and all because the lawmakers who decide which violent acts are “war” and which are “terrorism” tell us such violence is necessary to achieve peace.

So, remind me again… Who are the terrorists? Who are the war heroes, and who are the war criminals? How do we discern military from militia? Do we really believe peace can be achieved by declaring war on war itself?

The greatest hypocrisy of our time.

The world’s political institutions — from the U.S. to Russia, from Israel to ISIS — seek to gain and maintain power through the use of violence, terror, and military coercion. In fact we live in a world where legally-sanctioned acts of terrorism are carried out more often than illegal terrorism — but, as they are conducted within someone else’s borders, in someone else’s homeland, we separate ourselves from this reality, in a dissonant attempt to protect ourselves from it.

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are each deeply and profoundly disturbed by the war world we live in; we are disturbed that hate is the language of our leaders. We are disturbed that we send our sons and daughters away to participate in it. and we are disturbed that we allow it. And we are disturbed by feeling we are unable to do anything about it. For most of us, war has been an ever-present part of our lives, and we accept the state of war as the state of “normal” — simply because it has always been.

The United States has been at war for 224 years out of the last 241 years. Not one U.S. president qualifies as a solely peacetime president, and the only time the United States lasted 5 years without going to war was between 1935 and 1940 — during the period of the Great Depression. Sadly, but true to form, America centered its post-Depression economic recovery around its military industry. Subsequently, every U.S. President since the end of World War II — from Truman to Kennedy, Eisenhower to Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, ‘Dubya’, and Obama — enacted a Presidential Doctrine directly pertaining to war, either by inviting U.S. involvement in conflict or inciting it directly. Today, with President Trump having just assumed office, the military industry is critical to the survival of the U.S. economy — and indeed, of the United States of America — employing over 3.5 million Americans [source] and generating over $300 billion in revenue each year for private military companies. [source]

Call it what you will, such institutionalization of war is terrorism. It does not matter how crazy or legitimate their goals are perceived to be; violence in order to express a point is terrorism. But with a warring mentality firmly embedded in both the psyche and economy of the United States, Americans have not learned the lessons of history and failed Presidential policy, and allow these systems of war to continue on their behalf under the Orwellian guises of “liberty”, “peacekeeping” and “freedom”. However the reality shows us that the result of those systems is anything but free, peaceful liberty.

Institutional Thinking: The Mind of The State

“Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the state.” ~ James Jesus Angleton

No matter how confusing the War on Terror becomes, no matter the geopolitics involved, no matter who is wearing which uniforms, or what book they hold, or flag they fly, people who kill and die in the name of institutional abstracts are terrorists — whether they are lawmakers, rebels, military soldiers, suicide bombers or Heads of State. Those who willingly kill and terrify on behalf of a geopolitical agenda are terrorists. Period.

Those who do so are conned, convinced through varying levels of propaganda. The most obvious (yet diabolical) form is friendly old Uncle Sam beckoning young unemployed teens to “see the world” by his side. But it isn’t just our troops who have been conned. We Americans are proud to see our children put boots to the ground (primarily 18-21 year olds) and engage (kill) the enemy. We celebrate their “successes” (killing) and mourn their “losses” (being killed). We have learned to euphemistically minimize deaths as ‘casualties’, when there is nothing casual about it. We falsely believe the killing and maiming of innocent civilians to be the exception and not the rule of war, rationalize killing and dying in the name of perverted, monolithic geopolitical ideologies.

Whatever way you look at it, using violence to coerce is terrorism. Not only is it commonplace, it the design of our society’s institutions — from the more obvious government and military institutions to the less obvious nuclear energy industry, which feeds materials to nuclear weapons programs, and the media, which portrays the acts of war in perfect alignment with government rhetoric. Yes, the machinery of war is so commonplace in the United States that we can’t even see the problem let alone then begin to define it!

Make no mistake, the cause of violence and terror today is our so-called leaders. They control the military might to destroy entire countries, yet claim not to have the resources to simply defend our borders against attack, preferring instead to enact “preemptive strikes” on foreign soil — to attack first rather than defend. Invariably, such policy requires increasingly authoritative, punitive and even fascist policies on home soil, to keep the confused (and disturbed) public in line.

So, to put an end to the U.S. doctrine of perpetual war, we need to stop asking why individuals resort to acts of terrorism and ask why we allow our institutions to do so as example to world’s individuals. Why is terrorism increasing? Why would a terrorist sacrifice their own life to inflict harm on individuals? What are they responding to? Look no further than the reality of the behavior exhibited by the world’s leaders: If another nation’s policy or politician is disliked, debate. If you don’t get your way, drop bombs on entire populations and take over their nation by force — even if it requires complete fabrication and propaganda (WMD’s anyone?) to gain public support.

In simple terms, extreme militarism can only lead to the rise of extremist terrorism; the response of violent resistance to acts of violent imperialism. One cannot exist without the other. They are two sides of the same devastating and irreconcilable coin.

In more complex terms, however, violence is the result of conflicting ideologies. Our warring institutions don’t just drop bombs to destroy “enemy” cities and bases, they are attempting to eradicate alternative (“enemy”) ways of thinking and being. This is evidenced by the way the “War On Terror” has become a war on Islam, a war on American privacy, a war on our freedoms of speech and even our right to peaceful assembly. Government transparency is at an all-time low, while public surveillance and corporate-media manipulation are at an all-time high. This is a war for your thinking and being; a war on what you think and what you do. And in the process, our warring institutions are not just imposing authoritarianism on the population they claim to represent, they are seeking to impose “American-Style Freedom” on other diverse nations by force, perpetuating a culture at home that accepts and even supports perpetual conflict while conducting their wars abroad so that only “others” suffer for their misdeeds. In this way, we are never forced to confront the stark reality of our nation’s wars beyond the (carefully selected) images we see on our TV screens.

So once again: Who are the terrorist? Who are the war heroes? And really, how the hell do we tell the difference? What is the difference between an IED (homemade bomb) and an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade)? The reality is, both are used to kill and influence, for political ends, to influence thinking and being. Both are extremely effective at ending lives, thereby engendering more violence. No matter what ‘side’ a terrorist is on, they all use the same methods of violence, and they all create the same outcome — more violence. The only difference is in the way we think.

The war mentality both encourages and is encouraged by separation, not oneness. One of the best ways to gain and maintain power is to keep the people in constant fear — in fear of wars, of outsiders, and “terrorism”. Built on a narrative of “us” versus “them”, a culture of war-minded fear ensures the public consent to the constant funding of the military-industrial-complex, under the guise of security and protection. In war, institutions and collective thinking become the focus: the “us” becomes “our country”, “our flag”, “our boys overseas”. Or more accurately, “our institutional war identity”.

Indeed, the only entities to ever benefit from war are the individuals who hide behind warring institutions and the legal formalities that enshrine them. Those who control the military industrial complex and the private companies that support it have arranged things so that, by design, no matter how the national fervor plays out, no matter what happens or which side ‘wins’, they still prosper one way or the other, and have the protection of their own domestic laws. But, as President Jimmy Carter so rightly pointed out, America cannot be both the world’s champion of peace and the world’s major supplier of weapons. So, with war institutionalized and sold to the public as a legal instrument of peace, it was inevitable we would find ourselves in the perpetual — and hypocritical — cycle of war and conflict we see today.

And where are the peacemakers? Where are the protagonists of peace?

Today it is not just the United States that is built on a foundation of war; nations around the world pour their resources into preparing for war, building billion dollar war machines, reinforcing polarizing “us and them” thinking at home, espousing the virtues of imperialism and endless “growth”, and promoting violent “intervention” as the only way to achieve it. But the United States is becoming the worst type of nation imaginable. It enacts increasingly anti-individual/pro-institutional domestic laws, and is home to the biggest prison population (and private prison industry) in the world. It employs the biggest military budget in the world (while scrimping on domestic social and infrastructure development), “preempts” wars with other nations and aggressively establishes military bases on their borders, all while maintaining its position as the world’s leading manufacturer of military weaponry.

In the process, the United States has transformed from a state that is at peace, promotes peace and yet is prepared for defense, into a state that is at war, promotes war and prepares for war, but uses the Orwellian language of peace.

No wonder the American people are so confused. So let’s boil this all down to simple terms…

Imagine this. There are four bordering states in a contentious region of the world. One state is of peace, is constantly at peace and prepares for peace. Another state is of war, is constantly at war and prepares for war. Another state is at war, prepares for war and yet is ready for peace. And the last state is at peace, prepares for peace and yet is ready for defense.

There are many ways each states may act and react to this situation, but inevitably, the warring state will eventually arrive at the border of the purely peaceful state, and the peaceful state will likely concede. The warring state will arrive at the border of the other nations of war, and will either fight just enough to maintain a status quo of conflict (that is their cultural nature, after all) or fight until one side loses all (while the other loses a lot).

Now imagine the winning war state arriving at the border of the peaceful state that is ready for self-defense. Inevitably, the war state will decide it is not worth the confrontation…

That is, not without first infiltrating and subverting the nation’s institutions, instilling chaos and discontent, and steering its culture toward war-mindedness. Sound paranoid? The reality of this tactic was clearly evidenced by last year’s George Soros email hack, which revealed the U.S. government collaborator (and therefore war criminal) Soros funds color revolutions (fake grassroots uprisings) through a range of off-shore NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) which specialize in propaganda and the overthrow of democratically elected foreign governments. This cunning strategy amounts to the covert terrorism of a society’s consciousness, no less.

Nonetheless, peaceful preparedness has proven to be a nation’s best protection against the imperialism of war-minded nations, including one’s own government. It forces warring institutions to abandon plans for outright conflict and invest in programs of social infiltration. Indeed, cultural subversion is the only way a peacefully-prepared nation can be drawn into conflict, regardless of the pretext.

And that, readers, is where you and I come into the picture…

Do You Want War on Terror? Or Peace on Terra?

Terra [noun]: land or territory; Terra [origin] Latin, meaning ‘earth’.

The truth is that we live in a world of States that prepare for war, and are at war. We invest trillions in building mechanisms that can destroy our planet, but neglect to build systems that can benefit our planet and benefit us all. We do not design systems that facilitate peace, but which hinder each other in war. We know and accept war, and lies, but we do not know how to help each other. We have to change our mind state. If we are to survive, our systems of war and destruction must be morphed into systems of support and creation, and our culture must morph right along with it. We have to uplift each other.

I am a terra-ist. I stand for the Earth and its inhabitants. I strive to be at peace, to act in peace, and to promote peace. I am always be ready to defend myself, to defend others around me, to defend the Earth we call home, and to defend peace itself. And I know I am not alone.

“I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.” ~ Gandhi

Terraists embody the exact opposite values of terrorists. They do not prize the abstract notions of power and ideology, but value the real, the natural and the living. Terraists act to protect and provide for all individuals’ needs, with compassionate understanding. Terraists are the people who realize that the more terrorists fight, the further from peace we descend. Terraists build, protect and help others for no reason, other than what it is right, and terraists are prepared to defend against those terrorists (both in and out of uniform) who destroy and kill for reasons they believe justifies their violence.

So, to all terraists out there — to those peaceful individuals without uniform, doctrine or dogma — it’s time to stand up and be counted! Be a terraist for peace, rather than a terrorist for a piece. Be a terraist of insight, rather than a terrorist who incites. Build, create, defend and help, for no other reason than it is right — and in today’s war world, it is our only option.

The way to global peace isn’t paved with war. History has shown us that dedicating our resources toward creating war doesn’t just lead to more war; it makes war an economic necessity, imperiling us all. The only way to ensure peace in our world is to adopt a doctrine of peace; to give peace a budget, give peace a mandate, and give peace all our energy, both politically and personally — and remove from government, through the power of our will and the weight of our numbers, any individual who fails to act on it.

Do not be tricked into thinking that violence by the State is not terrorism. Do not be duped into becoming a terrorist fighting terrorists, mistakenly believing there will later come an opportunity to become a peaceful terraist, once “the war is over.” The reality is, the war will never be over, unless terraists around the world unite and take action on behalf of humanity, terra, and all her inhabitants.

About the Author

Activist, author and Tai Chi teacher Ethan Indigo Smith was born on a farm in Maine and lived in Manhattan for a number of years before migrating west to Mendocino, California. Guided by a keen sense of integrity and humanity, Ethan’s work is both deeply connected and extremely insightful, blending philosophy, politics, activism, spirituality, meditation and a unique sense of humour.

Ethan’s publications include:

For more information, visit Ethan on Facebook.

This article (The Oxymoron War on Terror – The Greatest Hypocrisy of Our Time) was originally created and published by Ethan Indigo Smith and is re-posted here with permission.

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this little piggy went to market This sausage prank exposes our weird food issues

I keep watching this video from a hidden-camera prank show (apparently in Brazil). Prank shows, at their best, are basically elaborate psychological experiments that reveal our cognitive biases and allow us to laugh at our own hypocrisy.

You should just watch it — but here are the highlights: You’ve got an avuncular fellow offering sausage samples in a supermarket. People ask to buy some fresh sausage, at which point the man produces an adorable piglet and stuffs it into his “sausage machine.”

I see this as a version of the famous trolley problem, which goes like this: If a trolley was heading toward five people stuck to the tracks, and you could pull a switch to send it instead to kill just one person, would you? Most people say yes. OK. So if trolley was heading toward five people stuck to the tracks, and there was no switch, but you could push a really fat man in front of the oncoming train (which would surely stop it) would you? And to this, most people emphatically say, “No!”

It’s all very well to kill the man by turning a switch, but when you actually have to push him, those foundational moral prohibitions against murder kick in.

The trolley problem demonstrates that when people have a certain distance from an unpleasant choice, they tend to be coldly rational, e.g. yes, please kill an animal so I can enjoy its delicious meat. But when we are directly involved, we feel a strong emotional response, e.g. “Save Wilbur!”

Notice that it’s the sausage maker who becomes the villain, when of course it’s us, the eaters, who are demanding fresh sausage. And this happens all the time with our food system. We search for cheaper food, but we are shocked when farmers respond by getting bigger and mechanized (so as to sell enough cheaper food to make a decent income).

I’m a strong believer in honoring the emotional response. People demand meat and also condemn meat producers for killing. This isn’t stupid; it’s human. We all have these kinds of responses. The best we can do is own them: Let’s stop blaming the butchers out there; they’re just working for us.


‘One thing leads to another.’ (Picture: Youtube/CARE Norway)

Rape culture starts in the smallest actions.

A ‘joke’ made to your friends. Staring at a woman until she uncomfortably tugs down her skirt. Letting it slide when someone at work says something sexist.

It’s also in inaction. Not calling people out. Ignoring the problem. Failing to support a victim when she comes forward.

As a new video from CARE Norway shows, each tiny thing can contribute to a society where rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence happen on a daily basis.

To hammer that idea home, the #DearDaddy video shows the consequences of those tiny actions and inactions, all happening to one man’s daughter.

Yes, it’s a little annoying that we still have to frame rape in terms of happening to someone’s daughter or mother – rather than just ‘rape is a horrible thing, even when it happens to someone you don’t know’ – but the five minute video is pretty powerful.

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Because if you’re a dad, you can do all you can to protect your daughter.

You can make sure her mum stays safe (and doesn’t eat sushi).

But by the time she’s 14, she’ll already have been called a bitch or a whore.

She may feel pressured into sex, and do something she doesn’t want to.

She may be raped.

And given that 1 in 3 women worldwide will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner, she may find herself in an abusive relationship.

It’s not about fear-mongering, suggesting that all men are bad, or the idea that if you make one mistake, your daughter will be hurt.

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But what the video shows is that – while it’s impossible for one man to completely protect his daughter from violence – you can take steps towards making the world a safer place for women overall.

MORE: 13 things women in their 20s are tired of hearing

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MORE: This woman is receiving rape threats for refusing to smile on command

MORE: Artist creates an anti-rape cloak to protest victim blaming

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The city of Santa Fe, N.M., added a Walmart Supercenter to the Entrada Contenta subdivision, a mixed-used development that consists of residential and commercial land uses. SMC Consulting Engineers P.C. was retained by Walmart to engineer approximately 17 acres of the watershed planned for the Supercenter, including the building, parking areas, driveways and landscaping.

Initially, the site was undeveloped and covered with native grass and trees. The development increased the impervious area of the site, requiring the engineers to design a storm water management system to mitigate the impact of the increased runoff volume and the higher rate of flow. The limited area available for the Walmart development did not allow for an above-ground storm water management system; the engineers needed an underground solution.

Aside from the space constraints, Santa Fe County also experiences severe drought conditions, which make water resources scarce. With conservation in mind, the decision was made to collect the storm water runoff from the store’s roof catchment area for irrigation purposes. Using the harvested storm water for irrigation would reduce the use of potable water, especially at times when outdoor irrigation is limited due to water rationing restrictions imposed by the city. Native desert plants were selected for site landscaping to further reduce irrigation demands.

Several factors were considered in the selection process for the underground storm water storage systems. Durability, long-term performance and ease of access for inspection and maintenance were important. Additional consideration was given to the speed and ease of installation, as well as a system’s accommodation of the existing subgrade conditions. Last, the overall footprint and a cost-benefit analysis were considered for each of the underground systems.

StormTrap provided one DoubleTrap system for storm water detention and a second system for rainwater harvesting. Together, they protect the downstream drainage system from increased flow rate and higher volume of storm water runoff from the Walmart site, and also provide a viable option for water reuse or irrigation.

A construction crew excavated a 12-ft-deep area below the planned parking lot and set the 10-ft detention system on a compacted aggregate base. To ensure that the system was watertight, an impermeable liner and geotextile fabric were wrapped around it. The detention system is designed to store more than 50,000 cu ft of storm water runoff. The runoff from the parking areas flows through the onsite storm sewer conveyance system and is treated by storm water quality devices prior to entering the detention system.

The stage-storage sizing of the underground detention system was designed for the SCS Type II, 24-hour storm interval for various storm events. Unit hydrographs and computed flood hydrographs for the existing and proposed conditions were developed using the Natural Resources Conservation Service hydrograph method. The outlet structure of the detention system was sized to regulate the release to the downstream storm water conveyance system at levels lower than historical flow rates.

SMC Consulting Engineers performed testing on the rainwater harvesting system prior to commissioning it. A sequence of operations was developed to simulate various phases of the harvesting system and evaluate its response mechanism to different scenarios. Similar testing was done for the storm water detention system. Both systems functioned per intended design and were commissioned once they met the set operational benchmarks.

The rainwater harvesting system is composed of 50 10-ft DoubleTrap pieces and holds more than 15,000 cu ft of storm water runoff collected from the roof catchment area. The stored water is utilized to irrigate the site‘s landscaping.

The storm water management systems allowed the project engineers to maximize the storage volume and minimize the project footprint to allow room for additional parking and reduce the overall cost. SMC Consulting Engineers found that both systems were easy to install, and their clear open configuration allows walk-through access for future inspection and maintenance.


1. All matches are 20 overs per side, with the teams divided into three groups - North (Derbyshire, Durham, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire), Midlands/West/Wales (Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Worcestershire), and South (Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex).

2. Matches start at 5.30pm (although there might be some changes to fit in with television schedules), with a 15-minute interval before the start of the second innings at 7.00pm.

3. Each innings should last no longer than 75 minutes.

4. Teams will incur a six-run penalty if they fail to bowl the full 20 overs within the 75 minutes.

5. New batsmen must be in position within 90 seconds of a wicket falling.

6. Only two fielders are allowed outside an inner circle during the first six overs of a team's innings.

7. Bowlers are permitted a maximum of a fifth of the total overs in a completed innings (ie four overs if there is no delay or interruption caused by rain).

8. Umpires can impose a five-run penalty for time-wasting by batsmen. They are expected to be ready as soon as the bowler is ready.

9. No-balls will be penalised by a free-hit next ball with standard rules on no-ball dismissals applying.

10. Each side must face a minimum of five overs for a match to be valid. The Duckworth-Lewis method will be used to calculate run targets in rain-affected games.

11. The three group winners and best second-placed team will progress to the semi-finals/final day on July 19.

12. The overall winners will receive £42,000, the runners-up £21,000 and the losing semi-finalists £10,000 each.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.


A sunny and warm Good Friday in the Greater Toronto Area had crowds of cyclists reaching for their bikes to take advantage of the first really nice riding day of the spring. While many took the opportunity to put in their first relatively big ride of the year, two students from the University of Toronto decided to take that to the next level and tackle a distance they’d never ridden before. Not many would decide to do an almost 300 km ride around the Niagara peninsula passing through Port Colborne, Fort Erie, Niagara Falls, Niagara on the Lake and Hamilton in mid-April.

On Thursday afternoon, Kamil Krawczyk made the decision to do a big ride and turned to the University of Toronto Road Racing team Facebook page to look for someone to join him. “I was feeling a bit down and overwhelmed with work and the progress of my PhD,” Krawczyk explained on Saturday afternoon after a morning of rest and recovery. “It’s been preventing me from enjoying cycling in the same capacity that I had enjoyed it for in the past. I felt that going on a long ride with nothing but the experience itself to think about would clear things up for me.”

It was not Krawczyk first big ride but it would be the biggest. In November 2014, Krawczyk rode a brevet with the BC Randonneurs and a friend from the University of British Columbia Cycling Team. That day put 257 km into his legs but that was almost three years ago.

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“I couldn’t quite grasp what a 300 km ride would feel like or if I was even physically fit enough to do one,” Krawczyk who is from B.C. explained about the challenge of the ride. “I had taken a two-year hiatus from cycling after moving to Ontario due to an injury, and only started training seriously again as of January. This was the biggest mental factor – the worry of not being up to snuff by this point just yet. I was training primarily for racing, and not for long distance endurance stuff. I tried to throw in the occasional century but nothing longer than a 100 km since the beginning of the year.”

With phenomenal weather with a high of 16 degrees on the day Krawczyk boarded the GO train from downtown Toronto to their starting point in Burlington. At around 9 a.m. the two riders started pedaling heading first through Dundas and then towards Port Colborne on Lake Erie. Across the Southern portion of the route along the northern shore of Lake Erie, the pair had a steady headwind meaning the going was a little slower than expected. On arrival to Niagara Falls, it was time to refuel and focus on the last portion of the ride.

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“Never try to get a meal at Niagara Falls when the weather is nice. It took half an hour to get two pizza slices and a drink, which on a normal day wouldn’t be such a big deal,” he said noting that the time constraint did make the long break problematic. “Because it was Good Friday, many places were closed especially in rural parts of the province. It was hard to find somewhere to fill up my bidons or grab a more protein-heavy snack.”

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With only five hours to make it back to Burlington, 100 km from Niagara Falls, the two riders buried themselves covering 62 km in less than two hours before needing to take another break to refuel.

“That’s what definitely made the last stretch so hard – we should have been a little smarter and conserved our energy for the last haul. I think what got me through those two hours was the worry of being stranded or having to ride back from Burlington to Toronto and the fact that I really, really wanted a cold Slurpee,” he recalled about the toughest part of the ride. “The last 40 km were the worst since I had nearly run out water and was starting to feel dehydrated. It was a relief to get back to the train station and fill my water bottle up a good four times.”

After the big spring ride, Krawczyk had some advice for others looking to tackle such a big ride. “Take some time to build up to it. If you haven’t done a 200 km trip, don’t try a 300 km trip just yet. Try to get accustomed to riding these distances and to supporting yourself. Make sure you’ve had a lot of sleep and a hearty meal the night before,” he said.

“Bring more than what you expect you’ll need – that goes for food, hydration and bike consumables, especially tubes and maybe a spare tire. Start early and don’t overexert yourself at the get-go,” he added. “You’ll need that energy more than you need at the end. And most importantly, don’t do it by yourself. Bring a friend for some moral support, conversation, and troubleshooting talks if need be down the road.”

The ride from the train station in Burlington took the pair 11 hours 35 minutes and covered 296.2 km. They also rode the distance between the train station to their apartments in Toronto making it a well over 300 km day. Upon arriving home, Krawczyk shared a screenshot of the Strava ride on Reddit and received 3347 upvotes and over 200 comments. It was a response he did not expect.

RELATED: How to recover from your first long ride of the season

“It definitely worked,” Krawczyk said about the experience bringing the joy of cycling back. “I couldn’t take my mind off of the beauty of southern Ontario. I was constantly telling my riding partner about how excited I was to go on these country roads, how the air was so fresh compared to the city and how this reminded me of home. I bet I got a little annoying. Most importantly, I was able to get back in tune with what I loved about this sport and clear my head.”


Team Liquid will not execute on its plan to split time in its mid-lane position between Greyson "Goldenglue" Gilmer and Austin "Link" Shin, and Link will move out of the team house this week, the team confirmed to ESPN on Wednesday.

Liquid is currently also pursuing former Team Dignitas coach David "Cop" Roberson and former Big Gods support Kevin "KonKwon" Kwon as player substitutes who will not actively rotate or live in the team house, according to sources close to all parties. Team Liquid declined to comment on Cop and KonKwon.

Editor's Picks League of Legends global power rankings through Feb. 7 FlyQuest soars while Dignitas plummets in the NA LCS. And bbq Olivers? It looks as good as ever, but the squad will be tested with tough matchups coming against SKT and Longzhu.

The team attempted to split practice time between Goldenglue and Link over the past few weeks but found the results were not adequate for Link to transition to the League Championship Series stage.

As a result, Link will return to his family home in the San Francisco area but remain as a listed and paid substitute on Team Liquid, in accordance with Riot Games' policy on substitutes. Liquid told ESPN it's willing to facilitate transfers for the player if another team has interest.

"We split scrims and also provided some focused solo queue practice, but the results were not there to support making a change in the mid-lane starting position at this time," Team Liquid co-CEO Steve Arhancet told ESPN. "We will continue to strive for excellence for the team to compete at the highest level and have to make decisions with the information for results in the timeframes we want them. Austin has an impeccable work ethic, extremely intelligent player and glad we will be maintaining the substitute position with him in just a different capacity."

Link, the mid-laner known for his time on Counter Logic Gaming, first joined Liquid on Jan. 5. The team intended to rotate him with Goldenglue in the mid-lane position, it announced at the time.

Before playing for Gravity Gaming and coaching Team Dignitas, Cop was the AD carry for Curse, the League of Legends team that merged with Team Liquid in December 2014. If the agreement with Liquid is completed, he will once again work with Arhancet, who at the time was the sole owner of Team Curse.


A former Amherst College student's account of being raped on campus — and the administration's contemptible response — is going viral on college campuses around the nation, so much so that the Amherst Student newspaper's website shut down for hours thanks to pageviews late last night. Some students at the elite liberal arts college say it's about time the public realizes Amherst is more concerned with keeping up appearances than clamping down on rape culture.

"Some nights I can still hear the sounds of his roommates on the other side of the door, unknowingly talking and joking as I was held down," wrote Angie Epifano, a former member of the Amherst class of 2014, in the Amherst Student article that's being circulated via social media and college listservs across the country. "I had always fancied myself a strong, no-nonsense woman...May 25th [2011] temporarily shattered that self-image and left me feeling like the broken victim that I had never wanted to be."

Epifano didn't report the rape — which she alleges was by an acquaintance, in a dormitory — until after the following February, when she had to work with her rapist on a fundraising project and couldn't deal with his smirks, winks, and pats on the back. She tried to seek help from Amherst's sexual assault counselor, which didn't go so well:

In short I was told: No you can't change dorms, there are too many students right now. Pressing charges would be useless, he's about to graduate, there's not much we can do. Are you SURE it was rape? It might have just been a bad hookup…You should forgive and forget. How are you supposed to forget the worst night of your life? I didn't know what to do any more. For four months I continued wondering around campus, distancing from my friends, and going to counseling center. I was continuously told that I had to forgive him, that I was crazy for being scared on campus, and that there was nothing that could be done. They told me: We can report your rape as a statistic, you know for records, but I don't recommend that you go through a disciplinary hearing. It would be you, a faculty advisor of your choice, him, and a faculty advisor of his choice in a room where you would be trying to prove that he raped you. You have no physical evidence, it wouldn't get you very far to do this.

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Epifano's 5,000 word piece details her consequent breakdown: she claims the school abruptly decided to admit her into a psychiatric ward after she made suicidal comments spurred by the despair she felt when her allegations were repeatedly ignored. Once inside, Epifano resolved to stop feeling ashamed by her rape. She returned to Amherst, experienced the same unsympathetic treatment from the administration, and ultimately decided to transfer. Her rapist graduated, with honors.

"The fact that such a prestigious institution could have such a noxious interior fills me with intense remorse mixed with sour distaste," she wrote. "I am sickened by the Administration's attempts to cover up survivors' stories, cook their books to discount rapes, pretend that withdrawals never occur, quell attempts at change, and sweep sexual assaults under a rug...Why can't we know what is really happening on campus? Why should we be quiet about sexual assault?"

Epifano's story is harrowing on its own, but it's not the only one coming out of the woodwork thanks to recent controversy over an offensive fraternity t-shirt and a subsequent campus-wide meeting regarding the administration's sexual misconduct policy and issues of "sexual respect" on campus.

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The clothing in question is care of "underground" fraternity Theta Delta Chi (TD), which holds an annual pig-on-a-spit "Bavaria"-themed party. Last year, the creative brothers came up with this design: a woman in her bra and thong, with bruises on her side and an apple jammed in her mouth, tied up on a spit over a fire, while a pig, cigar in hand, watches the woman roast.

"This is what sexism and misogyny look like at a so-called progressive, elite, liberal arts institution in 2012," wrote Amherst senior Dana Bolger — an on-campus rape survivor herself — on AC Voice, a student-run blog. Bolger decried the administration for holding "an unadvertised, effectively closed-door discussion with a handful of students and frat members" to remedy the situation, during which "boys-will-be-boys" comments ("We were just a bunch of drunk guys sitting around on a Friday night designing the shirt") and a blanket apology were deemed satisfactory. "The administration's inadequate response to the t-shirt incident was not an anomaly and seems part of a larger pattern of forgiving instances of violence against women on campus," Bolger wrote, continuing:

According to a Title IX committee meeting I attended last spring, Amherst has expelled only one student for rape in its entire history—and only after a criminal court sentenced him to time in jail. Meanwhile, our disciplinary committee has found other students guilty of sexual misconduct but ultimately permitted them to continue their Amherst educations. Faced with the non-choice of staying on campus with his/her rapist or leaving, many sexual assault survivors I know take time off, transfer, or drop out altogether.

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Bolger's blog post incited so much controversy that Amherst's president, Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, invited all 1,791 undergraduates to an open campus-wide discussion, which took place last Sunday, October 14th. According to the Amherst Student, a mixture of administrators, faculty, coaches, fraternity members and survivors of sexual assault attended to talk about the school's fraternities, lax punishments for misconduct, and ways in which students could more actively help reshape Amherst's sexual assault policy. The administration hasn't released any sexual assault statistics*, but the Amherst Student reported that "few cases have gone the full distance in the disciplinary process at the College." Of course, we have national statistics: 95% of campus attacks go unreported, according to the American Association of University Women. Two thirds of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.

"I also want to encourage you to think about other aspects of life at Amherst, both the positive and the less than positive, and to imagine what it would take to strengthen our sense of community, enhance your education outside of the classroom, and have more fun," Martin wrote in last Sunday's meeting announcement. "Fun?" Catherine Bryars ('12) asked us. "See how they're putting this in the fast route to get away from anything negative?"

Bryars, who is currently devoting her first post-grad year to pressuring Amherst's administration to revamp their sexual assault policies — as a graduate, it's easier for her to speak on behalf of her former peers who still have to spend every day on the small, rural campus — said that last year was an "explosive" one, thanks to the number of female students who opened up about how their on-campus sexual assaults had been mishandled. "Girls kept coming forward and saying that staff members had told them to consider sympathizing with their rapists, or go home for a period of time," Bryars said. "I think that the campus culture overall is to stay silent, to deny, to not come forth with dissent."

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Sunday's meeting was the administration's first attempt to challenge that assumption. Amherst's fraternities, which are technically banned on campus, were a big talking point; they're not allowed to hold on-campus parties or attend on-campus meetings, but many of them live together in suites on campus, and the Bavaria party at which the t-shirt was sold was held on campus. For this reason, the TD members who attended Sunday's meeting couldn't publicly acknowledge their fraternity membership. "Fraternities exist in a regulatory grey area where we all sort of pretend they don't exist," Emma Saltzberg ('13) told the paper. "It creates a culture where the administration agrees to look the other way. When you know that you exist in a grey area and that the administration is wiling to ignore your existence, that gradually turns into a culture of brazenness and in this instance, you see that people exploited that."

Therein lies one obvious (and bizarre) problem in need of a solution. The school's aforementioned lenient repercussions for sexual misconduct also came up often during the meeting: according to the Amherst Student, the record of sanctions released by the College last spring show that students found responsible for sexual assault were usually suspended for two to four semesters, while punishment for theft of a laptop resulted in five semesters' suspension. Another issue, raised by Bolger, is how students on the disciplinary committee are chosen from a very narrow pool that includes few women and is, therefore, hardly representative of the student body.

But it seems that the larger, underlying problem is Amherst's obsession with keeping up appearances. If the college continues to prioritize its reputation over the well-being of its female students, little will change. Bryars said she feels confident that Martin, who has only been president for a year, will eventually realize that Amherst is doing its students a major disservice by refusing to take sexual assault seriously. But will Martin and her administration risk tarnishing Amherst's storied reputation as the second best liberal arts school in the nation by doing so? Now — thanks to Epifano's widely-circulated essay and the efforts of students like Bryars and Bolger — it seems they won't have a choice.

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Update: President Martin has issued a response to Epifano's essay. An excerpt: "Clearly, the administration's responses to reports have left survivors feeling that they were badly served. That must change, and change immediately."

*Edit: According to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act Report, Amherst reported 15 on-campus forcible sex offenses in 2011.


Violence against men (VAM), consists of violent acts that are disproportionately or exclusively committed against men. Men are overrepresented as both victims[1][2] and perpetrators of violence.[3][4] Sexual violence against men is treated differently in any given society from that committed against women, and may be unrecognized by international law.[5][6][7][8]

Perceptions [ edit ]

Studies of social attitudes show violence is perceived as more or less serious depending on the gender of victim and perpetrator.[9][10][11] According to a study in the publication Aggressive Behavior, violence against women was about a third more likely to be reported by third parties to the police regardless of the gender of the attacker,[12] although the most likely to be reported gender combination was a male perpetrator and female victim.[12] The use of stereotypes by law enforcement is a recognised issue,[13] and international law scholar Solange Mouthaan argues that, in conflict scenarios, sexual violence against men has been ignored in favor of a focus on sexual violence against women and children.[14] One explanation for this difference in focus is the physical power that men hold over women making people more likely to condemn violence with this gender configuration.[15] The concept of male survivors of violence go against social perceptions of the male gender role, leading to low recognition and few legal provisions.[16] Often there is no legal framework for a woman to be prosecuted when committing violent offenses against a man.[17]

Richard Felson challenges the assumption that violence against women is different from violence against men. The same motives play a role in almost all violence, regardless of gender: to gain control or retribution and to promote or defend self-image.[18]

Writing for TIME, Cathy Young criticised the feminist movement for not doing enough to challenge double standards in the treatment of male victims of physical abuse and sexual assault.[19]

Domestic violence [ edit ]

In 2013 editor-in-chief of the journal Partner Abuse, John Hamel,[20] set up the Domestic Violence Research Group to create the "Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project (PASK)".[21] PASK found parity in rates of both perpetration and victimisation for men and women.[22]

Men who are victims of domestic violence are at times reluctant to report it or to seek help. According to some commentators there is also a paradigm that only males perpetrate domestic violence and are never victims.[23] Shamita Das Dasgupta and Erin Pizzey are amongst those who argue that, as with other forms of violence against men, intimate partner violence is generally less recognized in society when the victims are men.[24][25] Violence of women against men in relationships is often 'trivialized'[3][26][27] due to the supposed weaker physique of women; in such cases the use of dangerous objects and weapons is omitted.[3] Research since the 1990s has identified issues of perceived and actual bias when police are involved, with the male victim being negated even whilst injured.[28]

Female violence against men [ edit ]

According to the journalist Martin Daubney "...there remains a theory that men under report their experiences [of violence by women against men] due to a culture of masculine expectations.[29] The official figure in the United Kingdom, for example, is about 50% of the number of acts of violence by men against women, but there are indications that only about 10% of male victims of female violence report the incidents to the authorities, mainly due to taboos and fears of misunderstanding created by a culture of masculine expectations.[30] By comparison 1.9 million people aged 16–59 told the Crime Survey for England and Wales (year ending March 2017), that they were victims of domestic violence and 79% did not report their partner or ex-partner. Of the 1.9 million, approximately 1.2 million were female and 713,000 were male.[31] A Canadian report found that men were 22% more likely to report being victims of spousal violence in their current relationship than women.[30][32] Researchers Stemple and Meyer report that sexual violence by women against men is often understudied or unrecognized.[33]

Forced circumcision [ edit ]

[34] patented device designed to prevent masturbation by inflicting electric shocks upon the perpetrator, by ringing an alarm bell, and through spikes at the inner edge of the tube into which the penis is inserted. Circumcision was recommended to prevent masturbation.

Non-therapeutic male circumcision is considered, by several groups, to be a form of violence against young men and boys.[35][36] The International Criminal Court considers forced circumcision to be an "inhumane act".[35] Some court decisions have found it to be a violation of a child's rights.[37] In certain countries, such as Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and the United States, newborn baby males are routinely circumcised without the child's consent.[38][39] As well, the Jewish and Muslim faiths circumcise boys at a young age.[40] It is also practiced in Coptic Christianity and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.[39][41]

Any cutting whatsoever of a female's genitals, also known as female genital mutilation, has been banned in most Western countries, starting in Sweden in 1982 and the United States in 1997.[42] When Sweden outlawed it in 1982, it became the first Western country to do so.[43]:611 Several former colonial powers, including Belgium, Britain, France and the Netherlands, followed suit, either with new laws or by making clear that it was covered by existing legislation.[44][45][46]

Although a 2012 court ruling in Germany put the practice of male cutting under question, calling circumcision "grievous bodily harm," the German parliament passed a law to keep circumcision of boys legal.[47] As of 2016, cutting of boys' foreskins is still legal worldwide.[38]

Mass killings [ edit ]

Serbian victims during insurgency in the Kosovo War

In situations of structural violence that include war and genocide, men and boys are frequently singled out and killed.[48] The murder of targets by sex during the Kosovo War, estimates of civilian male victims of mass killings suggest that they made up more than 90% of all civilian casualties.[48]

Non-combatant men and boys have been and continue to be the most frequent targets of mass killing and genocidal slaughter, as well as a host of lesser atrocities and abuses.[49] Gendercide Watch, an independent human rights group, documents multiple gendercides aimed at males (adult and children): The Anfal Campaign,[50] (Iraqi Kurdistan), 1988 – Armenian Genocide[51] (1915–17) – Rwanda, 1994.[52] Forced conscription can also be considered gender-based violence against men.[53]

Sexual violence [ edit ]

In armed conflict, sexual violence is committed by men against men as psychological warfare in order to demoralize the enemy.[54] The practice is ancient, and was recorded as taking place during the Crusades.[55] Castration is used as a means of physical torture with strong psychological effects, namely the loss of the ability to procreate and the loss of the status of a full man.[55] International criminal law does not consider gender based sexual violence against men a separate type of offense and treats it as war crimes or torture.[56] The culture of silence around this issue often leaves men with no support.[57]

In 2012, a UNHCR report stated that "SGBV (sexual and gender based violence) against men and boys has generally been mentioned as a footnote in reports".[58] In one study, less than 3% of organizations that address rape as a weapon of war, mention men or provide services to male victims.[6][8][59] It was noted in 1990 that the English language is "bereft of terms and phrases which accurately describe male rape".[60]

Homicide [ edit ]

Homicide statistics according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics[61] Male offender/Male victim 65.3% Male offender/Female victim 22.7% Female offender/Male victim 9.6% Female offender/Female victim 2.4%

In the U.S., crime statistics from the 1976 onwards show that men make up the majority of the homicide perpetrators regardless if the victim is female or male. Men are also over-represented as victims in homicide involving both male and female offenders.[61] According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, women who kill men are most likely to kill acquaintances, spouses or boyfriends while men are more likely to kill strangers.[62] In many cases, women kill men due to being victims of intimate partner violence,[63] however it should be noted that this research was conducted on women on death row, a sample size of approximately 97 during the last 100 years.[64]

See also [ edit ]


Nothing gets out of a black hole—not even light. Once a star, a planet, a piece of dust, or even a single photon crosses the limit known as the event horizon, it’s not coming out again. Pulled into the crushing gravity of the singularity at the black hole’s heart, it vanishes from the universe.

That’s a big problem if what you really want from a black hole is a photograph. By definition, it’s impossible. All light getting sucked in means no light reflects back—so a black hole is invisible, across the spectrum. And, duh, invisible objects don’t show up in photographs.

But thanks to a new telescope, Tim Johannsen, an astrophysicist at the Perimeter Institute and the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, may be able to get a black hole pic after all. A loophole in physics means he might be able to see not the black hole itself, but its shadow. And, no big deal, but that photo just might overturn Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

So...wait. Black holes have shadows? Sort of. As gas and dust and other cosmic material approaches a black hole, “that stuff heats up, like millions and millions of degrees,” Johannsen says. That superheated matter swirls around the black hole in what’s called an accretion disk; because it’s so hot, the accretion disk emits a lot of light. Some of those photons zoom out towards Earthbound telescopes, while others cross the event horizon and fall into the void. So when astronomers look at a black hole, what they expect to see is a ring of bright light—the accretion disk—surrounding a circle of nothingness. That circle of nothingness is the shadow. (The black hole itself is just a single point within.) You can see a model of that here:

At least, that’s the idea. No one has ever actually seen a black hole’s shadow. “Despite their enormous mass, black holes are also exceedingly small,” says Avery Broderick, Johannsen’s colleague at the Perimeter Institute and the University of Waterloo. Seen from Earth, the shadow of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way (also known as Sgr A*, which astrophysicists pronounce “Saj-A-star”) is just 1/35,000,000th the width of the Moon, or 50 microarcseconds wide.

Here’s where that new telescope comes in. Maybe. Johannsen, Broderick, and their colleagues hope the Event Horizon Telescope will be able to resolve Sgr A*’s shadow. The EHT is actually nine telescopes (and counting), all working together and each located in a different spot on Earth. Coordinating those telescopes’ observations allows them to work as one big telescope that is, in essence, as big as the planet. The bigger your telescope, the higher your resolution. “The Event Horizon Telescope has the capability to produce the highest-resolution images in the history of astronomy”, Broderick says. “That means, for the first time, we can see what happens right down in the immediate vicinity of black hole event horizons.”

Scientists working on the EHT hope to see images in the spring of 2017. But they already have some ideas of what they’ll get. General relativity describes gravity not as a force drawing two objects together, but rather as the warped spacetime that governs each of those objects movements. Concentrate a big enough mass in a small enough region of spacetime, and its gravity will be inescapably huge—voila, you’ve got a black hole. If that sounds weird to you, well, it took 50 years for astronomers to discover that black holes were real objects, not just a quirk of general relativity’s math.

The problem is, general relativity is really good at describing giant things like stars, but breaks down utterly when it comes to really teeny tiny things like photons and quarks. To talk about those, you need a different theory: quantum mechanics. The central problem in physics today is that the theories are fundamentally incompatible. To figure that out, physicists are keen to find places where the theories overlap or break down—like, for example, the event horizon of a black hole.

General relativity doesn’t just predict the existence of black holes. It also precisely describes the size and shape of their shadows. Sgr A*’s shadow is supposed to be perfectly circular and 50 microarcseconds wide. “What would it look like if general relativity were wrong?” wonders Broderick (and just about every other astrophysicist on the planet). There are two possibilities. “The shadow could be more egg shaped,” says Johannsen. “That would be a smoking gun for a GR violation.” It might also be slightly smaller or bigger than general relativity predicts. All he needs to figure it out is the picture from the EHT. (Johannsen and Broderick just published a paper outlining their strategy in Physical Review Letters.)

And what if Sgr A*’s shadow doesn’t look the way general relativity says it should? Well, that would be great. If the results held up, physicists could start looking for alternative theories of gravity that did predict the shadow's size and shape. Success wouldn’t mean the new theory would automatically be the successor to general relativity, of course. But it’s a good way to figure out which theories might be on the right track, so you can give their other predictions a closer look.

Johannsen’s favorite possibility involves extra dimensions. A shortcoming of general relativity is that it doesn’t explain why gravity is so much weaker than the other fundamental forces. “Let’s assume there is another space dimension. Gravity would immediately penetrate that and become kind of diluted,” Johannsen says. In other words, gravity isn’t weak, it’s just working across more dimensions than the other forces. Amazingly, theories that predict those extra dimensions also predict a different size for Sgr A*’s shadow. In a couple years, finally proving—or falsifying—this weird new physics could “literally be as ‘easy’ as putting a ruler across the image,” Johannsen says.

“We’re getting this amazing opportunity to finally put Einstein to the test around the most enigmatic and striking predictions of this theory,” Broderick says. If Einstein is wrong, general relativity won’t go away—it’s too good at what it does. It just won’t be the whole story anymore. Isaac Newton was plenty right about how gravity worked here on Earth; Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the universe. But the universe is big enough to have room for someone to come along and do it again.


NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. -- A man is accused of reaching for a gun just before getting in a fight with a Wal-Mart loss prevention officer in a parking lot in New Hartford.

Police said were called around 8 p.m. Tuesday to the Wal-Mart at 4765 Commercial Dr. after two men were confronted by employees for stealing.

Tevin V. Joyner, 20, was being detained by loss prevention officers while 26-year-old Willie Alexander fled across the parking lot and toward the store's garden center, police say.

Witnesses told police that Alexander was trying to get rid of the gun when a loss prevention officer approached him.

The two fought after Alexander allegedly reached for the gun on the ground while the employee was trying to detain him.

New Hartford Police Officer Ann Marie Brelinsky took Alexander into custody when she arrived at the parking lot.

Joyner and Alexander are charged with misdemeanor petit larceny, while Alexander also faces a felony second-degree criminal possession of a weapon charge.

Both men were sent to the the Oneida County jail. Alexander is in custody without bail and Joyner was released Wednesday by a court order, records show.

Contact Jolene Almendarez anytime: 315-418-8746 | Email | Twitter | Facebook


The Wall Street Journal editorial board published a furious tirade Tuesday in response to President Trump’s “America First” immigration proposals, arguing that the proposals do not do enough to make open-borders Democrats happy and would lead to a “humanitarian calamity” if illegal immigrants are sent home.

“Does President Trump want a bipartisan deal on immigration, or is his talk merely for cable-TV show?” the outlet, which caters to a big business readership, wrote.

Trump’s proposal, believed to have been drafted by nationalist adviser Stephen Miller, would shield illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in return for a host of measures demanded by conservatives. Those include funding for the wall on the southern border, mandated use of E-Verify by employers, an increase in immigration agents, greater restrictions on which family members immigrants can bring, and a stripping of funds from so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Trump had cozied up to the Democrats shortly after announcing the repeal of the Obama-era DACA program in September — setting a six-month time limit for its expiration and urging Congress to make a deal. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) indicated that Trump had suggested funding for the wall had been jettisoned by Trump as a firm term, replaced instead by a vague “border security.” But the proposals announced late Sunday indicate a return to Trump’s “America First” campaign stance that helped him win the election in 2016.

However, the Journal described the demands as “everything that the restrictionist right has ever sought” and making an agreement “well-nigh impossible.”

The article pivots to its concern for cheap labor for big business, claiming that “tight visa caps” are sending high-tech jobs abroad and agricultural production to Mexico. Oddly, it claims that limiting chain migration for family members would encourage more illegal immigration — the argument apparently being that America should just let in potential illegal immigrants before they break the law.

As Breitbart News reported, this argument from the center-right outfit is in line with that being pushed by a number of left-wing media and advocacy groups claiming that such demands are “poison pills” because they will upset Democrats.

“It’s hard to know if Mr. Trump intends all this as a serious negotiating offer, or merely as poison pills,” the editorial board writes. The case for the latter is that he is demanding money for the wall, which he knows is a nonstarter with Democrats.”

The board essentially is arguing that Trump should give up on a central campaign promise because Democrats do not like it. However, it later says that he would be much better off going for the old talking point of a “virtual wall”:

If Mr. Trump feels he needs a symbolic wall victory, he’d be smarter to settle for a virtual wall with drones, aerostat blimps and towers with infrared sensors to fill gaps in fencing where the border patrol has difficulty accessing. Newer technology has facial recognition features that can capture biometric data. A virtual wall could be installed within months, not years, and it can be continually improved.

If such a wall is a real possibility and would actually work better than a real wall, it is unclear why the Journal thinks Democrats would fund this, either.

But after claiming for much of the article that Democrats would scupper the deal, the board admits that such demands would “have no chance of passing no matter which party controls Congress” — essentially conceding that the problem is not just the Democrats.

It finishes with the warning that if illegal immigrants are not granted amnesty via a DACA replacement, Democrats will “blame” Republicans for their deportation — despite this being a campaign promise from the president.

“This would be a humanitarian calamity, and a monumental lost political opportunity. Mr. Trump needs legislative victories to show he can govern, but his immigration bait and switch may guarantee another failure.”

The WSJ article is the latest in a broad attack from pro-big business interests. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s lobbying group has reportedly been lobbying top Republicans to prevent President Trump from including pro-American reforms as part of the amnesty for DACA recipients.

Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.


In a new systematic review in JAMA Neurology, Michigan Medicine researchers found reason to further explore the surprising effects of zolpidem that have been observed outside the scope of its primary Food and Drug Administration approval.

"We saw a dramatic effect in a small amount of patients with a variety of conditions," says Martin "Nick" Bomalaski, M.D., an outgoing resident physician in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. For one of the first systematic reviews of this unique effect, he spent two years combing through all the case studies and small trials that have been published.

Most of the patients who responded to zolpidem for noninsomnia neurological disorders had either a disorder of consciousness or a movement disorder, Bomalaski reports. That includes those in comas and vegetative states, and others with Parkinson's disease and dystonia. In addition, some other patients who had experienced a stroke or traumatic brain injury, or patients with dementia, were prescribed for a range of symptoms, including aphasia, apathy and motor coordination. In all, more than 20 neurological disorders were part of the review.

Significant but transient effects

For most patients who saw improvement after taking zolpidem, the effects tended to last one to four hours but were repeatable. Depending on the condition, progress was reported for coma recovery, dystonia, Parkinson's disease and other scales that measure motor, auditory and verbal abilities. Some patients improved to a minimally conscious state while others even tried to speak to their loved ones, for perhaps the first time in years. Some patients' functional neuroimaging results improved as well.

"This is one of those strange paradoxes where the effects of an insomnia drug seem to have the opposite effect for patients who have paralysis or neurologic conditions," says co-author Mark Peterson, Ph.D., M.S., FACSM, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and a member of U-M's Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation and Neuroscience Graduate Program. Some families will request zolpidem after finding a case study or news article online because they feel there are no other real options for their loved ones.

But zolpidem didn't work for everyone. The response rate in the reviewed articles was between 5 and 7 percent for patients with disorders of consciousness, and up to 24 percent or even higher for patients with movement disorders. For the subjects in this review, the most common adverse effect was that zolpidem did, in fact, sedate the patients as one would see in regular use of the drug. That happened in 13 of the 551 patients in the systematic review.

The first systematic review

Bomalaski has treated many patients affected with these disorders of consciousness and found the existing case reports quite interesting.

"I saw how these conditions affected their function and quality of life," he says. "To see that something as simple as an average dose of a sleeping medicine had, in 15 minutes, woken someone up from a vegetative state seemed extraordinary, and I wanted to pursue it further."

The initial search turned up more than 2,300 unique articles. After assessing the abstracts, Bomalaski's team reduced the articles to 89. Another screening included a full read of the 89 articles, leading to a systematic review of 67 of them. Most are considered low-level evidence, including case reports and small interventional trials.

Bomalaski reviewed the 67 articles for type of disorder, dosage of zolpidem, frequency, effect and any adverse effects. Only 11 of the studies had more than 10 participants, but all together, there were 551 participants.

Guidance for future research

"This kind of report brings up more questions than answers, although something like this is really foundational to guide a larger clinical trial," Peterson says. The next step is to study safety and efficacy, the authors say.

Another topic for more research is to assess whether the effects of zolpidem depend on the part of the brain that's injured. The researchers report zolpidem's unique effects may be present in patients whose basal ganglia, which help process information to perform an action, are no longer functioning correctly.

"The restorative effects on the basal ganglia may surpass the hypnotic effects on the frontal cortex," says Bomalaski, who is headed to the University of Washington for a brain injury fellowship.

"We still need to learn much more in order to answer the question about whether we should be using this in our clinical practice."

Article: Zolpidem for the Treatment of Neurologic Disorders: A Systematic Review, Martin N. Bomalaski, MD et al., JAMA Neurology, doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2017.1133, published online 26 June 2017.


If you're thinking that sounds a lot like CRISPR gene editing, the new rule seems to be targeting just that. As it stands, WADA already bars genetically modified cells and other types of gene therapy that can enhance performance, but the existing rules don't cover CRISPR-type methods.

The agency said that certain types of medical gene therapy might be allowed, as long as they don't significantly enhance athletic prowess. "Generally, performance enhancement implies enhancement beyond a return to normal, although you may appreciate that this is not always easy to prove definitively," WADA spokesperson Maggie Durand told New Scientist.

WADA seems to be well ahead of any actual cheating. Only one CRISPR trial with humans has been completed, a form of lung cancer treatment done at Sichuan University in China (dozens more are planned in the nation). Unlike regular drug doping, CRISPR requires sophisticated, expensive equipment and techniques, so it's not like shady MDs can do it their garages -- for now.

It's a good thing that WADA doesn't have anyone to catch yet, because it doesn't really seem to have any detection methods, either. When quizzed by New Scientist (Engadget has reached, out too) about how it plans to catch gene-editing cheaters, the agency had no response. It's been working on techniques to detect such doping for over ten years, but only came up with a single test least year. For now, the best method might be the "biological passport" that can detect significant changes in an athlete's body.


Results of a recent Gallup Poll reveal that the American public's trust in banks has hit a record low. Just 21 percent of Americans have faith in the nation's banks, the lowest recorded number since the poll was first taken in 1973. It is lower now than it was in 2009, in the teeth of the financial crisis.

One can speculate that, like distrust in Congress, this lack of faith appears across the political spectrum. From the left, banks are criticized for engaging in risky conduct that helped to bring about the Great Recession. Similarly, many on the populist right vilify government intervention designed to prop up poorly managed financial institutions as threatening capitalism itself. In many ways, this lack of faith is not surprising. Media reports routinely provide the general public with reminders of bank misconduct, whether in the illegal origination of loans, the shoddy packaging of mortgage-backed securities, excessive and ill-advised risk taking or the faulty prosecution of foreclosures. These revelations have had a profound impact on the general public's faith in financial institutions. Making matters worse, law enforcement's most recent attempt at uncovering and prosecuting bank misconduct in the lead up to and fallout from the financial crisis has gotten moving in only fits and starts. These forces -- public disenchantment with the banks, coupled with weak law enforcement -- are a toxic mix. They will fail to prevent future misconduct; what's worse, they may, in fact, encourage it.

Throughout the year, as more information comes out about bank misconduct before and after the financial crisis, public perception of the financial sector remains poor. Whether it's the $25 billion settlement of so-called "Robo-Signing" practices; revelations of the failure of Bank of America to disclose losses at Merrill Lynch when it asked its shareholders to approve purchase of the investment bank; the billions in trading losses at JP Morgan Chase; or the recent settlements of mortgage discrimination suits against Wells Fargo, Countrywide Financial Corporation and SunTrust Mortgage, the public receives constant reminders that our financial institutions have engaged in, and apparently continue to engage in, some very risky, and, at times, illegal, behavior.

At the same time, the law enforcement effort that was initiated as part of the Robo-Sign settlement, which is charged with reviewing bank practices both before and after the crisis, seems to have stalled. It is both underfunded and understaffed. While the S&L Crisis inquiry had a staff of over 1,000 lawyers and investigators, the current team is roughly one tenth the size, and does not seem capable of obtaining information about, let alone reviewing, the countless transactions and documents at the heart of the financial crisis.

What all of this means is that bankers and the general public are left with the distinct impression not only that fraud in the financial industry was widespread, but also that those guilty of it are not likely to face any punishment. Simply put, this is a very dangerous combination of forces, one that will only lead to precisely the type of behavior that led to the most recent financial crisis in the first place.

Perceptions of widespread misconduct, coupled with a belief that punishment of that misconduct is rare, leads to -- no surprise -- more misconduct. The field of behavioral economics teaches us that the extent to which we perceive others as complying with the law will likely influence our willingness to obey or break it ourselves. If we think others are complying, we are likely to behave similarly. If we believe others are breaking it, we will not wish to be seen as the suckers, the ones following rules that everyone else ignores. A now-famous study of the behavior of individuals who frequented a national park reveals how these forces work. In instances where park goers were confronted with signs that led them to think many people engaged in improper conduct in the park, fewer people were willing to forego such conduct for fear they would be missing out on something. By contrast, efforts that communicated the importance of pro-social behavior in the park resulted in more conduct that conformed to the rules. Similarly, and not unexpectedly, whenever the public believes that many people cheat on their taxes, and enforcement of such tax cheats is weak, there is more likely to be more tax evasion, not less.

All signs indicate that the current situation finds just these types of forces at work. First, there is a widespread mistrust of banks, one that is fueled by a perception that in the lead up to the crisis banks were routinely engaged in improper and even illegal conduct (whether such perceptions are justified or not). Second, law enforcement officials seem somewhat limited in their ability to hold financial institutions accountable for the illegal conduct, despite having made some headway recently in the area of punishing mortgage discrimination. Since at the heart of the financial crisis lies a range of bank misconduct, an atmosphere filled with the widespread perception of misconduct, coupled with little fear that lawbreakers will be held accountable, could send us back to a second financial crisis.

In order to rein in unnecessary risk and fraudulent behavior, what is needed now is a robust, serious and sustained effort to root out, expose and prosecute those illegal acts that led to the financial crisis. Once that is done, faith in the financial sector can be restored; the public will know that the misconduct has been addressed, and those responsible brought to justice. Moving forward, bankers will want to uphold their improved reputations, and will fear punishment should they fail to do so.