Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. Many of us bought our beloved “pets” at pet shops, had guinea pigs, and kept beautiful birds in cages. We wore wool and silk, ate McDonald’s burgers, and fished. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?
In his book Animal Liberation, Peter Singer states that the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration. This is an important distinction when talking about animal rights. People often ask if animals should have rights, and quite simply, the answer is “Yes!” Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and exploitation. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, stated that when deciding on a being’s rights, “The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” In that passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language or higher mathematics. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Whenever we consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account.
Supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth—a value completely separate from their usefulness to humans. We believe that every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering. Animal rights is not just a philosophy—it is a social movement that challenges society’s traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use. As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, “When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife.”
Only prejudice allows us to deny others the rights that we expect to have for ourselves. Whether it’s based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or species, prejudice is morally unacceptable. If you wouldn’t eat a dog, why eat a pig? Dogs and pigs have the same capacity to feel pain, but it is prejudice based on species that allows us to think of one animal as a companion and the other as dinner.
'Art in the Streets' has earned the museum accolades from the art world. But in glorifying graffiti, it celebrates a crime that destroys the city's vitality.
The Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles is celebrating graffiti, but not on its own property. MOCA's pyramid-topped headquarters on Grand Avenue is conspicuously tag-free. In Little Tokyo, the museum has always painted over the graffiti that appears occasionally on the outside walls of the Geffen Contemporary, its satellite warehouse exhibition space. And now that its latest show — proudly billed as the first major American museum survey of street art — has triggered a predictable upsurge of vandalism in the area, MOCA is even cleaning up graffiti on neighboring businesses.
Why is that? "Art in the Streets" suggests no answer. The exhibition honors such alleged high points in graffiti history as the first cholo tag on the Arroyo Seco parkway and the defacement of L.A.'s freeway signs, without the slightest hint that graffiti is a crime, that it appropriates and damages property without permission and that it destroys urban vitality.
In fact, MOCA's practice of removing graffiti from its premises represents cutting-edge urban policy. Over the last three decades, urban theorists have come to understand the harmful effects of graffiti on neighborhood cohesion and safety. An area that has succumbed to tagging telegraphs to the world that social and parental control there has broken down. Potential customers shun graffiti-ridden commercial strips if they can; so do most merchants, fearing shoplifting and robberies. Law-abiding families avoid graffiti-blighted public parks, driven away by the spirit-killing ugliness of graffiti as much as by its criminality.
But MOCA's hypocrisy in glorifying a crime that it would never tolerate on its own property is easily matched by the two-faced behavior of graffiti vandals themselves. They often dress up their egotistical assault on other people's property with defiant rhetoric about fighting corporate power and capitalism. (How spraying your tag on a bodega on Cesar Chavez Boulevard weakens corporations is never explained, of course.) But what happens when these scourges of profit and bourgeois values see an opportunity to get rich? They turn into unapologetic capitalists.
Britain's Banksy sells his stencils for thousands of pounds at auction. Sticker and poster vandal Shepard Fairey widely promotes his extensive line of clothing and collectibles. Saber, lionized by MOCA for having painted what is reputed to be the largest-ever tag on the "banks" of the Los Angeles River, near where the 5 Freeway meets the 10, has sold designs to Levi's, Hyundai and Harley-Davidson.
"Art in the Streets" co-curator and longtime graffiti promoter Roger Gastman vaunts the corporate clients that he brands with graffiti chic. None of these lucrative arrangements would be possible without a stable system of property rights, which graffiti vandals respect only when their own wealth is involved.
Good luck to parents trying to keep their children away from a tagging lifestyle, now that word is out that a fancy downtown museum has honored graffiti with a major exhibit. And those children who visit the show will learn that MOCA thinks tagging is cool — just look at that life-size, animatronic tagger endlessly spraying his tag high up on a wall!
It might have been possible to mount a show that acknowledged the occasionally compelling graphic elements of urban art without legitimizing a crime. Such an exhibit wouldn't include glamorizing photos of freeway, subway or L.A. River vandalism — and would unequivocally condemn appropriating someone else's property without permission. "Art in the Streets" does not come close to that standard.
Schoolchildren who deduce from the show that graffiti is a route to fame and contracts with Nike will have about as realistic an understanding of their career odds as boys who think they don't have to study because an NBA contract awaits them. Every hour that a student is out tagging is an hour not spent studying, attending school or getting crucial sleep — all activities essential to future success.
In January, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top financial advisor recommended cuts to the city's graffiti-abatement budget. City Council members and the mayor himself rose up in protest.
"Art in the Streets" gives no clue why Angelenos should care so much about graffiti eradication. Indeed, if graffiti is the boon that "Art in the Streets" suggests, why should taxpayers shell out $7 million a year to have it painted over? If, however, the public is right to demand its removal, why is MOCA promoting it? I asked MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch whether Los Angeles should suspend its graffiti removal efforts. "I don't know," he responded.
The ultimate responsibility for "Art in the Streets" lies with MOCA's buzz-hungry trustees, from Eli Broad on down. When Deitch first proposed a graffiti exhibit, any conscientious trustee should have asked himself: "Would I welcome unauthorized 'street art' by some Saber wannabe on my immaculate mansion or business?"
In case the answer is not obvious, let's listen to the taggers themselves. "I've never written on my own house," a former tagger from Gardena's Graffiti Bandits Krew told me. He was waiting to get his tattoos removed at Homeboy Industries downtown. "I wouldn't like it if someone else did it on my house."
Another ex-tagger from Graffiti 'N' Drugs in Pico Rivera finds my question about whether he would tolerate graffiti on his home silly. "Why would you want to [ louse] up your own house?" he asked me. "That's why you go out and mess up other people's cities."
MOCA's administration shares a defining trait with the graffiti vandals whom the museum is celebrating: self-indulgence. The graffiti criminal combines the moral instincts of a 2-year-old with the physical capacities of an adult: When he sees a "spot" that he wants to "mark," he simply takes it. Deitch and his trustees can toy with graffiti's "outlaw vibe" (as co-curator Aaron Rose euphemistically puts it), knowing full well that their own carefully ordered lives will be untouched by graffiti's ill effects.
But large swaths of Los Angeles and other urban centers are not so protected. "Art in the Streets" has already earned MOCA accolades from the art world, but it will only increase the struggles of Los Angeles' poor communities — and its not-so-poor ones too — to enjoy the security and order that the wealthy take for granted.
Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor with the Manhattan Institute's City Journal
“Inside Job,” the Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Charles Ferguson, takes a piercing look at the financial crisis. Told through the lens of economists like Nouriel Roubini and investors like George Soros, the film lays much of the blame on Wall Street and a revolving door of regulators, many of whom came straight from the big banks.
Andrew Ross Sorkin of DealBook caught up with Mr. Ferguson to discuss what Wall Street thought of his work, regulatory reform and the filmmaking process. What follows is an edited version of the discussion.
Q.
What type of reaction have you gotten from Wall Street?
A.
Most of the people with whom I’ve spoken on Wall Street have reacted positively to the film.
Q.
Despite the dim view that it often takes of Wall Street?
A.
Yes, I would say actually because of the dim view that it takes of Wall Street. Of course, I am sure there are people who are very displeased by the film. But they haven’t spoken with me, I guess.
Q.
Have you had any encounters with people who were in the film?
A.
I had a rather interesting encounter with William Dudley, who is now the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York actually requested a screening of the film, and a meeting with me. He attended.
Q.
What did he say?
A.
Well, he said that he was broadly happy with and in agreement with the film, which surprised me a little bit. But he was in front of a bunch of his employees. That may have had an effect on the way he conducted himself. I don’t know.
Q.
One of the criticisms you hear about the film is that it focuses somewhat conspiratorially on Wall Street but doesn’t lay any blame on individuals like homeowners. How do you respond to that?
A.
It’s there in the film, briefly. Perhaps it deserved another five minutes in the film, I don’t know. That’s a kind of subjective thing. I guess my own view was that it wasn’t the core of what occurred, and therefore wasn’t the focus of the film.
Q.
Many of those who are on the police force today arguably were at the scene of the crime at the time — whether it be the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner; the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke; or others. When you look at the environment today, after the passage of regulatory reform, do you feel any better?
A.
Not much. I think it is a very disturbing situation, and that says something very disturbing about the condition of American politics. There has been very little change. Many people when they voted for Barack Obama and Congress thought that this problem would be dealt with.
But it hasn’t been, and in fact, the people running economic and regulatory policy in the Obama administration are in many cases people who contributed to causing the crisis. In some cases, there’s fairly clear evidence that they conducted themselves in very, very unethical ways.
Q.
What is the single issue that you worry about most today?
A.
Well, I think that I would name two. One of them is that in another 10 years this could happen again. The other — which is related but in some ways even more disturbing — is that there has been no justice.
Q.
What do you think now of Wall Street’s compensation practices, an issue that seemed to pervade much of the film?
A.
I don’t have a problem with people getting wealthy if they work hard, contribute to society and do valuable things. There are people in Silicon Valley who are enormously wealthy. But for the most part they are enormously wealthy because they did something useful and valuable.
The problem here is that in finance people can get enormously wealthy by causing enormous damage to many other people. And that hasn’t been stopped. That’s part of why I am concerned that this could happen again in another decade.
Q.
One of the most striking moments in the film involved Glenn Hubbard, formerly the chief economic adviser to President George W. Bush and now the dean of Columbia Business School. In the scene, you ask Mr. Hubbard rather pointedly about his consulting relationships with financial firms.
Since the movie has come out there has been a lot of discussion about such relationships and about creating a new code of ethics for academics and economists. Has progress been made?
A.
There has been a lot of conversation about it, and there is some progress in that regard. And that does make me happy that there has been that progress. The progress so far is very limited and very incomplete, but at least things are going in the correct direction.
Q.
With contentious interviews like the one involving Mr. Hubbard, do subjects ever get the feeling there’s been a bait and switch?
A.
There was no bait and switch. Essentially, everyone interviewed for the film was given the same information. We told them who we were. A few people asked for my C.V., or information about me, which we supplied. We said that we were making a documentary. We described the subject of the documentary.
Some people had further detailed questions. Most didn’t. Glenn Hubbard did not. We asked him to be interviewed. He agreed to be interviewed.
Q.
Any reaction afterward?
A.
Obviously, some of those people were extremely unhappy. But, you know, too bad.
Oh, Princess Beatrice -- the hat she presumably thought was a lovely choice for Prince William and Kate Middleton's royal wedding turned out to be a royal disaster, prompting the scorn of thousands of Facebook users. Their hate wasn't necessarily for all hats, but rather specifically for the one perched Friday on Beatrice's high-profile head.
The 22-year-old took a risk donning headgear that many thought would be more appropriate for Lady Gaga, and the risky hat choice quickly backfired for her on Facebook. Witness the emergence of "Princess Beatrice's ridiculous Royal Wedding hat," a group dedicated to her headgear that had received more than 18,000 "likes" just hours after the ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Has any topper since Aretha Franklin's unforgettable inauguration hat seen such biting abuse?
Beatrice, the daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, stepped out at the fairy tale wedding in a sculptured ribbon topper made by London milliner Philip Treacy, a native of Ireland who trimmed the tops of dozens of guests at the wedding including Victoria Beckham, Zara Phillips and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
But when the hat-crowned Beatrice and her sister Princess Eugenie, 21, emerged from their ride, one comparison rang clear: The evil "Cinderella" stepsisters Anastasia and Drizella had arrived.
"She paired that disgusting hat with HORRIBLE make-up! The racoon eyes have to go! Not a fan of Eugenia's dress either! I'm sure these girls can consult a stylist, but maybe they should start with a mirror!" wroteTara Noe Armstrong.
"Later she sets the hoop on her hat on fire and has little tigers jump through it for the amusement of the guests at the reception," addedColleen Fagan.
"I am a fan of Philip Treacy and I loves me some crazy hats ... but Princess Beatrice's hat wasn't the best choice for a wedding -- anyone's wedding. Anything THAT high shouldn't be that solid. It is reminiscent of overdone fondant icing -- only beige. Ew...Anyway, I do respect Bea for recycling and wearing her grandma's 1961 theatre coat. {*stifled giggles*}," musedRichard Ian Tracy.
Just 12 hours after the royal wedding ceremony began, the Beatrice-hat Facebook page had reached more than 35,000 likes and counting. Our MOG readers had quite a few pithy words to add to the conversation as well. Here's a sampling:
J Crowley: Pretty sure that thing's a Stargate
Shirley Zager: She looks like a raccoon that mated with an octopus.
EC Hudson: It wasn't any more ridiculous that anyone else's hat - and it could double as a fun wedding reception game (toss a canape thru the loop).
John: I am currently at the eye doctor hoping he can restore my sight since I was blinded by Beatrice's bloody hat !!!!
Lynn Roberts: Do they live in a house without mirrors?
Rick Baker: Those Brits like them some crazy hats, which actually is kind of unique and cool but that thing looks like the hood ornament on Santa's sleigh.
Is having a sweet tooth okay, or should you fight it at all costs? The truth is that sweet cravings are tough to resist. In fact, our first craving from birth is sugar, delivered via our mother's milk. It may surprise you to learn that human breast milk has the highest carbohydrate (sugar) content among mammals' milk, delivering large amounts of energy in the form of lactose. As babies, we are drawn to the sugary sweet taste of breast milk; it's the first flavor that we begin to desire, so why wouldn't we crave sugar for life? A sweet tooth, for the purpose of this blog, is defined as wanting something sweet after your regular meal -- not to be confused with real hunger that can create a sweet tooth.
These cravings are not new to the human experience; rather they have been ingrained in us all along. We all know what it is like to long for certain foods depending on our mood, our environment and our own taste preferences. But did you know that human interest in sweets can be traced back as far as 500 B.C. (and probably even further), when people in India boiled sugar cane to extract sucrose for crystallization into candy? If we've been satisfying our sweet cravings for such a long time, why is it that we are so obsessed by them now?
The answer is that modern life requires us to work longer hours, sleep less, stress more, skip meals and cut carbs -- all factors that contribute to our desire for sweet treats. Our constant exposure to convenient foods presents us with a daily battle against overindulgence. The problem really isn't that we have these cravings in the first place -- it's that our inattention to hunger cues causes us to overeat. On top of that, the environment we live in has changed dramatically in a short period of time and now we can have fast food at our fingertips any time of day.
Just think, it's 3 p.m.: You're at work, feeling tired and stressed, and you've skipped breakfast and only had lettuce for lunch. Then you imagine a chocolate-chip cookie. If you are like most people in America, it doesn't take much to make this fantasy cookie munch-down reality. Right outside your office, you have your choice: skip over to a Starbucks, walk over to Walgreens or bounce over to the bakery. Voila! That cookie is yours.
One hundred years ago, you would likely have had to obtain the ingredients, often going to great lengths to get your hands on what we now consider to be basic staples like flour, sugar and spices. Lots of effort for a small reward, right?
Now, there are those folks who believe that sugar is evil, toxic and addictive, and there are those who don't agree. I believe that the over-consumption of sugar, as well as the increased intake of extreme processed and fake sugars, is unhealthy, and that the best bet to quench your desire for sweets is to maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle -- and to address your cravings as they come up. Ask yourself, am I really interested in something sweet, or are am I just in need of some energy? Most sugar cravings are primal cues to eat, signals that the body requires additional energy, rather than symptoms of an addiction.
Today, our world is shaped by instant gratification and if we allow ourselves to give in every time we have a craving, we will inevitably end up gaining weight. We are facing a culture that favors quantity over quality, so we must arm ourselves with the knowledge, awareness and support needed to fight the call to consume, which is coming at us from every direction, each and every day.
Many clients tell me about their untamable desire for sweets. They believe that in order to lose weight, they have to eliminate sweet treats completely. When cravings crop up, they often eat one healthy snack after another in an attempt to fight the desire -- a habit which can add up to 800 calories at a time, when a few sweet treats might only add 150 calories. I say, enjoy a sweet treat now and then and moderate the portion.
Nothing's wrong with having a sweet tooth. Choose your treats wisely and respect your health by choosing quality over quantity, but, most of all, enjoy the whole experience of eating: from choosing your foods to cooking them to finally consuming them! Right now, you may feel guilty about your sugar cravings and pressured to fight the temptation to indulge, but please don't restrict yourself as this will only set you up to binge later on. Instead, allow yourself to have a reasonable amount of a sensible sweet snack.
So celebrate your sweet tooth instead of trying to fight it because, let's face it -- we were born to crave sugar. Practice your portion control and, most importantly, make sure that you eat all of your meals every day so that you don't confuse a sweet tooth with real hunger. Drop the guilt and treat yourself to something sensibly sweet today!
Manuel Villacorta is a registered dietitian in private practice in San Francisco, California. He is a national media spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and the founder of Eating Free.
It's one of the oldest adages of the retail world: "The customer is always right."
Of course, very often the customer is wrong. Every day customers behave in ways that make the lives of waiters, cashiers, customer service reps and other retail workers miserable. And in many cases, these customers don't even realize how annoying they're being.
To rectify this, we've decided to talk to the people on the other side of the desk, with the hope of educating consumers on what sort of behavior makes life difficult for the people serving them. In the first part of the series we spoke to people in the restaurant industry, and in part two we asked hotel workers how to be a responsible guest. We turn now to the airline industry, where we asked flight attendants and customer service representatives for tips on keeping the skies friendly.
Get Off the Phone
This is a common complaint in most retail industries, but it bears repeating here: It's rude to talk on the phone while interacting with the person behind the counter. And when you're at the airport checking your bags, it slows things down for everyone, says Mary Ann DeVita Goddard, a former customer service representative for Continental Airlines.
"Passengers would walk up, stand in front of you, continue their conversation, and expect you to know where they were going and how many bags they were checking," she recounts.
Respect the people behind the counter enough to put your phone away when you're speaking with them. And if not for their sake, do it for the people behind you who are delayed by your chatty ways.
We Don't Want Your Germs
If there's one thing worse than seeing a passenger approach with a phone glued to his ear, it's seeing a passenger approach with a ticket in his mouth.
"When they had to show their ID, they would walk up with it in their mouth," recalls Goddard, who worked at both baggage check and at the gate. "It was the same with the boarding pass. And they would expect you to take it."
We've all been there -- you've got your hands full with bags, and you want easy access for your ID or boarding pass, so you wind up holding it in your mouth. But handing someone a ticket that was just in your mouth is extremely gross. Put it in your pocket.
The Tray Table Is Not a Changing Table
Speaking of gross, please note that the tray tables are for eating, not for changing diapers.
"There are passengers that are traveling with babies who don't realize the airplane has changing tables in the lavatory, so they'll try to change babies on the seat or tray," says Bobby Laurie, a flight attendant who blogs about his experiences on the Inflight Team blog network. "People will eat off that table, and it's not cleaned after every flight."
We repeat: The tray tables are not cleaned after every flight, and even if they were, changing a diaper on a surface that someone is going to eat off is not OK. Be considerate of future passengers, and don't put the flight attendants in the position of having to stop you mid-diaper change.
Speaking of Babies ...
There are few air travel topics more controversial than babies and small children on planes, and if it's a headache for passengers, it's a safe bet that it's a major headache for the flight attendants who have to deal with both the crying babies and the passengers complaining about said babies.
Laurie acknowledges that there are no good solutions to the problem, short of RyanAir's (probably fake) plan to offer child-free flights. He does recommend bringing ear plugs if you don't have noise-canceling headphones, and suggests that passengers traveling with babies bring a supply of earplugs for surrounding passengers.
Most importantly, he says to recognize that flight attendants aren't babysitters.
"Some people just pass their babies off to you when they go to the bathroom, but we're not here for that," he says. "[And] realize that airlines don't have stuff to keep kids occupied, so come prepared with games and books."
Everyone Has to Be Somewhere
When flights are delayed or overbooked, the customer service representative manning the gate can quickly become the most put-upon person in the terminal. And that's especially true if there aren't enough passengers willing to be voluntarily bumped from the flight, which means that someone with a ticket isn't getting on.
"Some people come up and bang on the counter and scream and yell," recounts Goddard, who says she always had a lot of sympathy in these situations. "If I thought I was going on vacation and I got bumped, I would be disappointed, too."
Still, she urges travelers to understand that shouting your way onto the plane means someone else gets bumped instead -- someone who could have an even greater need for getting to their destination on time.
"Everyone has to be somewhere, but some people really need to be somewhere, like if they're visiting a sick family member or going to a funeral," she says.
Situations like these aren't fun for anyone, and passengers have a right to feel aggrieved. But screaming will only make someone else's day worse, and if you have a pressing need to depart on time, your best bet is to politely state your case.
Take Your Seat ...
Not all seats are created equally, and if you're on a flight that isn't sold out you might be inclined to stake out better real estate -- say, a seat that's further from the lavatory or that has more leg room. But wait until the plane is in the air and the seatbelt light is off to go searching for greener pastures, because the plane can't take off until you're seated.
"There is tremendous pressure on gate agents and flight attendants to get flights out on time," says Erik, a flight attendant for a major airline who asked that we didn't use his full name. "We have to answer for it later if the flight is late, so someone wandering around the plane looking for that first-class experience that they didn't pay for when everyone else is ready to go ... is obnoxious."
... And Listen to the Flight Attendants
Sure, the flight attendant said to stow your carry-on bag under the seat in front of you. But as long as it's out of the way, it doesn't matter where you put it, right?
"Let's say you abort the takeoff and come to a screeching halt on the runway, or skid off the edge of the runway and come to an abrupt stop -- the bags are going to move forward," explains Erik. "No one is going to want another persons' or their own carry-on bag sticking out and blocking their egress in a smoke-filled cabin."
In other words, it's for your own safety. The same holds true for putting your tray up ("Nothing like getting snagged on a tray table while trying to escape from a burning airplane," he says) and turning off your cell phone. That last one has plenty of dissidents, who argue that a single phone can't interfere with the plane's communications. But phones can also serve as a distraction during take-off and landing, when accidents are most likely.
Overhead Etiquette
"The overhead bin is shared space, and each bin should fit three people's luggage in it," says Erik. "But sometimes that one passenger will put their jacket, briefcase, and roll-aboard suitcase in there. What about the other two people in that row?"
Hogging the overhead bins is not only inconsiderate to your fellow fliers, it also makes things tough for the flight attendants, who get blamed by the other passengers when they can't find room for their own luggage.
And when it comes to actually loading your luggage, don't just set your bag down and expect the flight attendant to do it for you. Laurie says that workplace safety regulations dictate that flight attendants are only supposed to help you guide the bag into the compartment -- not lift it for you.
"Passengers will pack their carry-on to the point where they can't even lift it, then expect us to lift it for them," says Laurie. "Technically we're not supposed to lift it unless you're disabled or elderly."
Martha Elena Flores Cura: Continental Lost My Husband's Body!
Getty Images
Every now and then news comes about that airlines have lost a traveler's pet or Miranda Kerr's wedding gown, but this is one extreme we were not expecting: a Monterrey, Mexico woman is suing Continental Airlines for misplacing her dead husband's body, the Monitor reports.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, Martha Elena Flores Cura and her niece, Ludivina Rivera, claim Continental Airlines lost the remains of her common-law husband, Humberto Rivera, while transporting his casket from Atlanta to McAllen airport in Texas in August 2009.
The family's lawyer, Javier Villareal, told the paper: "The family was obviously very upset. Not only do they have to deal with the loss of their (relative), but these guys were looking for the body to see what happened to it after it was delivered."
Rivera claims she hired a man to pick up her uncle's body at McAllen airport and drive it to Monterrey for the funeral. His body was meant to be flown on August 21, 2009. But the hired driver was told by the Atlanta funeral home where Rivera's body was held that the flight had been postponed three days.
When the driver met with a Continental representative the day before Rivera's remains were due to be flown, he was told that someone else had already picked up the body. The lawsuit claims that "Continental advised (the driver) that the body was missing and that it was not Continental's problem."
The hired driver filed a report with local police on August 24th, three days after the original flight. Less than twelve hours later, Rivera's remains were located at a Brownsville funeral home and were returned to Continental.
The family's lawyer, who refused to provide the dollar amount being sought in the suit, told the paper:"You can imagine the toll that would be on a family where a loved one was supposed to be delivered. It's very disturbing."
A hearing is set for June 8th. Continental Airlines did not return calls by AOL Travel for comment.
Whether it's those lurking peak wedding months or the daily talk of royal nuptials, marriage is a subject we're hearing a lot about lately. Feelings about this trend seem to range from wild enthusiasm to mild resentment. Forgetting for a minute the adversity surrounding the institution of marriage and setting all ceremony aside, stripped down to its barest of bones, marriage is really just a long-term commitment to a serious intimate relationship.
Regardless of one's feeling about marriage, the idea of a lasting romantic relationship is of much significance to most people. So, despite this post's provocative name, what I really wish to offer here isn't so much a lecture on why a person isn't married but an explanation of why many people aren't able to form a lasting union with someone they love.
For many couples, the honeymoon phase is over before they even make it down the aisle. The reasons for this can be many, but one of them is a prevailing fear of intimacy. In nearly 30 years of research into the psychology of interpersonal relationships, both I and my father, psychologist and author Robert Firestone, Ph.D., have closely followed hundreds of clients and case studies of couples. In our research we have found overwhelming consistency in certain behavioral patterns that systematically sabotage real intimacy.
First off, the search for a partner to whom we feel a real attraction and deep connection is a challenge that it would be foolish to underestimate. The idea of a soul mate is a pleasing way to maintain faith that there is that perfect someone out there just waiting to complete us. The trouble is that when we seek this someone, we don't just look for a person who enhances our every attribute; we also look for people who match with our negative traits or fill holes leftover from our past.
If we are used to taking control, we may seek someone who is passive. If we are used to being a wallflower, we may seek someone who dominates conversations. Though the match may seem to work well or make us feel secure in the beginning, eventually we grow to resent our partners for the very quality that drew us to them in the first place.
As I wrote in my recent blog "Why You Keep Winding Up in the Same Relationship," the romantic choices we make are heavily informed by our early life experiences. If we grew up being treated as incompetent, it's very likely that we will seek out a partner who perceives us as incompetent. If we were intruded on, we're likely to choose someone who is overly attentive, focused or jealous. Conversely, we may seek someone who compensates for our pasts by acting distant or aloof. These often unconscious negative motivators reside within us like mis-attuned matchmakers, driving us toward destructive partners.
For example, a woman who grew up feeling rejected by her parents found herself choosing men who were distant and resistant to commitment. When she finally met someone who showed a real interest in her, however, she struggled to accept his affections. Even though her partner possessed the traits she'd thought she wanted, in many ways it was more comfortable to her to choose a more rejecting personality that fit familiarly into her previous self-image and past experience.
Going against our negative instincts and choosing someone who brings out the best in us is the first step toward finding lasting love. Yet, even when we find someone who is "good for us," there are many things we do to push love away.
In "Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage," author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, "I mean, once the initial madness of desire has passed and we are faced with each other as dimwitted mortal fools, how is it that any of us find the ability to love and forgive each other at all, much less enduringly?"
Every human is flawed. Perfect soul mates don't exist, because perfect people don't exist. We have all been hurt in very particular ways that then allow us to hurt those close to us in other very particular ways. One of the ways we hurt our relationship is by distorting our partners. The flaws that drive us away from a loved one don't just appear the minute we move in or say "I do." They were there from the beginning when we weren't as likely to blow them out of proportion.
Yes, it is true, that often the closer we get to someone, the more driven we become to push them away. This is also a side-effect of a fear of intimacy lingering below the surface and warning us not to be too vulnerable or too intimate. However, this fear also motivates us to react to our partners in ways that are excessively controlling, critical and unkind. We start to read negative intent into our partner's actions and seek hidden meaning in their words. We can take a behavior as simple as a delay in unlocking the passenger door to a car as insensitive, or we can feel hurt by something as natural as our partner choosing to spend an evening out with friends.
When we sense ourselves becoming mean and critical of our partner, we should take note of how we may be distorting him or her. It's important to be aware of an internal coach informing us of our many faults as well as those of our partner. Be wary of a critical inner voice telling us to be upset, suspicious and mistrusting.
That voice may be saying things like, "Where is he tonight? I can't believe he didn't call you. He's so insensitive." Or, "All that she ever does is nag at me. Why won't she just leave me alone?" These thoughts are rarely entirely accurate representations of our partners. Still, the more we react to them, the more we actually provoke these characteristic in our partners. Worse yet, we accomplish the very goal of our critical inner coach; we create distance from our partner by failing to relate to him or her in a way that is sensitive or attuned.
In one of my father's books, "Fear of Intimacy," he wrote, "The average person is unaware that he or she is living out a negative destiny according to his or her past programming, preserving his or her familiar identity, and, in the process, pushing love away. On an unconscious level, many people sense that if they did not push love away, the whole world, as they have experienced it, would be shattered and they would not know who they were."
Though people claim to seek real love, when they find it, they are often unprepared for the many challenges that ensue. When we find someone who makes us happy, it often shakes us to our core. Our perception of ourselves and our lives is turned on its head, and we are forced to expand our capacity for love and closeness. Feeling another person's affection for us challenges any defenses we've grown accustomed to in the course of our lives. When these defenses are challenged, we tend not only to turn against our partners but to provoke them into acting in ways that fit in with our past.
For example, a friend of mine often tells stories of growing up feeling intruded on by his mother. Whether she showered him with excessive praise over small accomplishments or erupted at him when he neglected to study, he rarely felt appropriately seen or sensitively treated by her. After years of dating women who showed similar controlling patterns, my friend fell in love with a woman who he felt respected him as an individual.
After a while, however, he noticed himself having trouble making decisions and starting to make out-of-character mistakes like losing things around the house or getting lost on the road. His behavior started to provoke his partner, who found herself both literally and figuratively taking the driver's seat in their relationship. My friend then also grew annoyed by what he saw as his partner's new know-it-all attitude. By talking through it, the couple was able to gain a foothold on what was operating under the surface to cause the conflict in the first place. Though his motivation was entirely unconscious, my friend understood how he himself had provoked his partner's more dominating behaviors.
This pattern is shockingly common among couples. People who fear rejection find ways to push their partners away. People who feel aggressive find ways to control their partners, then feel critical for qualities they perceive as weak. We must be careful not to stage the scenarios that we later feel victimized by in our relationship. Manipulative acts like testing our partners with seemingly innocent questions about how we look or what they really think is never appropriate if we are hoping to provoke a certain response or to punish them for their answer.
If we are lucky enough to choose someone who inspires real feelings of love or passion, we must be wary of how we can try to alter that person to fit the phantoms of our past. It may be a struggle, but by getting to know ourselves and having compassion, we can show patience with ourselves and with our partners throughout this journey. We can share our stories and know each other as the individuals we truly are. By letting our guard down and revealing our soul, we may even find a soul mate.
Eating disorders include more body-image conditions than anorexia and bulimia. Learn the warning signs of orthorexia, pregorexia, drunkorexia, and diabulimia, and why treatment is important.
While anorexia and bulimia are the most commonly known eating disorders, they are not the only ones that have been identified. For example, orthorexia, pregorexia, drunkorexia, and diabulimia are just a few of the conditions in the news lately.
Though not as well known, these eating disorders are not actually new. In fact, they’ve been widely recognized by doctors for years. Because of their new, trendier names and surrounding publicity, many people are hearing about them for the first time.
Like other eating disorders, they involve issues related to body image and usually need intervention to get under control. The first step is knowledge so people struggling with them — and their family and friends — can recognize the warning signs and know when to get help.
Orthorexia: An Obsession With Healthy Food
“Orthorexia is an obsession with eating healthy food — to such an extent that the person may restrict their diet very severely and limit their functioning, such as not socializing in situations where there is ‘unhealthy’ food,” says Sheela Raja, PhD, an assistant professor and clinical psychologist in the Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There has been no research into eating disorder statistics to know how widespread orthorexia is, but in general the idea of “good” and “bad” foods is relatively common in people with eating disorders.
The advent of so many fad diets hasn’t helped matters either. No carbs, only raw food, macrobiotics — diets with such strict food rules can certainly lead to confusion about what really is healthy and what isn’t, and in turn can contribute to orthorexia.
Warning signs can range from negative feelings about “impure” foods to trouble dealing with stress. Avoiding social situations or bringing your own food to restaurants or get-togethers can be another red flag, as can insisting that good health is totally dependent on the quality of the food you eat. It can also be more common in people who have obsessive or black-and-white thinking that a food is either all good or all bad.
Orthorexia is not an official psychiatric diagnosis, given that the symptoms overlap significantly with diagnoses of other eating disorders. “No classic treatment plan is available, but I work with people to normalize food and take away magical thinking about the ‘right/perfect’ foods,” says Esther Kane, MSW, a registered clinical counselor in private practice in Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada, and author of It’s Not About the Food: A Woman’s Guide to Making Peace with Food and Our Bodies.
Nutritional education and finding other ways to deal with stress and negative moods are important steps. Raja, for example, suggests participating in an activity unrelated to eating, such as going for a walk or taking a bath, when feeling stressed. Focusing on moderation is also key, as is emphasizing the idea that no food should be excluded from the diet.
Pregorexia: An Eating Disorder During Pregnancy
Pregorexia, or experiencing an eating disorder while pregnant, can affect up to 30 percent of pregnant women who have a history of an eating disorder. Even women who survive pregnancy without an eating disorder episode are at a high risk for relapse after childbirth.
Physical symptoms include vomiting, laxative use, excessive exercise, and a large weight loss. Women with pregorexia can also worry excessively about losing control of their bodies, being fat even when others tell them they’re not, and eating too much.
Women with eating disorders are often very secretive, so ideally a doctor would ask a pregnant woman if she has concerns about eating or weight gain while pregnant, in order to help identify the problem. Once the eating disorder has been identified, a woman should work with a nutritionist and her doctor to learn about her nutritional needs, calorie intake, and more. Alternate ways of dealing with stress and negative emotions should also be explored. Women with pregorexia may benefit from talking with other women about how their bodies changed during pregnancy to help anticipate these changes. Finally, even steps as simple as avoiding buffet restaurants and keeping only a limited quantity of favorite binge foods in the house can be helpful.
Here are two more eating disorders you may not have heard of.
Drunkorexia: Cutting Food in Favor of Alcohol
Most common among college students, drunkorexia is the concept of restricting calories before drinking alcohol. One study found as many as 14 percent of freshmen limited food before alcohol consumption, with 6 percent admitting it was done to avoid weight gain.
While not a specific psychiatric diagnosis, drunkorexia warning signs include impairment in school, work, and relationships, and alcohol problems in general. “There is a strong association between eating disorders and alcohol abuse,” says Raja. “A large population study reported that 30 to 50 percent of individuals with bulimia and 12 to 18 percent of individuals with anorexia have abused alcohol.”
Education is key and college campuses need to focus on the overlap between eating disorders and substance abuse. People with drunkorexia need to understand the dangers of this behavior and how it can interfere with long-term goals and success. Learning stress management techniques is important, too. In severe situations, usually alcohol addiction is treated first and then the eating disorder is addressed.
Diabulimia: Cutting Out Insulin to Be Thin
Diabulimia is an eating disorder that occurs when people with type 1 diabetes don’t take their insulin for the specific purpose of being thin. While there are few studies on this specific area, research suggests the numbers could be as high as 10 to 40 percent of type 1 diabetes patients engaging in this behavior, particularly young people.
Symptoms can include consistently high glucose levels and a distorted body image, as well as numerous ER visits. Depending on the severity, treatment can be in-patient or out-patient, but both approaches focus on education about nutrition, the importance of taking insulin as directed, and changing thoughts when it comes to body image.
How Unhealthy Eating Behaviors Spread
Ultimately researchers are not certain whether these eating disorders are on the rise, but if they are, it is likely to be because the behaviors are being passed from one person to another. “For example, it is not uncommon for girls to ‘teach’ each other ‘tricks’ for weight control (such as using laxatives, or vomiting) in various settings that emphasize thinness,” says Raja. “If more women are seeing these types of disorders (like not using insulin in order to lose weight) in other women, the overall prevalence of behaviors may be increasing.”
Amy D. Shojai is a certified animal behavior consultant and the award-winning author of 23 pet care books, including "Complete Kitten Care" and "Complete Care for Your Aging Cat."
We love our cats but don't always understand their seemingly bizarre behaviors. Sure, some things our cats do are unique to them but other actions are shared by felines the world over. Here are seven weird cat behaviors, and what they mean.
Head bonks. The first three months I had my cat, her head turned pink from head-bonking my lipstick. Rubbing behavior, which includes the forehead, cheeks, and full-body slams, is called bunting, and it transfers the cat's signature smell onto objects to mark territory. That means head bonks are kitty compliments declaring you to be so important, he's marked you as his personal property.
Elevator butt. You've probably seen many cats perform an "elevator butt" pose with their front-end down and tail flagged high. In some instances, it is the equivalent of offering to shake hands as felines sniff each other's anal areas to say howdy. When your cat jumps into your lap, turns around and raises its tail, he or she is offering you the not-so-pleasant invitation to scratch that hard-to-reach itchy spot at the base of the tail. Intact female cats also do the elevator butt posture to entice male cats to get romantic!
Phone frenzy. Many cats come running when owners talk on the phone and they pester and meow like they want in on the conversation. What gives? Your cat sees you talking and since there is no one else there, thinks that you must be talking to them. Also, without realizing it, you may be rewarding that behavior by stroking the cat while you are sitting and talking on the phone, which encourages your kitty to come running next time the phone rings.
Flipping. Why do cats throw themselves onto the ground at your feet and flip back and forth? Sure, sometimes it is because a cat is under the influence of catnip but more often, rolling back and forth places a cat in a vulnerable position, and is a way for cats to request attention. If you you grant the kitty's wish and fuss over it, your cat knows to do this again the next time he wants your love.
Covering poo. Owners take for granted that all cats naturally choose to cover potty deposits but this isn't the case. Some cats -- especially unowned roaming felines -- may not cover at all as uncovered feces can announce who owns the territory. Some indoor cats also want their potty graffiti seen and admired by the other cats or humans. Though is mom-cat is fastidious about covering her mess, her kittens will copy-cat the behavior.
Kneading. There are many names for this common rhythmic paw-pushing kitty behavior -- treading, making bread, even "pawtycake." But one thing is clear, the behavior takes hold when felines are very young, as kittens knead against mom-cat's breasts to stimulate milk flow. When adult cats knead, it generally reflects deep contentment and safety, and yes -- love. Cats typically target soft objects such as fuzzy blankets, pillows, or a beloved owner's lap.
Privacy issues. Why do some cats immediately seek out their humans the minute they head into the bathroom? First, a closed door is a challenge and an affront to a curious cat which is one reason why you'll see furry paws reaching under the door or cats racing to join their people in the bathroom. More importantly, the bathroom gives cats a captive audience as people glued to the facilities aren't able to move away. Amy D. Shojai also appears on Animal Planet's "Cats-101" and "Dogs-101" and lives in North Texas with a senior citizen Siamese and a smart-aleck German shepherd. Read her blog on Red Room.
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