Sunday, December 31, 2023
Friday, December 29, 2023
Why Autistic Children Are Bullied More -- And Bully In Return
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| https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/04/24/why-autistic-children-are-bullied-more/?sh=f3036f4408cb |
Despite the growing awareness, bullying is still common in schools these days. Some kids are bullied and some bully others. But, as a new study finds, kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have an even harder time with bullying, being many times more likely than their neurotypical siblings to have experienced it in their lifetimes. Even more disturbing, autistic kids may be intentionally triggered into having meltdowns by bullies who know how to push the right buttons.
The new study, from Kennedy Krieger’s Interactive Autism Network, surveyed families with autistic and non-autistic siblings from all over the country, asking about their experience with bullying in the past and present.
Almost two-thirds of autistic children had been bullied at some point in their lives, and they were three times more likely than neurotypical kids to be bullied in the past three months. This was even true for home-schooled autistic children, who were sometimes educated at home precisely because of the bullying issue. "After a horrible year in 3rd grade,” said one mother, “where he was clinically diagnosed as depressed (he has always been anxious), I pulled my son out of public school and am homeschooling him this year. He is doing much, much better without the constant name calling and being singled out for his 'weird' behaviors!"
The three most common types of bullying were verbal, or, in other words, psychological in nature: "being teased, picked on, or made fun of" (73%); "being ignored or left out of things on purpose" (51%), and "being called bad names" (47%). But almost a third of autistic children also experienced physical bullying – being shoved, pushed, slapped, hit, or kicked.
Even more disturbing was the fact that over half of the autistic children surveyed had experienced intentional triggering of meltdowns or had been “provoked into fighting back.” One mother said, "Often kids try to upset her because they find it funny when she gets upset and cries. She is overly emotional, and they seem to get a kick out of this.”
Bullying was most pronounced in regular public schools (43%), but better in special education public schools (30%), and lowest in regular private schools and special education private schools (28% and 18%, respectively).
Oddly, when the team broke down bullying as a function of the different types of autism (Asperger syndrome, autism, and “other ASD”), they found that children with Asperger syndrome were actually the most bullied group. Since Asperger is a higher functioning form of autism, this is peculiar. The researchers aren’t sure why this is true, but one hypothesis is that it’s because people with Asperger are often highly intelligent but can still have considerable social deficits, which makes them, in effect, the “perfect target.”
Children with autism are also more likely to bully others: About 20% of kids with autism bullied (vs. only 8% of neurotypical children). According to the report, many of these kids may actually be both bully and victim, which is somewhat more common in children with developmental or emotional problems. Children with ASD who bully may do it unintentionally. “My son doesn't realize he is bullying,” said one parent. “He is trying to get other kids to pay attention to him so he does it by grabbing their ball away from them or getting 'in their face' when they say to stop." Another parent said, “Our boy… may take an object from another child or scream when unhappy but any purposeful cruelty, he would never do."
And for autistic children who are being bullied and bully in return, they may not have the social skills to avoid or to get themselves out of the situation. According to the report, “Unlike victims who are more passive, bully-victims insult their tormentors or otherwise try to fight back in a way that only makes the situation worse.”
Finally, a critical issue that the report brings up is whether bullying may cause people with autism to develop more mental health problems as a result. Some studies have suggested that any child who is bullied has a greater risk for everything from headaches and stomachaches to anxiety, depression, and suicide.
Parents, caregivers and schools work hard to help kids with autism gain social skills and emotional tools, and the idea that bullying could negate this work is disheartening. "Bullying can undo all our efforts,” Connie Anderson, of the Interactive Autism Network, told NPR. “I think that's the most devastating thing about it. Children on the spectrum can be anxious anyway. This can just put them over the top and undo all the good that everyone's trying to do."
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
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Sunday, December 24, 2023
PS2 Review - 'Silent Hill 3'
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| https://worthplaying.com/article/2003/8/10/reviews/11664-ps2-review-silent-hill-3/ |
Stephen King once famously said, "I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud."
In survival-horror games, or really any kind of moderately violent video game, the gross-out is easy to come by. We've all seen a lot of titles where you can walk through a puddle of fresh blood and track it everywhere, or vaporize a zombie's entire head in a gory explosion of brains and bone.
Horror's a little rarer. Genuinely startling moments in video games tend to be of the Resident Evil, monster-coming-through-the-window-aiiiieeee type, and that kind of scare has a real problem with diminishing returns. You grow to expect it. Your gamer senses start tingling when you see an unattended window, or a gleaming quest item out in the middle of nowhere. So horror's hard to maintain.
Terror, on the other hand, is the rarest thing of all. Ever since Alone in the Dark started, and Resident Evil revitalized, the horror adventure genre, there have arguably only been three games to manage to generate and sustain a genuinely terrifying atmosphere. One is Tecmo's Fatal Frame, a ghost story and multigenerational murder mystery which also offers you the opportunity to watch ghosts try to jump down the lens of a camera at you. Another is Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness, which among other scares, has a brilliant moment where you realize that the giant dying mass of eyes and mouths you've encountered deep below a Cambodian temple is also the closest thing to an ally you have.
The last and greatest, of course, is Silent Hill.
Konami has this weird habit, I've noticed, of occasionally putting out a kind of game that they've never touched before, and their title will, of course, be one of the best of its kind. They'd never released a console RPG before Suikoden, and that series is among the best CRPGs out there. Silent Hill is the same way; they jimmied the lock on the door and ran screaming into Resident Evil's turf, making the latter game look like a pallid and unexciting imitation.
Silent Hill took an ordinary man, who was in way over his head about thirty seconds into the game, and pitched him headlong into a small American town that occasionally turned out to be something very like hell. It hit every single nerve an average person has—an elementary school that becomes a place where children are tortured, a hospital where the nurses are mad and there's something terrible waiting in the basement, someone's daughter alone and frightened somewhere in the distance—and played them like a violin. I challenge anyone to get through that game without so much as a shudder.
The sequel was a bit of a letdown, when all's said and done. It made a few missteps, such as the infamous ten-minute walking sequence that serves as its prologue, or its slightly more mundane feel, but worse, it didn't build on its predecessor. Silent Hill left quite a few questions unanswered, and a couple of plotlines dangling; Silent Hill 2 dealt with the bulk of them by ignoring them, and focusing instead on the story of James Sunderland, with occasional deviations into the history of the town itself. While it was a fine game, and has plenty of its own merits, it wasn't really a sequel so much as a sidestory.
Silent Hill 3, on the other hand, is a true sequel to the original. To say a lot about it would be a fairly massive spoiler; more to the point, anyone who's played the original to completion could probably get a fairly good idea as to how.
The important thing is that Silent Hill 3 is an improvement for the series in almost every way. We all already knew it was going to be graphically impressive, but it takes that to a new level. The in-game engine is powerful enough to handle cutscenes without the need or use of rendered movies; characters move, smile, frown, shout, and gesture realistically. While the graphics do still have a little ways to go—Heather's hair makes her look grubby, and a couple of the NPCs aren't as well-animated as they could be—they're still spectacular by any stretch of the imagination. The sound's just as good as it's ever been, forming a natural counterpoint to the surreal and frightening backgrounds you'll find yourself in.
For my money, though, the storyline and dialogue are where this installment truly shines. Heather, unlike James and Harry before her, is a lively character, who communicates her personality and history through her reactions to the phenomena around her. Harry and James were almost blank slates, who would regard a bloody corpse on a gurney with a dispassionate glance; Heather will freak out or demand to know what it's doing there.
Silent Hill 3's story begins, unusually, well outside of Silent Hill, in a shopping mall near Heather's house. During a shopping trip, she dozes off, and has a nightmare of fighting monsters in the ruins of an amusement park. Waking up suddenly, she calls home, right before a detective named Douglas Cartland finds her. He's been hired to find her, and ask her a few questions, but Heather wants nothing to do with him. She ditches him by crawling out a restroom window.
When Heather goes back inside via an employee entrance, though, things have changed. The mall has abruptly emptied, and most of the stores have closed for the night. Trying to find a way to the front of the mall, Heather ducks under the shutter of a clothing store… and inside, finds a monster like the ones she fought in her nightmare. The mall is suddenly full of them, and the only other living human Heather can find, Claudia, tells her that this was all done by the hand of God.
To go much further into the story would ruin it. It's very much a love letter—albeit a bloody love letter tattooed on the freshly-flayed skin of a screaming human being—to the fans of the first game, and to some small extent, the second. Cameos, references, and explanations abound, particularly as you get further into the game and Heather learns more about why all of this is happening to her. Anyone who's been looking forward to SH3 would do well to play through the original game again and go for one of the Good endings (find Kaufman in the motel near the waterfront), so you know exactly what's going on near the endgame.
The only real complaint that I have about Silent Hill 3 is that its gameplay is very much the same thing again. Heather's weaponry is, for the most part, functionally identical to the arsenal from previous games, although with a couple of tweaks; she can find a silencer for her handgun, for example, or distract some monsters with a bit of beef jerky.
More importantly, the game is just as linear as its predecessors, and this seems utterly ridiculous in a series that tends to give you an entire town to run around in. While I can appreciate that programming an entire area would be hard work, and would result in us getting a new Silent Hill game even less frequently than we already do, it does disappoint me, to some extent, to run past entire hallways of doors I can't open and entire streets full of shops I can't enter.
Past that, Silent Hill 3 is a worthy sequel to the single most frightening video game of all time, and has its own visceral impact. The people who made this game know exactly how to frighten you, by trapping you in what may be another world entirely, with only a flashlight and what seems like a wholly insufficent weapon to protect yourself. Further, they've finally figured out that a horror movie, or a horror video game, is much, much more effective when you care about the people that horrible things are happening to. A likeable heroine, a truly frightening video game, devious puzzles, and enough gore to scare your little brother out of the room: what else do you want?
The Flash (2023) - Andy Muschietti | Review | AllMovie
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| https://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-flash-vm3528868401/review |
Andy Muschietti (It Chapters 1 & 2) directs The Flash, hoping to save the faltering DC Universe of superheroes. The solid script by Christina Hodson (Bumblebee) and Joby Harold (Army of the Dead) goes a long way towards doing so, with the support of actors dedicated to making the film rocket to the top at lightning speed.
Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) struggles to come to terms with everything in his life. The loss of his mother to violent crime still cripples him in adulthood, and the fact that he can't save his innocent father from being punished for the crime eats away at him. Barry's social awkwardness and constant feelings of being more of a mascot than a member of the Justice League both add to his misery. But when he realizes his ability will allow him to travel into the past, Barry thinks he's found the answer to everything. Determined to make a change that will save his mother's life, yet so minor that nothing can go wrong, he does just that. But Barry soon discovers that small ripples can make great waves, and the only way to right things is to team up with himself and try to create a Justice League that doesn't exist in this new timeline.
Multiverse films can get confusing fast and are prone to story issues. But Hodson, Harold, and Muschietti keep a firm grip on the story with an excellent explanation of how this multiverse works while maintaining a tale with only minor issues. In doing so, they turn a character that has lived in the shadow of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman - not only in the films but also in the comic books - and make him a genuine A-list hero. In addition to the fine script, Miller delivers a stellar performance as both versions of Barry - the competent yet introverted hero and the confident, bumbling slacker. By the time the tale reaches its final act, the audience understands and sympathizes with both as much as they understand and sympathize with each other. Michael Keaton's return to the cape and cowl is fantastic fan fodder. Best, his portrayal is not just lip service but a fine revisit of the original role. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Sasha Calle as Supergirl. Her part is disappointingly small, but she commands the screen as the Kryptonian hero, leaving the audience wanting more of her.
Any multiverse traversing film will have a lot of CGI, and getting lost in the myriad of images would be easy. That is the case with this movie, too, but instead of being confusing and hard to follow, it is overwhelming in a way that works. Everyone, from the concept artists to the final editors, deserves credit for something that shouldn't work but does. They pull out most of the stops when it comes to respecting what's transpired or was supposed to happen, before with the DC universe, and all the way back to the earliest series. Unfortunately, there are some obvious misses. However, this might not be the production's fault, so it is forgivable. The music department does an exceptional job of combining the old with the new, providing even more cohesiveness to the time-and-universe blending theme. Best, the dramatic score blends with the action seamlessly throughout.
The Flash has fewer fans than the three iconic characters of the DC Universe. This film is likely to change that. Many viewers who have skipped The Flash and Supergirl on television will now be binging the shows, trying to catch up at lightning speed. Not only is Barry Allen the fastest hero, he's also likely to have the quickest turnaround in fandom of any DC movie to date.
Friday, December 22, 2023
The Floating Zombie
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| https://schlock-value.com/2017/06/18/the-floating-zombie/ |
Folks, this…
this takes the cake.
The most true thing on the cover of this novel is the bit that says FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK.
I just find it so hard to believe that the publisher lied THIS HARD. I know; that may come as a surprise. I’ve seen lots of book that have lying covers. It’s my most bitched-about thing and I’m sure you’re all quite tired of hearing about it.
But this one, like I say, takes the cake.
“A ship of the future threatens all Earth,” says the front cover. The back continues this line of thinking. “The whole world was in peril!” we’re told. Something about the largest nuclear reactor in the world being in the hands of an insane madman is, we’re led to believe, the plot of this book.
None of that is true.
The world is not, at any point in this novel, at risk. This is not a fault of the novel, mind you. I’m not saying this is a plot where an insane madman threatens the world but is so inept that he’s not convincing. Oh, no. I’m telling you something much more powerful than that. That’s not what the story was about at all, nor was it ever meant to be.
To continue, it’s also a major, major lie that the ship in question bore the largest and most powerful nuclear reactor in the world. How big is this lie? Let’s take it from the top:
IT DOESN’T HAVE A NUCLEAR REACTOR AT ALL.
I’m serious, fellas and ladies. This ship is not nuclear. It is conventionally fueled. It is not especially dangerous. It’s kind of big, but it’s not as big as some other tankers that we see floating past. It has some weapons, but they’re just some guns. Maybe a rocket launcher.
Never in my life have I seen a book so mis-represented by the publisher. I assume it’s because they thought that the book would sell better if it were a world-threatening story of untold nuclear destruction instead of what the book actually was: A competent interpersonal drama about some people in dire circumstances.
The bits about the ship being a robot were true. It’s basically the fact that sets this whole novel off. But the ship itself isn’t dangerous.
AT1 is the first in a line of automated tanker ships. Instead of a crew of fifty or so people―who all need to be fed, housed, and paid―the ship instead carries some security guards to make sure the ship doesn’t get hijacked. The only reason it carries those guards is because the insurance company demanded it.
How many guards does it carry? Well, don’t let the back of the book fool you, because it’s not three men and a woman. There are, in fact, four men and a woman on this ship. The four men are the guards. The woman is, among other things, the nurse, cook, and stewardess. She basically does all the real work.
The thing is, they’re all pretty good characters, and the whole point of the book hinges on how they have to rely on each other to get out of the scrape they’re in. This, of course, doesn’t count the one who turns traitor about a quarter of the way into the novel, and is, from the first time we meet him, the obvious one to do it.
There’s Langley, formerly of the British Army. He’s in charge. He’s a no-nonsense, get-it-done sort of guy who worries that his unshakable self-control will be, well, shaken.
There’s Jacens, a Texan, also an Army man, who does his job quietly and efficiently. He and Langley get along well from the start. He’s working on a novel, which we learn at one point is just awful. Still, he’s a very sweet guy.
Colmar is arrogant and has a problem with authority. He does the bad thing. Also American.
Roscorla is a former Navy man. He’s irrepressably positive in everything. Cornish.
Jane is the woman. She was once engaged to be married, but her husband-to-be called it off after she was in a car accident that left her face horribly scarred. Generic English.
Their job is basically to keep an eye on things and fight off any potential pirates. The ship takes care of everything else. They’re hauling oil.
Everybody starts to get settled in, gets to know each other, and establish a routine. We learn quickly that Jane has a rough past, and while everybody tries to break through and help her overcome her shyness, it’s Jacens who manages to do so. They don’t exactly fall in love, but they do go to bed together and it’s very sweet.
So then, when everything goes FUBAR, it’s actually shocking.
I talked before about how stories that have real, understandable, lower stakes are ones that capture my attention better than ones where the entire world must be saved. This story is a prime example of the former. With the exception of Colmar, we want all of these characters to be happy and satisfied with their lives. So when Colmar turns traitor and pirates hijack the ship, it’s scary and powerful.
Jacens is killed almost immediately. Colmar shoots him in the back. Langley is also shot. He survives, but is taken out of the fight for most of the story. Roscorla is too scared to do anything. Jane is crushed by the fact that a man who accepted her for who she is is now dead. Everything looks bad.
The pirates start to take all the oil from the tanker. Colmar is just a terrible person, constantly ribbing Jane for being in love with a dead man, ordering her to fetch coffee and sandwiches for the pirates, and so forth. He’s not much better to Roscorla. The stewardess and the Navy man try to hatch a plan to save themselves, knowing that once the pirates are done with the ship, the two of them will be killed.
A storm starts to show up and makes the pirates get into a hurry. As Colmar is being helicoptered off of the tanker to one of the pirate ships, Jane manages to shoot him. Colmar pitches into the copter pilot, who in turn crashes the copter into the ocean.
This is about halfway through the book, right before the ad for True cigarettes.
“I’ve heard enough to make me decide one of two things: quit or smoke True. I smoke True.”
The rest of the book is basically bare survival. The pirates sabotaged the ship before the left, destroying the computer and planting bombs. The computer can’t be saved, but Roscorla manages to find and defuse the bombs before they go off. Since it’s just he and Jane running things while Langley recovers, they start to get a little closer, but Jane rebuffs him when he tries to get too close.
Back in England, folks have noticed that the ship has stopped transmitting. They send out search planes to the Indian Ocean to see if they can’t find it. They search around the ship’s planned course and don’t find anything, not even an oil slick showing that it sank. What they don’t know is that since the computer has been destroyed, the ship is heading in a straight line due south, ready to crash into Antarctica in about four days, assuming an iceberg doesn’t hit it first.
Once again the author shows that he really knows ships. D.F. Jones was a Navy man himself during World War II and his books like to focus on the sea and people on it. Note that this is the third book of his that I’ve read, and the second time I’ve read one without remembering that he also wrote Earth Has Been Found. I remembered Denver is Missing, since the front cover of this one calls that out. This book was written in between those two, with Earth Has Been Found coming right after this one by a few years. The Floating Zombie is much better than either of those books, lacking a lot of the toxic cynicism that the other two books seemed to steep in. It’s not that this was a particularly happy story, it’s just that institutional idiocy was downplayed in favor of real drama.
One thing worth complaining about is that for most of the second half of this book, there’s not much of anything the heroes can do. They sit around, slowly getting colder as they reach the Antarctic, and hope that somebody will find them. Roscorla is, as always, optimistic about their chances, and tries to keep the other two cheerful. The result is that they resent him for his upbeat attitude and tensions begin to mount ever higher.
There’s a powerful scene where the ship almost hits an iceberg. It towers over them, a testament to the unyielding might of nature. Hitting the thing at their speed (they’ve been stuck at twelve knots since the computer went out, which the book says is too fast) would destroy the ship utterly, but they miss it by bare yards.
At long last, the ship is sighted by an airplane and steps are taken to rescue the crew. Instead of just airlifting the three people off and letting the ship crash, like I would have done, the RAF takes all steps possible to restore control and get the ship safely to South Africa. There’s a lot of scary moments, but long story short, it works and everybody is saved.
Everybody gets a fair chunk of money for saving the ship and they all live happily ever after, maybe. Money can be weird sometimes.
So yeah, I can’t do a lot of credit to this book in review form because the real joy was in the details, and I’m not gonna just sit here and list all the tiny little moments I liked. I want to let you experience those for yourself. Give this book a looksie, if it sounds like your jam. I think it’s well worth it.
Sure, there are issues. The book telegraphs the coming treachery a little too hard. There are moments in the first chapters where the narration suddenly goes something like “They’d remember that comment later, and regret it.” The villain is waaaaay too obvious from the beginning, so obvious, in fact, that I was almost convinced he wouldn’t be the villain after all. A stronger story might well have featured Colmar being an arrogant asshole but having to put all that aside to save everybody else (or just himself and let everyone else be a bonus).
Jane turned out to be a tough, tough woman. She was, without question, the strongest character in the book. She’s a tragic figure, once beautiful but now scarred and terrified of people reactions to her mangled face. It’s a testament to Jacens that he was able to care about her in a way that didn’t come across as pushy or oversexed, and it makes it so much more tragic when he’s killed. It didn’t feel like a cheap death. It really made the story, and the characters in it, stronger.
On the other hand, a lot of what makes Jane look like a tough woman hinges more on the “woman” part than the “tough” part. I have to think about how to phrase this, and I’m probably going to make it sound stupid, but Jane’s main contributions to the story involved making coffee and sandwiches. But she did it in a tough way. It’s a weird dichotomy: she’s to be praised for keeping her head in a crisis and for not coming completely apart after tragedy strikes, but at the same time she shows that inner strength by being a tireless caregiver. That’s not a problem with the character, mind you. I admire the hell out of her. It’s a problem with how she’s written. Would it have been too much for the boys to make their own coffee every once in a while?
To be fair, she also shot Colmar to death and destroyed a helicopter in doing so, so she’s got that kind of toughness too.
To conclude: If you’ve seen this book floating around somewhere and gave it a pass because it has a goofy name and the premise sounds too far-fetched and you’ve read other D.F. Jones novels and weren’t impressed, give it another look.
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Israel killed 12,000 Palestinians, including 5,000 children, since October 7
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| https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/11/17/714782/Gaza-fatalities-top-12000-as-Israel-regime-keeps-up-invasion-of-besieged-strip- |
Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza since October 7 has killed over 12,000 people so far, including 5,000 children, according to officials in Gaza.
Gaza’s government media office said on Friday there are also more than 30,000 injuries, 75 percent of which are women and children.
There are 3,750 missing persons, including 1,800 children who are still under the rubble, it said as the official death toll in Gaza had not been updated for days due to the collapse of the its health system.
The media office said at least 200 doctors, nurses, and paramedics have been killed, as well as at least 22 civil defense team members.
Also, at least 51 journalists and media representatives have been killed, the media office said.
Meanwhile, there was no sign of any let-up despite international calls for a ceasefire or at least for humanitarian pauses.
Israel's military, which has concentrated its assault on northern Gaza, said its troops and warplanes were keeping up pressure on Friday.
Media reports say fierce confrontations continue in northern Gaza, with the Israeli military trying to push from the western side of Gaza City towards the neighborhoods of Shujaiya and Zeitoun.
The health ministry in Gaza said that 24 patients have died in the past two days at Al-Shifa hospital due to power cuts, as Israeli forces keep blockading the medical facility.
"Twenty-four patients in different departments have died over the last 48 hours as vital medical equipment has stopped functioning because of the power outage," said ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra.
Israel attacked the hospital earlier this week, claiming Hamas has used the hospital and its area as a command center.
Hamas denies using hospitals for military purposes. It says some hostages have received treatment at medical centers but they have not been held inside them.
‘Starvation imminent in Gaza’
Israel has bombed much of Gaza to rubble, ordered the depopulation of the entire northern half of the strip and made around two-thirds of Gazans homeless.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), quoting Palestinian data, said Israeli attacks had destroyed or damaged at least 45% of Gaza's housing units.
International officials say a humanitarian crisis for the 2.3 million residents of Gaza is entering a new, more dire phase as the Israeli war continues.
A Palestinian UN official said on Friday people in Gaza were facing war on two fronts, one “with bombs and bullets” and the other “through the siege” on the Palestinian territory.
One of the wars is “The siege is killing people every hour. It has killed hundreds these last few days. It will kill thousands in the next few days,” Majed Bamya, the deputy permanent observer for the State of Palestine at the UN, said on social media.
“It is a criminal tool used to kill and displace and pressure in cold blood. It is inhumane, brutal, barbaric. Israel is holding 2.3 million Palestinians hostage. The only options it is giving them is leave this earth or leave this country.”
UN aid deliveries to Gaza were suspended on Friday due to shortages of fuel and a communications shutdown, deepening the misery of thousands of hungry and homeless Palestinians.
Friday marked the second consecutive day that no aid trucks arrived in Gaza due to a lack of fuel for distributing relief.
The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said civilians faced the "immediate possibility of starvation" due to the lack of food supplies.
Nearly the entire Gazan population is in desperate need of food assistance, said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain.
"With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation," she said in a statement.
A UN human rights official said Israel must allow water and fuel into Gaza to restart the water supply network otherwise people would die of thirst and disease. Israel's actions were a breach of international law, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo said.
The World Health Organization said it feared the spread of disease, including respiratory infections and diarrhea.
Monday, December 18, 2023
On Robson Street in Downtown Vancouver. Summer of 2018.
Robson Street
is a major southeast-northwest thoroughfare in downtown and West End of
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its core commercial blocks from
Burrard Street to Jervis were also known as Robsonstrasse. Its name honours John Robson, a major figure in British Columbia's entry into the Canadian Confederation, and Premier of the province from 1889 to 1892. Robson Street
starts at BC Place Stadium near the north shore of False Creek, then
runs northwest past Vancouver Library Square, Robson Square and the
Vancouver Art Gallery, coming to an end at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park.
As
of 2006, the city of Vancouver overall had the fifth most expensive
retail rental rates in the world, averaging US$135 per square foot per
year, citywide. Robson Street tops Vancouver with its most expensive locations renting for up to US$200 per square foot per year. In 2006, both Robson Street and the Mink Mile on Bloor Street in Toronto were the 22nd most expensive streets
in the world, with rents of $208 per square feet. In 2007, the Mink
Mile and Robson slipped to 25th in the world with an average of $198 per
square feet. The price of each continues to grow with Vancouver being
Burberry's first Canadian location and Toronto's Yorkville neighbourhood
(which is bounded on the south side by Bloor) now commanding rents of
$300 per square foot.
In 1895, train tracks were laid down the street,
supporting a concentration of shops and restaurants. From the early to
middle-late 20th century, and especially after significant immigration
from postwar Germany, the northwest end of Robson Street
was known as a centre of German culture and commerce in Vancouver,
earning the nickname Robsonstrasse, even among non-Germans (this name
lives on in the Robsonstrasse Hotel on the street).
At one time, the city had placed streetsigns reading "Robsonstrasse"
though these were placed after the German presence in the area had
largely vanished.
Robson Street was featured on an old edition of the Canadian Monopoly board as one of the two most expensive properties.
Sunday, December 17, 2023
growing up with undiagnosed ADHD/AUTISM | VT20
Growing up not knowing why you are different, is difficult and hard. I have so many stories about navigating the world as an undiagnosed neurodivergent person, and how i'm trying to learn about myself as a now 28 year old person. if you have any questions, or want to know anything, just ask!
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Carl Sagan's 'The Dragons of Eden' made me interested in the astronomer's other works
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| A still from the Vision of Escaflowne (1996), directed by Kazuki Akane |
Since I finally finished watching Cowboy Bebop again recently, I'm going to provide my opinion about how well this TV series, a neo-noir space Western, still holds up for me. Before watching Cowboy Bebop, I finished watching The Vision Of Escaflowne and Neon Genesis Evangelion, which are some of my favorite anime series too. Out of these three shows, Evangelion is my most favorite one. I think that it's also the best out of these three shows. Evangelion begins with two good episodes, Angel Attack and Unfamiliar Ceilings, but then suffers from a dip in quality from episode 3 to episode 11. The eight episodes before episode 11 aren't total letdowns because we get to find out more about the world of Evangelion and because important characters get introduced, but it almost seems like the director Hideaki Anno and the staff at Gainax were on autopilot when they were making these early episodes. I would say that Evangelion becomes considerably more interesting again in episode 11 and it becomes fantastic in episode 16. In episode 16, an angel, Leliel, contacts Shinji's mind for the first time. The animation obviously gets better, the angel attacks become more epic and interesting, the characterization improves, and Anno finally gets to demonstrate yet again that he's an excellent director, which is something that he already got to do in Nadia: The Secret Of Blue Water and Gunbuster. Although what happens in the world of Evangelion, such as the angel attacks, is very interesting and exciting, I would say that the main characters, who are well realized and developed, are the biggest strength of the show. They are like real people. They have strengths and they have flaws. The characterization in Evangelion is what puts it above Cowboy Bebop and Escaflowne for me. My three most favorite episodes from Evangelion are Tears, A Man's Battle, and The Sickness Unto Death And Then. I should also add that I'm not at all a fan of the Rebuild of Evangelion, which is the animated film series that retells the story of the original TV series with some changes. Anno was involved in the making of these films, but his involvement doesn't automatically make them good because, in my opinion, Anno hasn't made anything great since Kare Kano in 1999. Hayao Miyazaki, who's another great anime director, also hasn't made anything great since Howl's Moving Castle (2004). I think that the anime industry in Japan began going into a slump in the early-2000s, and this slump is still continuing. So, I would say that little or nothing great has been made by any of the younger anime directors, and older directors like Anno or Miyazaki haven't been able to produce anything great too. This is why, for example, I don't look forward to seeing The Boy And The Heron (2023). Fortunately, my thirst for good anime was satiated several months ago by Robot Carnival (1987), which is another film from the golden age of anime. If I had seen it earlier, it's possible that I would have included this anthology of nine rather different shorts on my list of the top ten anime films. The Rebuild of Evangelion films aren't terrible, but there's nothing great about them either. They're simply the usual bland modern anime films that have been getting made since the mid-2000s. So, for example, the main characters, who are so interesting in the original TV series, are not at all interesting in the Rebuild of Evangelion. I would even say that some of the main characters are revolting in these films. Cowboy Bebop has some of the same flaws as Evangelion. The first several episodes aren't all that interesting, though they're still very good. For example, they feature some beautiful and detailed background animation. This aspect, the detailed backgrounds, is present in almost every show from the golden age of anime. I would say that episode 14 is where Cowboy Bebop becomes truly good because Shinichiro Watanabe's direction gets better and the animation gets better too, though it's good in the preceding episodes too. Episode 14 is also the episode where the world-building in Cowboy Bebop becomes more interesting. For example, we get to find out more about the Astral Gate. The characterization in Cowboy Bebop isn't very good, in my opinion. Sure, the characters are appealing and somewhat interesting, but they're more like fictional heroes than like real people. It's no secret that many of the characters in the show are heavily influenced by characters from various American and Hong Kong films. Spike, Jet, Faye, and Edward get to do many unusual and superhuman things in the course of the show, and, because of this, they're like the superhuman heroes in many Western films, action films, martial arts films, or even noir films. Therefore, they're characters that a person can be inspired by, but they're not characters that a person can relate to. Much has been said by people about the "coolness" of the show because it features blues and jazz music by Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, gunfights, swordfights, martial arts fights, and characters that wouldn't look out of place in a Western or in an action movie. While these things may be important to an average bloke, "coolness" is not what I look for in a show. Fortunately, coolness isn't the only thing that Cowboy Bebop has to offer. It also offers an interesting future world and good animation, which have received plenty of praise from people too. My three most favorite episodes are Speak Like A Child, Boogie Woogie Feng Shui, and Cowboy Funk. The story of the film, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001), is set between episode 22 and episode 23 of the TV series. I consider it to be another one of the last great anime films. As for The Vision Of Escaflowne, I would say that it's my second favorite out of the three shows, behind Evangelion and ahead of Cowboy Bebop. Escaflowne is the most consistent out of the three shows when it comes to quality. It starts out well and it remains good until the end, but I must say that some of the early episodes are my least favorite episodes of the show. There isn't a noticeable dip in the quality of animation or storytelling after the first few episodes. The reason why Escaflowne isn't ahead of Evangelion for me is because it doesn't quite reach the same heights as Evangelion. The characters in Escaflowne are appealing, but they're not as interesting as the characters in Evangelion. What's also worth mentioning is that the creators of the show clearly wanted it to appeal to girls and not only to boys. The main character, Hitomi Kanzaki, is a school-girl. There isn't a shortage of scenes of her and the other female characters talking about their feelings for male characters and trying to get together with male characters. I must say that these scenes bored me. Escaflowne features impressive mecha designs and action scenes, but it has fewer memorable action scenes than Evangelion. However, the story of Escaflowne may be just as interesting as the story of Evangelion, perhaps more so. Evangelion is ultimately a story featuring aliens and about how these same aliens created mankind. Escaflowne is ultimately a story featuring Atlantis, a civilization of legend and lore that thrived 12,000 years ago on Earth, and about how the Atlanteans created Gaea. So, anyway, my three most favorite episodes are The Guided Ones, The Edge Of The World, and The Girl From The Mystic Moon. Although Evangelion is my most favorite one out of the three shows, I have to say that watching Escaflowne moved me the most this time. It's because there are things in the show that I didn't realize before and because I got to see some of the episodes in a new light. When it comes to characterization, Escaflowne manages to reach some of the heights of Evangelion. Some of the scenes in Escaflowne are simply incredible, like when Allen's father briefly meets Hitomi's grandmother in the Mystic Valley. What's also worth adding is that I watched all three of the shows this time with English subtitles. I didn't turn on the English dubs. English dubs for anime are almost always disappointing because they're lower in quality than the original Japanese language and sound tracks and because sometimes even the meaning of what is said gets changed. This is obvious, for example, in an OVA like Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal, where, in some scenes, the excellent dialogue got changed completely. I was a bit stunned when I found out that the people that made the English dub for this OVA completely changed some of the dialogue for the dub. Some people praise the English dub that got made for Cowboy Bebop, but I think that it's not really good. I don't like that some of the words got changed for the dub, and I don't really like some of the performances. I think that Escaflowne has the best English dub out of the three shows, although this dub too isn't worth praising much, in my opinion. It's kind of funny that now that I'm done watching the three shows again, I feel a little sad that they're over. There's so much to like about the three shows, and I can watch them over and over again. I appreciate them now even more than I did when I watched them for the first time, partly because I now realize that good anime shows like these just don't get made anymore. I can obviously watch these shows whenever I like because I own them on video, but I can't simply spend all of my time watching anime. I have to do other things too, though I probably won't wait another several years before watching them again. What's also impressive is that all three of the shows are original creations. They weren't adapted from manga. However, manga based on these shows did get released. I've only read the Evangelion manga, which was written and illustrated by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. This manga series isn't bad, but it's clearly not better than the TV series. It's obviously nowhere near as good as classic manga like Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind by Hayao Miyazaki or Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo. I began reading the Evangelion manga years ago, but I stopped reading it because I lost interest in it after reading the first 11 volumes. Sadamoto's artwork is obviously impressive, and it's perhaps the only reason to own this manga series, but the story and the characterization are somewhat disappointing. Finally, last year, I read the last two volumes in the summer simply to have a feeling of completion. I finished reading the last volume on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 when I was at a Tim Hortons cafe, in the afternoon. I went there mostly to use the washroom. Finishing to read this manga felt kind of special because I began reading it more than a decade ago but I finished reading it only last year. The manga itself isn't really special. What felt special is the fact that it took more than a decade before I was able to get through it. I began reading this manga when my life was different, when things were different for me, and when I knew a lot less about the world than I do now. I must admit that realizing this when I finished reading the manga at the cafe made the moment somewhat special and memorable for me. It was as if I was going through the end of an era.
When it comes to what I finished reading recently, I can say that I finished reading Michelangelo (1974) by Howard Hibbard. Since this isn't really a thick book (315 pages), and since I had an urge to finish reading it as soon as possible, I read it quite quickly. This is something that's unusual for me nowadays because I don't read one book at a time. I'm in a process of slowly reading dozens of books in my free time. I don't feel like I need to read only one book at a time and that I have to finish reading it before picking up another book. This is almost certainly because I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Therefore, Hibbard's book, which interested me a fair amount, is the first book that I've read in this way since I read Carl Sagan's 'The Dragons of Eden' (1977) several years ago. 'The Dragons of Eden' is one of the books that Andrei Fursov recommended on his webpage, and I'm glad that I picked it up because it got me interested in Sagan's other books, such as 'Cosmos' (1980) and 'Contact' (1985). The book also features some superb black & white photographs. My mother once told me that biographies can be some of the most useful books that one can read. I've got to agree with her. I didn't only learn a lot about Michelangelo when reading Hibbard's book. I also learned about some of what happened in Europe when Michelangelo was alive, and, obviously, I learned a lot about Michelangelo's art. Before reading this book, I didn't know about the Sack of Rome of 1527. Hibbard described it as follows. "The Medici Chapel and the Biblioteca Laurenziana were interrupted by a political crisis. Pope Clement VII had fallen out with the new Emperor, Charles V, in the mid-1520s, whereupon Charles instigated a Roman uprising against the Pope in September 1526. Imperial troops, unrestrained by any merciful leader, rampaged through Italy the following year, and on 6 May 1527 entered Rome. The defenders of the city were cut to pieces; orphans and invalids were thrown into the Tiber. No method of torture was left untried by the ingenious Spanish soldiers, but the favorite was simply to tie up the victim and let him starve. The German landsknechts, many of them new Lutherans, amused themselves with even less refined activities. Every church was plundered, tombs ransacked, altars desecrated, palaces burnt. Churches were turned into stables, as was Clement's unfinished suburban palace, the Villa Madama. It was reported that 'some soldiers clothed an ass in bishop's vestments, led him into a church, and tried to force a priest to... offer him the Sacred Host. The priest, on refusing, was cut in pieces.' Nuns were raped and sold into prostitution. Even the Emperor's own agent was so ill-treated that he died in the street from hunger and exhaustion. 'All the Romans are prisoners,' a Venetian wrote, 'and if a man does not pay his ransom he is killed.' Clement VII and some of his retinue escaped to the relative safety of the Castel Sant' Angelo (Cellini gives a memorably boastful description of the fighting). After peace was declared, Clement escaped to Orvieto, a broken man, dragging with him the remnants of a seriously damaged authority. The exuberant Renaissance papacy was finished." It turns out that I did get to see one sculpture by Michelangelo, although I haven't been to Italy. This sculpture is called Crouching Boy, which is located at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. I must say that when I was at the museum, I wasn't really interested much in seeing Michelangelo's sculpture or many of the other famous artworks there. I was most excited to see some of the Ancient Egyptian mummies that are there. When I was at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the large collection of Ancient Egyptian mummies there was also what I was most interested in seeing. But, obviously, I also got to see the Mask of Tutankhamun there, for example. I know quite a lot about Ancient Egypt, but I've been most interested in finding out more about Islamic Civilization (500 AD - 1940 AD), Chinese Civilization (400 AD - 1930 AD), and even Japanese Civilization (100 BC - 1950 AD) in the last several years. Still, the only Islamic country that I've been to is Egypt. Well, that's not really correct because I've also been to Morocco and Palestine, where I got to see the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And the history books that I've received as gifts are also almost all about Ancient Egypt. It's as if people think that Ancient Egypt is the only thing that I'm interested in. Well, I'm not really complaining because I own several gorgeous old books about Ancient Egypt because of this. One of the books that was gifted to me by my mother is 'Monuments Of Civilization: Egypt' (1970) by Claudio Barocas, and I finished reading it several months ago. This gorgeous book, with its many photographs, made me want to buy the other eight books from the series. I ordered them in very good condition from England. They are about Ancient Cambodia, the Middle East, the Maya, Rome, Greece, India, Japan, and Islam.
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Sunday, December 10, 2023
Joan of Arc, differential diagnosis: culture-sensitive hallucinations, narcissistic personality disorder, spectrum issues, and anorexia nervosa
Kelly DeVries stated that 'no person of the Middle Ages, male or female, has been the subject of more study than Joan of Arc. She has been portrayed as a saint, heretic, religious zealot, seer, demented teenager, proto-feminist, aristocratic wanna-be, saviour of France, person who turned the tide of the Hundred Years War'. Gordon (2001) described her as 'a mystery girl who came from nowhere'. She was an intelligent girl. According to Gordon (2001), 'Joan came into the world tainted by political and economic disorder'. Attempts have been made to understand Joan of Arc since the fifteenth century. She’s one of the most puzzling individuals that ever lived, and this paper adds the possibility of anorexia nervosa and autism spectrum disorder to the speculation. A single categorical diagnosis is unlikely ever to describe her. Gordon (2001) noted her 'singularity and single-mindedness', which can be seen in persons with autism, and she was in addition, erratic and self-contradictory.
Background and childhood:
She was reared on a farm, where she looked after the animals. Her father was a low-ranking individual. He 'represented the town in the local assizes'. She had no formal schooling. She stated that in her teen years, 'there was no one superior to her in sewing and spinning', (Gordon, 2001). She appears to have been somewhat distant from her family.
Temporal lobe epilepsy:
D’Orsi and Tinuper (2016), suggested 'idiopathic partial epilepsy with auditory features'. They also suggest that 'auditory hallucinations and occasionally visual hallucinations are symptoms of epilepsy', (Miller, 2022). The voices Joan said could be set off by the sound of bells and could occur during sleep. They occurred episodically. This hypothesis remains unproven.
Tuberology:
Ratnasuriya (1986) suggested that she may have had tuberculosis because she worked on a farm and may have got it from the cattle. This could also explain the amenorrhea and the possible intercranial tumours linking to hallucinations. While it’s not possible to rule this out, she had too much energy for a person with tuberculosis.
Hallucination: A question of schizophrenia?
Ratnasuriya (1986) stated that 'she was about thirteen when she first heard voices'. The description of this first experience is quoted in Smith’s Joan of Arc: 'she had a voice from God to help her to know what to do and on this first occasion she was very much afraid. She heard the voices upon the right side and rarely heard it without accompanying brightness … after she heard this voice upon three occasions, she understood that it was the voice of an angel'. 'She later went on to claim that she heard and saw St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret'. Gordon (2001) notes that Joan was extremely pious and had experienced visions involving angels and saints, both the quality of her visions and the shape of her life mark her as radically different from the mystics who preceded her. The language and imagery of the great mystics is hypersexualised and hyper specific in its accumulation of physical detail'. This made her unique and different from them. Brother Richard was a mystic and Joan 'shared her devotion to the cult of the Holy Name', (Gordon, 2001). At her later trial, one of the Judges asked her if St. Michael was naked and she replied, 'do you think God cannot afford to clothe him', (Gordon, 2001). Gordon (2001) noted that she was 'moved by a religious vision' and spoke of 'the delights of the presence of her voices' and 'she understood herself to be constantly and palpably in the company of the Divine'. 'She was loyal to her voices, whose divine source she never doubted', (Gordon, 2001). She did obey and was controlled by the voices – one of the reasons schizophrenia was considered. The voices were dear to her. The hallucinations did not lead her to go into a nunnery but 'into battle', (Gordon, 2001), which meant killing and spilling of blood which makes her very contradictory. She was emotionally immature. John Huizinga (Gordon, 2001) 'suggested Joan’s expressing her experience as divinely sent voices was uncommon but not bizarre for the time, that to the contemporary framework of understanding, it was no more odd than a twentieth century person speaking of her unconscious or outer space or relativity. He vehemently denies that her voices are pathological, and his work has not hesitated in pointing to the pathology of the age in which she lived. Her experience was unusual, he says, but it was not disturbed'. Clearly, Joan’s voices as a cultural phenomenon has to be considered. Huizinga (1970), stated that 'if every inspiration that comes to me with such commanding urgency that it is heard as a voice is to be condemned out of hand by a learned qualification of a morbid symptom, a hallucination, who would not rather stand with Joan of Arc and Socrates than with the faculty of the Sorbonne and that of the sane'. Gordon (2001) notes 'Joan’s highly developed understanding of symbolic action and its power. She is (capable) of explaining a complex and multi-faceted idea'. This goes totally against schizophrenia. Beavan et al, (2011) showed in a paper on The prevalence of voice-hearers in the general population, that 'the findings support the current movement away from pathological models of unusual experiences and towards understanding voice-hearing as a continuum in the general population and having a meaning in relation to the voice-hearer’s life experience'. This would fit exactly with Joan’s hallucinations. Beavan et al, (2011) state the median for hallucinations in the general population was 13.2%. There is clearly no one to one relationship between hallucinations and schizophrenia. Hallucinations can also occur in high-functioning autism, other psychotic disorders and drug abuse. In DSM 5, (APA, 2013), it is written that in 'some cultures, visual and auditory hallucinations with a religious content (hearing God’s voice) are a part of religious experience'. This is where Joan’s voices belong and not in schizophrenia. Indeed, hallucinations are only one feature of schizophrenia, and one cannot make a diagnosis based solely on them. What Joan described were classic ‘hallucinations which came to her as being vivid and clear, with the full force of normal perceptions, and not under voluntary control and they occurred in a clear sensorium', (APA, 2013). APA (2013) also concludes that hallucinations may be a normal part of religious experience in certain cultural contexts. This last (APA, 2013), sentence is the one that explain Joan of Arc’s hallucinations. Joan felt that she had 'a divine mandate', (Gordon, 2001). This would fit with the cultural and religious mores of the fifteenth century. Joan showed an ability to deal with learned doctors, with equanimity for she repeatedly suggested that … her Judge’s refer to the record of Poitier’s and stop wasting her time'. This also shows her sanity, if not tact.
Anorexia nervosa:
Gordon (2001), noted that 'Joan took pleasure in her body not as an eating body or a body that aroused or experienced sexual desires but as a body that wore clothes, used them for display, as a body that rode horses … as an active body that led men and wielded a sword'. Nevertheless, Gordon (2001) did note a comment about her 'lovely breasts'. This suggests some normality in that physical area. She 'ate very little and without formality', (Gordon, 2001). Gordon (2001) noted that, 'she didn’t care much about food', and was abstemious, 'at table'. Even after battle, she was known to eat only a few pieces of bread dipped in wine … her lack of appetite for the food was seen as an indication of her worthiness or superiority'. In addition, 'Joan did not menstruate', (Gordon, 2001). This can be associated with anorexia nervosa. Gordon (2001) suggests that 'Joan’s reluctance to eat more than the minimum needed for her survival suggests that she might not be taking in the proper number of calories to encourage menstruation. The combination of extreme physical activity, extreme stress and the minimum of food easily explains Joan’s not menstruating'. Gordon (2001), stated that 'the sexual allure of boyishness attaches not to strength but to lightness'. 'Joan took pleasure in her body, not as an eating body or a body that aroused or experienced sexual desires, but as a body that wore clothes and used them for display, as a body that rode horses and was admired on horseback, as an active body that led men and wielded a sword'. She had no admiration for the female body. We don’t know what she thought about body weight but ate little, was not interested in female sexual interests. She was a perfectionist, high achiever, had expectations and of course anorexia nervosa can overlap with a neurodevelopmental disorder like autism.
Personality:
At her Trial, she resisted 'their (Judge’s) charge of witchcraft' and maintained 'the integrity of her position on her voices', (Gordon, 2001). 'It is no easier to understand Joan as a religious figure than as a political or military one. She burst out of categories, criss-crosses about her, contradicts the images she has presented about herself', (Gordon, 2001). The voices charged her with the job of 'crowning the Dauphin King of France', (Gordon, 2001). This is not a religious task although she made it religious by stating that 'my Lord wants the Dauphin to be made King', (Gordon, 2001). She was a most contradictory personality who spoke with certainty and moved men to do what she wanted, including Royalty. She was mesmeric. Gordon, (2001) noted that 'fifteenth-century Church doctors had no trouble placing prophecy alongside testimony, garnered through legal investigation, and weighing both'. With her personality, Joan showed extreme 'naivete'. She had an 'impetuous, hubristic nature', (Gordon, 2001). She could be 'aggressive', and full of 'rage', (Gordon, 2001). She had an 'extraordinary physical courage and stamina', (Gordon, 2001). She was controlling, dominating and had narrow interests. She had poor political judgement later and could not adapt to new situations. She had preservation of sameness in her battle plans. She became a victim of misogynism. She inspired her troops, was courageous and loved to display her standards. She knew the importance of exhibiting herself as a warrior to the troops and put on 'white armour', 'a short gold jacket', an 'elaborate dress' and 'she revelled in this power', among her troops, (Gordon, 2001).
Truthfulness?
In relation to a prisoner who was found guilty 'she went back on her word, her parole, sacred to the idea of chivalry', (Gordon, 2001).
Creative psychopathy:
Henderson (1939) suggested that Joan had creative psychopathy. This does not fit well. I assume he meant her achievements in the military area. Gordon (2001), noted that, 'she was younger than anyone she rode beside and in all importance rooms of her life, she was alone among her elders'.
Other aspects of personality:
She was naive and foolhardy in her management of later battles. She was controlling, dominating, egocentric and not relating satisfactorily to her army officers. When she was captured, she was pulled 'by the garment that she wore out of love of display … and it was on horseback that she presented her most inspiring version of herself' (Gordon, 2001). She was exhibitionistic, 'loved display' and 'elaborate dress' and was a 'master of symbols, but the symbols she chose were simple and easily read', (Gordon, 2001). 'She loved her standard' and 'she had no interest in courtship or the conventions of courtly love', (Gordon, 2001). Her only interest was in serving God. Gordon, (2001) notes that she was, 'fearless and timeless and her courage never flagged'. She was excited by the power and control she had in battle. Even after her capture, she remained grandiose and felt that she would triumph at her Trial. She felt that she was safe with God and her voices. What was important to her was her internal relationship with God and not external judges. She tried to escape imprisonment which goes against this personal omnipotent thinking. She later said she was wrong to try to escape and that the voices were against this. At her Trial, 'she was fearless and ……. her devoutness, her lack of concern about defying the power of the Church is astounding'. It suggests an autistic trait or a psychopathic trait. It suggests some problem with theory of mind. There was something novelty-seeking or sensation-seeking in her interaction with the Judges.
Narcissistic personality disorder:
In some ways, there was a narcissistic grandiose component to her personality. At the Trial she avoided 'understatement', (Gordon, 2001). This may have been part of her narcissism. At her Trial, she emphasized 'the primacy of her own vision over the authority of the Church', (Gordon, 2001). She turned the Judges against her. Joan 'set herself up as superior to the authority of the Church', (Gordon, 2001). This could be seen as narcissistic grandiosity. She was narcissistic, grandiose and megalomaniacal in some of the credit she took for military success and also showed 'taunting arrogance', (Gordon, 2001). She recognized no limits. Another aspect of her narcissism was her 'boastfulness'. Gordon, (2001) noted that 'the bravado of her tone is extravagant to the point of delusion'. She described herself as 'chief of war', (self-appointed) and stated that she was 'sent by God, the King of Heaven, body for body to drive you out (enemies) of all France', (Gordon, 2001). This was very grandiose and almost omnipotent. She showed 'confident aggressiveness' and 'mastery', (Gordon, 2001). She did not inspire loyalty after her failures in battle. After she was captured, no one came to her aide. Like persons with narcissistic personality disorder, (APA, 2013), she was preoccupied with thoughts of unlimited success and power. She believes she was special. She had a sense of entitlement. She had a grandiose sense of her own self-importance, showed a lack of empathy, could be dominant and arrogant. She had identity diffusion, intimacy problems and narcissistic rage and anger. She had no insight into her personality.
Autism spectrum disorder?
She had problems in social communication and behaviour. She had problems making friends. She was a loner, eccentric, solitary and had preservation of sameness. She wore the same clothes repeatedly. She had narrow interests. She was naive and had problems reading other people’s minds.
Cross-dressing and identity:
Susan Crane, (1996), comments 'Joan of Arc wore men’s clothes almost continually from her first attempts to reach the Dauphin, later crowned Charles VII, until her execution twenty-eight months later. In Court, on campaigns, in Church and in the street, she cross-dressed, and she refused to stop doing so during the long months of her Trial for heresy. Joan’s contemporary supporters and adversaries, comment extensively on her clothing and the records of her Trial provides commentary of her own, making her by far the best-documented transvestite of the later Middle Ages'. Central to her cross-dressing was that it was compulsive and extremely important to her, even if she said it was a minor issue. ………..she would not desist, and it was one of the final reasons for her burning at the state. She described the wearing of male clothes as the 'commandment of God and his angels', (Pernoud et al, 1998). In terms of transvestic disorder, (APA, 2013) we don’t know if there were any sexual fantasies or arousal in relation to it. She had a massive urge to do it and it was compulsive. She was charged with 'idolatrous transvestism'. Going against transgender was that 'she refused to give up the identity of a woman', (Gordon, 2001). She said she wore male clothes to protect her from rape. 'Amongst men at arms she was happiest', (Gordon, 2001). This shows a masculine identification.
The Trial:
The trial judges were sadistic and misogynistic. Joan nevertheless did enjoy 'the performance aspect of the Trial', (Gordon, 2001). This was part of her exhibitionism and sensation-seeking. She saw herself as superior to the Judges. She was tried as a heretic in an 'inquisition-type Trial'. Gordon (2001) described it as a 'great witchcraft Trial'.
Conclusion:
Joan was narcissistic, grandiose, controlling, dominating, emotionally immature with sexual identity diffusion. She had poor social relationships but was a great leader of men in battle. She did not have schizophrenia. Her psychopathology was on the personality spectrum and neurodevelopmental spectrum. She had poor reciprocal social relationships, preservation of sameness, narrow interests. She didn’t really have a male identity because she called herself 'Joan the Maid'. She was not sexually attracted to men, as a female. She was androgynous.
- Michael Fitzgerald, Former Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
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