“ALICE PARK” - Stressed in the City: How Urban Life May Change Your Brain

By ALICE PARK Wednesday, June 22, 2011

http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/22/stressed-in-the-city-how-urban-life-may-change-your-brain/

I live in New York City, and for me, there's nothing that compares to its culture, energy and convenience. I'm not alone in feeling this way — more than half of the world's population now lives in urban areas.

But I also know that when it comes to mental health, the urban lifestyle may not be such a good thing. City dwellers tend to be more stressed and have higher levels of mood disorders and psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia than those living in rural or suburban areas. And now researchers say they have uncovered certain changes in brain activity that could potentially help explain why.

In an international study, researchers at University of Heidelberg and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute at McGill University report in the journal Nature that people who live or were raised in cities show distinct differences in activity in certain brain regions than those who aren't city dwellers.

Those who currently live in the city, for example, showed higher activation the amygdala, the brain region that regulates emotions such as anxiety and fear. The amygdala is most often called into action under situations of stress or threat, and the data suggest that city dwellers' brains have a more sensitive, hair-trigger response to such situations, at least when compared with those living in the suburbs or more rural areas.

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"J. D. Heyes" - Living in the country really is healthier than city life

by J. D. Heyes 

http://www.naturalnews.com/032877_country_life_longevity.html

(NaturalNews) A sound diet, exercise, plenty of sleep - and escaping the concrete jungle of city life. All of these things contribute to a longer, healthier and less stressful life, according to new research.

While urbanites have long suspected it, scientists have actually identified what makes life in the big city so much more, well, unhealthy. They say their research has found that the parts of the brain that deal with stress and emotion don't handle crowds well.

That could be why people who are born and raised in big cities have more depression, more anxiety and a higher incidence of schizophrenia, scientists say.

And while the researchers behind the study aren't sure why cities have so many negative effects on people, they do know that folks do better when they are around a lot of greenspaces. Such exposure reduces stress, makes us less vulnerable to depression and boosts health overall.

"Previous findings have shown that the risk for anxiety disorders is 21 per cent higher for people from the city, who also have a 39 per cent increase for mood disorders," said Dr. Jens Pruessner of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Quebec, who helped conduct the study.

"In addition, the incidence of schizophrenia is almost doubled for individuals born and brought up in cities. These values are a cause for concern," he added.

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"Weather.com" - Scientists Say California Mega-Quake Imminent

Weath

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“F. William Engdahl” - Getting used to Life without Food -- Wall Street, BP, Bio-ethanol and the Deaht of Millions

Global Research, July 3, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25483

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"Ray McGovern" - From the US Boat to Gaza -- A July Fourth Shame on the Founders

Published on Saturday, July 2, 2011 by Consortium News

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/07/02/a-july-fourth-shame-on-the-founders/

by Ray McGovern

Yes, that was I standing before the U.S. Embassy in Athens on the eve of the July Fourth weekend holding the American flag in the distress mode — upside down.

Indignities experienced by me and my co-guests on “The Audacity of Hope,” the American boat to Gaza, over the past ten days in Athens leave no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama’s administration has forfeited the right to claim any lineage to the brave Americans who declared independence from the king of England 235 years ago.

In the Declaration of Independence, they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to a new enterprise of freedom, democracy and the human spirit. The outcome was far from assured; likely as not, the hangman’s noose awaited them. They knew that all too well.

But they had a genuine audacity to hope that the majority of their countrymen and women, persuaded by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the elegant words of Thomas Jefferson, would conclude that the goal of liberty and freedom was worth the risk, that it was worth whatever the cost.

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"Tara Lohan" - Put Down Your Beach Towel: 10 States Where You Should Think Twice Before Jumping in the Water

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Posted on June 30, 2011, Printed on July 3, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151482/put_down_your_beach_towel%3A_10_states_where_you_should_think_twice_before_jumping_in_the_water

It's that time of year again -- folks are donning swimsuits, grabbing beach chairs, and heading for the water to cool down. It's also the time of year when the Natural Resources Defense Council releases its annual report, "Testing the Waters," detailing the cleanliness of the water we're diving into.

In 2010, NRDC found that the number of beach closings and advisories reached 24,091 -- the second highest in the 21 years the organization has been compiling its report. Mostly the report focuses on tracking bacteria in the water, which accounted for nearly 75 percent of closings and advisories in the last year. The culprit? "Across the country, aging and poorly designed sewage treatment systems and contaminated stormwater are often to blame for beachwater pollution," the report states.

That's bad news for swimmers and those who make a living from the beach crowd. Contaminated waters from sewage overflows and leaks can cause a variety of health problems, from stomach flus and skin rashes to meningitis, hepatitis and respiratory infections. The report states that in L.A. and Orange counties fecal contamination caused between 627,800 and 1,479,200 gastrointestinal illnesses in a year. And it's likely many, many more cases went unreported. Each year around 3.5 million people get sick because of sewage overflows and 10 trillion gallons of untreated stormwater are released into our waterways.

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"Desmond Tutu" - Ending Nuclear Evil

Sunday 3 July 2011

by: Desmond Tutu, Project Syndicate [3] | Op-Ed

http://www.truth-out.org/ending-nuclear-evil/1309700520

Cape Town - Eliminating nuclear weapons is the democratic wish of the world’s people. Yet no nuclear-armed country currently appears to be preparing for a future without these terrifying devices. In fact, all are squandering billions of dollars on modernization of their nuclear forces, making a mockery of United Nations disarmament pledges. If we allow this madness to continue, the eventual use of these instruments of terror seems all but inevitable.

The nuclear power crisis at Japan’s Fukushima power plant has served as a dreadful reminder that events thought unlikely can and do happen. It has taken a tragedy of great proportions to prompt some leaders to act to avoid similar calamities at nuclear reactors elsewhere in the world. But it must not take another Hiroshima or Nagasaki – or an even greater disaster – before they finally wake up and recognize the urgent necessity of nuclear disarmament.

This week, the foreign ministers of five nuclear-armed countries – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China – will meet in Paris to discuss progress in implementing the nuclear-disarmament commitments that they made at last year’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference. It will be a test of their resolve to transform the vision of a future free of nuclear arms into reality.

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"Bob Chapman" - No Solution to the Global Credit Crisis

Rising Gold and Silver Prices

By Bob Chapman

Global Research, July 3, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25491

World markets and especially US markets are in a state of uneasiness and it is only a matter of time before they degenerate further. The real question is will everything break loose between now and the end of the year? The answer in part is yes, and it is currently in process.

“The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets,” along with elitist insiders normally have the ability to make the stock and bond markets do what they want them to. That is, at least on a short-term basis. We believe the market is being deliberately taken down by them in order to impress upon politicians that if they do not extend the short-term cash debt limit that the market will fall even further and that in turn will reduce their ability to get reelected. If you do not think that is possible then you have no idea what is going on. At the present time with about a month to the August 2nd deadline the two political parties are nowhere near an agreement. As we draw closer to the deadline investors will become more and more concerned and the market will trend lower.

These problems that we predicted for the second half of the year are all coming together like a bad dream. This could very well be a reply of 2008, but for a different set of reasons. Obviously Wall Street knows something others do not know as they resort to large layoffs.

For months oil prices have tended higher. The official CPI is 3.6% when in reality it is well over 10%. Unemployment officially under U3 is 9.1%, when in reality it is 22.6%.

No solution has been found for Greece’s problems, even though an agreement has been made with lenders, and as an extension of that, we see euro, euro zone and European Union problems that probably are unsolvable.

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"Kristen Gwynne" - Drug Company Profiteering, Pill Mills and Thousands of Addicts -- How Oxycontin Has Spread Through America

By Kristen Gwynne, AlterNet
Posted on June 30, 2011, Printed on July 3, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151483/drug_company_profiteering%2C_pill_mills_and_thousands_of_addicts%3A_how_oxycontin_has_spread_through_america

I left a very white, very affluent Philadelphia suburb for NYU in 2007. When I go home, Oxys always come up in conversation with friends: Who got really "bad" (and can you believe it was him?!), who started selling, or what new pill-based friendship is the strangest. On one visit, I found pens gutted to be used as straws (to snort pills) and tin foil in my old best friend’s bedroom, to smoke Oxys.

In Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, suburban moms and dads enjoy a short commute to the city and send their kids off to a “Blue Ribbon School of Excellence” to prepare them for the educational institutions to which they aspire. Aside from school and work and partying in big houses, there is not much to do.

Boredom tends to inspire some creative takes on “fun.” Out of my town, for example, came the Jackass crew. Their worm snorting and reckless self-injury (shocking their testicles, paper-cutting their eyelids) might not have occurred if they had the resources of a city. When Jackass star Ryan Dunn died in a drunk-driving accident June 20, he crashed his car on Route 322, a road members of my community use regularly.

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"Mark Potok" - America the Vulnerable -- Government Does Nothing as Right Wing Violence Surges

By Mark Potok, Other Words
Posted on June 27, 2011, Printed on July 3, 2011
http://www.otherwords.org/articles/america_the_vulnerable

This March, federal prosecutors charged six members of an antigovernment group called the Alaska Peacemakers Militia with plotting to wage a campaign of murder and kidnapping against court officials and state troopers. They had already amassed an arsenal of weapons, including hand grenades, assault rifles, and a .50-caliber machine gun.

That's exactly the kind of violence that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned law enforcement agencies about two years ago in a report about the growing threat of terrorism from right-wing extremists.

But after that 2009 report was leaked to the media, conservative groups and politicians complained — quite wrongly — that it unfairly tarred those on the political right as violent extremists. The American Legion, for example, didn't like the report's assertion that extremists would be interested in recruiting veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, even though it was completely accurate.

Rather than defend the report, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano quickly disavowed it — and criticized it as shoddy work that had not been properly reviewed within the agency.

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