What to know about "Ozempic Face"

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/ozempic-face

Key takeaways

- “Ozempic face” refers to the facial changes, such as sagging skin and increased wrinkles, that can occur due to rapid weight loss with Ozempic.
- Although Ozempic is not FDA-approved for weight loss, doctors sometimes prescribe it off-label for this use. Loss of facial fat, which supports skin elasticity and structure, causes the facial side effects from the drug.
- To help reduce facial side effects, your doctor may want to reduce your Ozempic dosage. Or they may have other suggestions, such as increasing your water and protein intake.

Ozempic is a brand-name medication that’s prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes in adults. Ozempic can decrease appetite. As a result, many people with diabetes who receive the drug lose weight.

Ozempic comes as a liquid solution in prefilled single-patient-use pens. The drug is given as a subcutaneous injection. After a healthcare professional has shown you how to inject Ozempic correctly, you may be able to give yourself the injections at home. Your doctor will typically start with a low dosage of Ozempic and adjust it over time to reach an amount that’s right for you.

Many people use Ozempic without a prescription to try to reach their desired body weight. Ozempic is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for weight management. However, doctors may sometimes prescribe this drug off-label for weight management. (Off-label drug use means prescribing a drug for a purpose other than what it’s been approved for by the FDA.) To learn more, see the “Ozempic off-label use for weight loss” section.

This article will explain the term “Ozempic face,” including how Ozempic affects the face, other possible side effects of the medication, and how to avoid the facial effects of Ozempic.

Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, a cosmetic and celebrity dermatologist, coined the term “Ozempic face” after treating many individuals with this symptom.

How can Ozempic affect the face?

Semaglutide, the generic name for Ozempic, is part of a class of medications known as incretin mimetics. These ensure the pancreas releases sufficient insulin when the blood glucose level is high.

Additionally, Ozempic acts as a long lasting and effective glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 agonist). This means it makes you feel fuller and delays gastric emptying so you can consume fewer calories.

While Ozempic is safe to use with your doctor’s recommendation, it can cause rapid weight loss that is often more pronounced on the face.

Facial fat serves a protective function and affects facial aesthetics and elasticity. Weight loss can cause dermatological changes and shrinking because the fat that stretches and cushions the skin is no longer in place.

The skin of the face also loses its ability to retract after an episode of rapid weight loss due to reduced levels of elastin and collagen, which are essential for structural integrity.

As a result, using Ozempic may have the following facial symptoms:

- increased signs of aging, such as more lines and wrinkles
- loss of fat, which can lead the skin to become loose and sag
- a hollowed-out appearance
- lipodystrophy, which affects how the body accumulates and stores fat

Ozempic off-label use for weight loss

Sometimes, doctors may prescribe Ozempic off-label. This means prescribing a drug for a purpose other than what it’s been approved for by the FDA.

Ozempic is not FDA-approved for treating type 1 diabetes and has not been studied in people with this condition. However, in some cases, Ozempic may be used off-label to treat type 1 diabetes.

Some experts say that Ozempic and other medications in the same class should not be used in people with type 1 diabetes. They believe that the risk of side effects from these drugs outweighs the potential benefits when used by people with type 1 diabetes.

Ozempic may also be prescribed off-label for help with weight management. However, the drug is not FDA approved for this purpose.

Other possible side effects of Ozempic

Side effects that have been reported with Ozempic can include:

- nausea and vomiting
- flatulence
- constipation
- diarrhea
- abdominal pain
- fatigue
- injection site reactions

In rare instances, you may also experience serious side effects such as:

- vision changes
- kidney problems
- gall bladder disease
- severe allergic reactions
- an increased risk of thyroid cancer
- hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)
- pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas)

Preventing facial side effects

In some cases, you may be unable to prevent facial side effects from Ozempic. If these are a cause of concern, your doctor may recommend any of the following:

- reducing your dosage
- changing to a different medication
- drinking 1 to 2 liters of water every day
- improving protein intake with a protein-rich diet
- using dermatological fillers
- lifestyle modifications to maintain a healthy weight

If you decide to stop using Ozempic, it can take about 5 weeks from the last dose for the drug to clear from your system. 

What happens after stopping Ozempic?

A 2022 study explored changes in body weight and metabolic risk factors among 1,961 participants 1 year after semaglutide treatment.

The study found that stopping Ozempic treatment can cause you to regain lost weight.

After you stop using Ozempic, you may also notice the following:

- increased cravings
- an absence of side effects
- blood sugar spikes 

When to contact a doctor

You should contact a doctor if you experience any severe side effects from using Ozempic. Be sure to document your symptoms and share them with your doctor.

It’s also important to note that Ozempic has a boxed warning for the risk of thyroid cancer. (A boxed warning is the most serious warning from the FDA.)

Animal studies showed an increased risk of thyroid cancer in animals given semaglutide (the active drug in Ozempic). Animal studies don’t always predict what happens in humans. It isn’t known for certain whether Ozempic increases the risk of thyroid cancer in humans.

While using Ozempic, tell your doctor right away if you have any of the following symptoms:

- difficulty swallowing
- a lump or pain in the neck
- wheezing
- shortness of breath
- a hoarse voice that worsens over time

Frequently asked questions

Here are some frequently asked questions about Ozempic.

Does Ozempic change your face?

It’s possible. Ozempic can cause rapid weight loss, which can be particularly visible in the face. A sudden loss of fat cells can reduce the appearance of smoothness and fullness in the face, resulting in a gaunt appearance.

For more information about how Ozempic may change your face, talk with your doctor.

What does an Ozempic face look like?

It can vary from person to person. Changes in your face may include:

- more lines and wrinkles
- loose and sagging skin due to loss of fat cells
- a hollowed-out appearance

If you have concerns about changes to your face while using Ozempic, talk with your doctor.

Does Ozempic age your skin and your face?

It may. When experiencing rapid weight loss, your skin does not always shrink at the same time. A lack of fat cells may also affect skin elasticity. Wrinkles and lines, usually associated with aging, can appear.

For more information about how Ozempic can affect your face, talk with your doctor.

Summary

Ozempic is a treatment option for people with type 2 diabetes. While Ozempic does not have FDA approval for weight management, doctors may prescribe this drug off-label for chronic weight management among those with overweight or obesity. It can cause rapid weight loss and associated facial side effects that some call “Ozempic face.”

You should only use Ozempic as your doctor recommends. If you experience severe side effects from using Ozempic, your doctor may stop prescribing the medication and recommend lifestyle changes.

When you stop using Ozempic, you may experience increased food cravings, an absence of side effects, and blood sugar spikes. You may also regain any weight they lost while using it.

If you’re interested in using Ozempic for weight loss, which is an off-label use, talk with your doctor. They can help determine whether Ozempic might be a good choice for you.

Disclaimer: Medical News Today has made every effort to make certain that all information is factually correct, comprehensive, and up to date. However, this article should not be used as a substitute for the knowledge and expertise of a licensed healthcare professional. You should always consult your doctor or another healthcare professional before taking any medication. The drug information contained herein is subject to change and is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, warnings, drug interactions, allergic reactions, or adverse effects. The absence of warnings or other information for a given drug does not indicate that the drug or drug combination is safe, effective, or appropriate for all patients or all specific uses.

Meet Ruth Carter: The Costume Designer Behind Marvel's Black Panther

https://www.blackenterprise.com/meet-the-hollywood-costume-designer-behind-marvels-black-panther/

Ruth E. Carter is an award-winning costume designer behind some of the most iconic black films of all time—Malcolm X, Amistad, Do the Right Thing, and Selma, to name a few. So it should come as no surprise that Carter was tapped to lend her incomparable talent to design costumes for Marvel’s Black Panther movie—a highly anticipated Hollywood blockbuster.

We caught up with Carter to learn more about her journey into Hollywood.

What inspired you to become a costume designer?

I discovered costume design as a career path while attending Hampton University. But costume designing was a summary of my experiences. My mom was a counselor for the city; she would stop in the street and talk to people who had all types of problems. Back then it was embarrassing but her empathy for people gave me permission to open my eyes and see people for all of their complexities. Having had that as a young person coupled with going to college and majoring in theatre, I could read a script about a person and see a version of how they might look like. Ultimately, I was groomed to be a storyteller at a young age.

When it comes to hiring you to design costumes for movies, how does the process work with film studios?

Directors hire me—but they don’t want to impede on my creativity. When I first get the script, they give me broad strokes [direction]. They may say “We want realism or this has to be incredible, intense, wild, and colorful. etc.”

First, I read through the scenes of the scripts. I get into the words and the characters. I laugh and cry with it. This helps me determine when to be pronounced. For instance, if the scene is Harlem 1940s, and Thurgood Marshall is sitting with his wife, and Langston Hughes walks in, I look up Langston Hughes in the 1940s. Then I look for great photographers of that era—I discover Teenie Harris, an accomplished black photographer.  I review his body of work and notice he was photographing people candidly. But these pictures were in black and white so I go to the original collections and they give me a direct path to the tones and brightness and dullness of saturation or desaturated of colors that will create a 1940s landscape.

Which moments have been most helpful in getting you to this point in your career?

When I started there were very few people who were doing costume design. My mentors were unconventional people like Spike Lee. He said, “Attend the University of Southern California, and go to UCLA for training and sign up for a student film that way you’ll be on a set with all the professional equipment used by major studios.

He also taught me about buying in multiples. For instance, for a scene where people get into a fight—you might need to buy five of the same shirt because movies shoot out of sequence, so if the actor bloodies or dirties that shirt—that shirt has to stay exactly like it is for the scenes that follow. But if we haven’t shot the scenes that come before it—you need a clean version. Nobody else told me this.

Spike Lee was my greatest support and biggest mentor. I am indebted to him for the life and career I have now.

Marvel’s Black Panther movie is one of the most highly anticipated films of 2018. But beyond a star-studded lineup of incredible black talents such as Michael B. Jordan, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Lupita Nyong’o, the film also includes an action-packed storyline equipped with a variety of jaw-dropping costumes. So we caught up with Ruth E. Carter, the Academy Award-nominated designer behind the film to talk about how the ancient tribes of Africa inspired her designs of the superhero costumes.

Carter is no stranger to recreating representations of blacks in films—she’s also the creative mastermind behind some of the most iconic black films in history—School Daze, Malcolm X, Amistad, Do the Right Thing, Roots (2016) and Selma, to name a few. Below she shares her design process and inspiration behind the film’s costumes.

Ruth E. Carter on working with the film production team and planning for the design process. 

Marvel Studios gave me a blueprint. They had a lot of plans for the costumes, whether it was visual effects, special effects, or photo doubles. So they told me the elements the costume needed to have. From rich saturated colors and beautiful prints to textures—these things were rooted in African culture.

So we researched all of these wonderful different ancient tribes from the continent of Africa such as the Xhosa, Zula, Himba, and Maasai, and learned about their secrets and the reason behind doing things a certain way. For instance, when The Himba Tribe used this beautiful red clay that they put all over their bodies (including, jewelry hands, and hair) it was for the desert dwellers to have moisturizer. It also made your skin and hair really soft. It even had Shea butter—it was also so colorful and intense. It could even be bottled and sold today as a moisturizer.

On the other hand, the Maasai Tribe was known for all of this beautiful beadwork—so we wanted to direct the costumes towards that look. The stacked rings are a very prominent visual jewelry and were worn by ancient African tribes—that was also part of the framework that Marvel said we would like to have. I hired a jewelry designer who does African-inspired jewelry. She created rings, and necklaces—featuring a hand-tooled element that really pulled the looks together. We also pulled inspiration for the costumes from the draped robe attire that you often see in the Nigerian culture.

Now reading Time magazine Vol. 129 No. 14: TV's Unholy Row (April 6, 1987)…

Why AuDHD people-pleasers must ask ‘what do I need?’

As ever I’m navigating this conversation from my personal lived experience only, so I’m very open to discussion in the comments :)

Now listening to Silent Hill 3 by Akira Yamaoka and Middle Man by Boz Scaggs...

On Smithe Street in Downtown Vancouver. Summer of 2018.

Smithe Street is a prominent street in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, running east-west through several key neighborhoods, including Yaletown, the Central Business District (CBD), and the Arts + Events District. It’s named after William Smithe, a former Premier of British Columbia, and is known for its blend of residential, commercial, and cultural significance.

Smithe Street cuts through Yaletown, a trendy, revitalized area that was once an industrial zone. Today, it’s a hub of modern luxury developments, upscale dining, and vibrant nightlife. Developments like One Pacific at 68 Smithe Street are part of Concord Pacific’s newest luxury projects, offering proximity to the Seawall, Roundhouse Community Centre, and Yaletown Canada Line Station. Further east, Smithe Street passes through the CBD, where office workers, food trucks, and high-end shopping on Robson and Alberni streets define the area. It’s a central connection point for SkyTrain routes, the West Coast Express, and the SeaBus to North Vancouver. The Arts + Events District area, intersecting Smithe Street, is rich with cultural landmarks and is walkable to neighborhoods like Gastown, Chinatown, and False Creek.

Properties like One Pacific and The Smithe highlight the street’s appeal for luxury living. These buildings offer modern amenities, stunning views, and easy access to parks, the Seawall, and public transit. Yaletown along Smithe Street is home to popular brunch spots like Chambar, Jam Cafe, and Cafe Medina, as well as The Dirty Apron, a culinary institution. The CBD section features Pacific Centre Mall and high-end boutiques. The street’s location provides quick access to Stanley Park, the West End, and Coal Harbour, making it ideal for outdoor enthusiasts. Gastown’s heritage charm and the Arts + Events District add a cultural layer with galleries and events.

Originally part of Vancouver’s industrial landscape, Yaletown (where Smithe Street is a key artery) has transformed into a model of livability. The mix of brick-and-beam heritage buildings with modern architecture reflects the city’s evolution, tied together by the iconic Seawall and waterfront parks. Smithe Street remains a dynamic part of Vancouver’s real estate market and lifestyle scene. Luxury developments continue to attract buyers, and its central location supports a bustling urban environment. Real estate platforms like REW.ca provide up-to-date listings and strata details for properties like One Pacific, reflecting ongoing interest in the area.

 

Just finished watching Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Seven Men From Now (1956)...

Just finished watching Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and Barbarian (2022)...

Military History of the First World War 1914-1918

Storming Of The Hill In The Argonne Forest by Georg Schobel, 1915

I'm still re-reading 'Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time' (1966) by Carroll Quigley. Another bit of information that I found to be interesting this time is in the chapter about World War I, and, therefore, I will post a quote of it. "This discrepancy existed for many years before the war and began to disappear only in the course of 1918. As a result of its existence, the first three years of the war witnessed the largest military casualties in human history. These occurred as a result of the efforts of military men to do things which were quite impossible to do. The German victories of 1866 and 1870 were the result of theoretical study, chiefly by the General Staff, and exhaustive detailed training resulting from that study. They were emphatically not based on experience, for the army of 1866 had had no actual fighting experience for two generations, and was commanded by a leader, Helmuth von Moltke, who had never commanded a unit so large as a company previously. Moltke’s great contribution was to be found in the fact that, by using the railroad and the telegraph, he was able to merge mobilization and attack into a single operation so that the final concentration of his forces took place in the enemy country, practically on the battlefield itself, just before contact with the main enemy forces took place. This contribution of Moltke’s was accepted and expanded by Count von Schlieffen, chief of the Great General Staff from 1891 to 1905. Schlieffen considered it essential to overwhelm the enemy in one great initial onslaught. He assumed that Germany would be outnumbered and economically smothered in any fighting of extended duration, and sought to prevent this by a lightning war of an exclusively offensive character. He assumed that the next war would be a two-front war against France and Russia simultaneously and that the former would have to be annihilated before the latter was completely mobilized. Above all, he was determined to preserve the existing social structure of Germany, especially the superiority of the Junker class; accordingly, he rejected either an enormous mass army, in which the Junker control of the Officers’ Corps would be lost by simple lack of numbers, or a long-drawn war of resources and attrition which would require a reorganized German economy. The German emphasis on attack was shared by the French Army command, but in a much more extreme and even mystical fashion. Under the influence of Ardant Du Picq and Ferdinand Foch, the French General Staff came to believe that victory depended only on attack and that the success of any attack depended on morale and not on any physical factors. Du Picq went so far as to insist that victory did not depend at all on physical assault or on casualties, because the former never occurs and the latter occurs only during flight after the defeat. According to him, victory was a matter of morale, and went automatically to the side with the higher morale. An artillery barrage as a necessary preliminary to infantry assault was used almost from the beginning. It was ineffectual. At first no army had the necessary quantity of munitions. Some armies insisted on ordering shrapnel rather than high-explosive shells for such barrages. This resulted in a violent controversy between Lloyd George and the generals, the former trying to persuade the latter that shrapnel was not effective against defensive forces in ground trenches. In time it should have become clear that high-explosive barrages were not effective either, although they were used in enormous quantities. They failed because: (1) earth and concrete fortifications provided sufficient protection to the defensive forces to allow them to use their own firepower against the infantry assault which followed the barrage; (2) a barrage notified the defense where to expect the following infantry assault, so that reserves could be brought up to strengthen that position; and (3) the doctrine of the continuous front made it impossible to penetrate the enemy positions on a wide-enough front to break through. The efforts to do so, however, resulted in enormous casualties. At Verdun in 1916 the French lost 350,000 and the Germans 300,000. On the Eastern Front the Russian General Aleksei Brusilov lost a million men in an indecisive attack through Galicia (June-August, 1916). On the Somme in the same year the British lost 410,000, the French lost 190,000, and the Germans lost 450,000 for a maximum gain of 7 miles on a front about 25 miles wide (July-November, 1916). The following year the slaughter continued. At Chemin des Dames in April, 1917, the French, under a new commander, Robert Nivelle, fired 11 million shells in a 10-day barrage on a 30-mile front. The attack failed, suffering losses of 118,000 men in a brief period. Many corps mutinied, and large numbers of combatants were shot to enforce discipline. Twenty-three civilian leaders were also executed. Nivelle was replaced by Petain. Shortly afterward, at Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres), Haig used a barrage of 4.25 million shells, almost 5 tonnes for every yard of an 11-mile front, but lost 400,000 men in the ensuing assault (August-November, 1917). The failure of the barrage made it necessary to devise new methods, but military men were reluctant to try any innovations. In April, 1915, the Germans were forced by civilian pressure to use poison gas, as had been suggested by the famous chemist Fritz Haber. Accordingly, without any effort at concealment and with no plans to exploit a breakthrough if it came, they sent a wave of chlorine gas at the place where the French and British lines joined. The junction was wiped out, and a great gap was opened through the line. Although it was not closed for five weeks, nothing was done by the Germans to use it. The first use of gas by the Western Powers (the British) in September, 1915, was no more successful. At the terrible Battle of Passchendaele in July 1917, the Germans introduced mustard gas, a weapon which was copied by the British in July 1918. This was the most effective gas used in the war, but it served to strengthen the defense rather than the offense, and was especially valuable to the Germans in their retreat in the autumn of 1918, serving to slow up the pursuit and making difficult any really decisive blow against them. The tank as an offensive weapon devised to overcome the defensive strength of machine-gun fire was invented by Ernest Swinton in 1915. Only his personal contacts with the members of the Committee of Imperial Defence succeeded in bringing his idea to some kind of realization. The suggestion was resisted by the generals. When continued resistance proved impossible, the new weapon was misused, orders for more were canceled, and all military supporters of the new weapon were removed from responsible positions and replaced by men who were distrustful or at least ignorant of the tanks. Swinton sent detailed instructions to Headquarters, emphasizing that they must be used for the first time in large numbers, in a surprise assault, without any preliminary artillery barrage, and with close support by infantry reserves. Instead they were used quite incorrectly. While Swinton was still training crews for the first 150 tanks, fifty were taken to France, the commander who had been trained in their use was replaced by an inexperienced man, and a mere eighteen were sent against the Germans. This occurred on September 15, 1916, in the waning stages of the Battle of the Somme. An unfavorable report on their performance was sent from General Headquarters to the War Office in London and, as a result, an order for manufacture of a thousand more was canceled without the knowledge of the Cabinet. This was overruled only by direct orders from Lloyd George. Only on November 20, 1917, were tanks used as Swinton had instructed. On that day 381 tanks supported by six infantry divisions struck the Hindenburg Line before Cambrai and burst through into open country. These forces were exhausted by a five-mile gain, and stopped. The gap in the German line was not utilized, for the only available reserves were two divisions of cavalry which were ineffective. Thus the opportunity was lost. Only in 1918 were massed tank attacks used with any success and in the fashion indicated by Swinton. The year 1917 was a bad one. The French and British suffered through their great disasters at Chemin des Dames and Passchendaele. Romania entered the war and was almost completely overrun. Bucharest being captured on December 5th. Russia suffered a double revolution, and was obliged to surrender to Germany. The Italian Front was completely shattered by a surprise attack at Caporetto and only by a miracle was it reestablished along the Piave (October-December, 1917). To weaken Germany the Entente Powers began a blockade of the Central Powers, controlling the sea directly, in spite of the indecisive German naval challenge at Jutland in 1916, and limiting the imports of neutrals near Germany, like the Netherlands. To resist this blockade, Germany used a four-pronged instrument. On the home front every effort was made to control economic life so that all goods would be used in the most effective fashion possible and so that food, leather, and other necessities would be distributed fairly to all. The success of this struggle on the home front was due to the ability of two German Jews. Haber, the chemist, devised a method for extracting nitrogen from the air, and thus obtained an adequate supply of the most necessary constituent of all fertilizers and all explosives. Before 1914 the chief source of nitrogen had been in the guano deposits of Chile, and, but for Haber, the British blockade would have compelled a German defeat in 1915 from lack of nitrates. Walter Rathenau, director of the German Electric Company and of some five dozen other enterprises, organized the German economic system in a mobilization which made it possible for Germany to fight on with slowly dwindling resources. On the military side Germany made a threefold reply to the British blockade. It tried to open the blockade by defeating its enemies to the south and east (Russia, Romania, and Italy). In 1917 this effort was largely successful, but it was too late. Simultaneously, Germany tried to wear down her Western foes by a policy of attrition in the trenches and to force Britain out of the war by a retaliatory submarine blockade directed at British shipping. The submarine attack, as a new method of naval warfare, was applied with hesitation and ineffectiveness until 1917. Then it was applied with such ruthless efficiency that almost a million tons of shipping was sunk in the month of April 1917, and Britain was driven within three weeks of exhaustion of her food supply. This danger of a British defeat, dressed in the propaganda clothing of moral outrage at the iniquity of submarine attacks, brought the United States into the war on the side of the Entente in that critical month of April, 1917. In the meantime the German policy of military attrition on the Western Front worked well until 1918. By January of that year Germany had been losing men at about half her rate of replacement and at about half the rate at which she was inflicting losses on the Entente Powers. Thus the period 1914-1918 saw a race between the economic attrition of Germany by the blockade and the personal attrition of the Entente by military action. This race was never settled on its merits because three new factors entered the picture in 1917. These were the German counterblockade by submarines on Britain, the increase in German manpower in the West resulting from her victory in the East, and the arrival on the Western Front of new American forces. The first two of these factors were overbalanced in the period March-September, 1918, by the third. By August 1918 Germany had given her best, and it had not been adequate. The blockade and the rising tide of American manpower gave the German leaders the choice of surrender or complete economic and social upheaval. Without exception, led by the Junker military commanders, they chose surrender. The most important diplomatic event of the latter part of the First World War was the intervention of the United States on the side of the Entente Powers in April 1917. The causes of this event have been analyzed at great length. In general there have been four chief reasons given for the intervention from four quite different points of view. These might be summarized as follows: (1) The German submarine attacks on neutral shipping made it necessary for the United States to go to war to secure “freedom of the seas”; (2) the United States was influenced by subtle British propaganda conducted in drawing rooms, universities, and the press of the eastern part of the country where Anglophilism was rampant among the more influential social groups; (3) the United States was inveigled into the war by a conspiracy of international bankers and munitions manufacturers eager to protect their loans to the Entente Powers or their wartime profits from sales to these Powers; and (4) Balance of Power principles made it impossible for the United States to allow Great Britain to be defeated by Germany. Whatever the weight of these four in the final decision, it is quite clear the neither the government nor the people of the United States were prepared to accept a defeat of the Entente at the hands of the Central Powers. Indeed, in spite of the government’s efforts to act with a certain semblance of neutrality, it was clear in 1914 that this was the view of the chief leaders in the government with the single exception of Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. Without analyzing the four factors mentioned above, it is quite clear that the United States could not allow Britain to be defeated by any other Power. Separated from all other Great Powers by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the security of America required either that the control of those oceans be in its own hands or in the hands of a friendly Power. For almost a century before 1917 the United States had been willing to allow British control of the sea to go unchallenged, because it was clear that British control of the sea provided no threat to the United States, but on the contrary, provided security for the United States at a smaller cost in wealth and responsibility than security could have been obtained by any other method. The presence of Canada as a British territory adjacent to the United States, and exposed to invasion by land from the United States, constituted a hostage for British naval behavior acceptable to the United States. The German submarine assault on Britain early in 1917 drove Britain close to the door of starvation by its ruthless sinking of the merchant shipping upon which Britain’s existence depended. Defeat of Britain could not be permitted because the United States was not prepared to take over control of the sea itself and could not permit German control of the sea because it had no assurance regarding the nature of such German control. The important fact was that Britain was close to defeat in April 1917, and on that basis the United States entered the war. The unconscious assumption by American leaders that an Entente victory was both necessary and inevitable was at the bottom of their failure to enforce the same rules of neutrality and international law against Britain as against Germany. They constantly assumed that British violations of these rules could be compensated with monetary damages, while German violations of these rules must be resisted, by force if necessary. Since they could not admit this unconscious assumption or publicly defend the legitimate basis of international power politics on which it rested, they finally went to war on an excuse which was legally weak, although emotionally satisfying."

Xie Kitchin In Greek Dress (1873) and Alexandra “Xie” Kitchin As Chinese “Tea-Merchant” (1873) by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

Just finished watching Thelma & Louise (1991) and Jacob's Ladder (1990)...

Just finished watching The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) and Tron: Ares (2025)...

Now listening to Show Me by The Cover Girls and The Dead Pool by Lalo Schifrin...

On Seymour Street in Downtown Vancouver. Summer of 2018.

Seymour Street stretches from Pacific Boulevard in the south (near the False Creek area) to the edge of Stanley Park in the north, where it transitions into a residential and commercial corridor. It crosses key east-west streets like West Georgia Street and Dunsmuir Street, making it a central artery in the downtown grid. It passes through vibrant districts such as Yaletown (south of False Creek), the central business district, and the West End, offering a mix of commercial, residential, and cultural spaces.

The Vancouver Heritage Site Finder highlights 1295 Seymour Street, a former Federal Motor Company showroom and Chapman’s Garage built in 1920. This structure is noted as a rare surviving example of early 20th-century industrial-commercial architecture in Vancouver, reflecting a minimalist, functional design typical of automotive workshops from that era. The 1200-block of Seymour Street once housed a cluster of similar workshops, though most have been replaced by modern developments, making 1295 Seymour a valuable historical relic.

The WeWork location at 333 Seymour Street is a well-regarded coworking hub, spanning seven floors with amenities like a fitness center, showers, and pet-friendly policies. Reviews praise its central location, modern design, and community-driven atmosphere, with staff like Sade, Yammy, and Vera enhancing its appeal. It’s easily accessible via public transit (e.g., buses at Cordova Street) and bike stations, reflecting Vancouver’s emphasis on sustainable transport. The Mark at 1372 Seymour Street is a notable condominium development in the Downtown Vancouver West area, near Pacific Street. Recent sales data (e.g., #1503 sold for $30K under asking on July 19, 2025) indicate a competitive market, with the building offering luxury units in a prime location. This reflects ongoing urban densification and investment in the area.

Seymour Street’s proximity to the SeaBus terminal and major transit routes makes it a hub for commuters. The street map data confirms its role as a navigable, pedestrian-friendly corridor with Google Street View available for exploration. The street blends historic charm with contemporary urban life, hosting a mix of offices, shops, and residential towers. Its central location near Gastown and the waterfront adds to its appeal for professionals and residents alike.

 

Tene Williams interview on Video Soul with Sherry Carter

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)

The Austrian botanist Gregor Johann Mendel was a genius of the plodding, hardworking, single-minded sort - a genius for whom discovery was, as Thomas Edison put it, one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. He was not a playful, intuitive genius like Picasso. (The great painter once said, “I do not seek — I find,” an attitude that describes many of the men and women we now think of as geniuses.)

Mendel “toiled, almost obsessively, at what he did. But still he had that extra 1 percent, that inspiration that helped him see his results from a slightly different angle. It was this flash of insight that allowed Mendel to perform a feat of genius: to propose laws of inheritance that ultimately became the underpinning of the science of genetics” (Henig, 2001, p. 6).

According to Henig (2001) it was Mendel’s non-heroism that allowed him to do the patient, thorough work through which his genius emerged (p. 168). A science was named in his honor: Mendelian genetics. High-functioning autism/Asperger Syndrome would be highly useful in this kind of plodding work, and this chapter presents the evidence that Mendel displayed this condition.

Mendel made the first tentative step towards a concept that would not be fully elucidated for another 50 years: the difference between phenotype (the way something looks) and genotype (the particular combination of genes that explains those looks) (Henig, 2001).

Life History

Mendel was born on July 22, 1822, near Udrau, in Austrian Silesia. His father, a farmer, did some experimental work with grafts to create better fruits. Mendel entered the Augustinian cloister at Briinn, and was ordained a priest. Having studied science at Vienna, he returned to Briinn and later became abbot. He studied plant variation, heredity, and evolution in the monastery’s garden, particularly in pea plants. (It is interesting that many adults with autism work well in gardens; e.g., at Dunfirth in Ireland, people with autism live and work at activities such as organic vegetable growing that are intended to foster their growth and development.)

Mendel died at Briinn in January 1884, from Bright’s disease (inflammation of the kidneys). Later, he was heralded as the father of genetics. During his years of anonymity, the priest was fond of telling his friends, “My time will come.”

Work

According to Henig (2001), Mendel “observed that traits are inherited separately and that characteristics that seem to be lost in one generation may crop up again a generation or two later, never having been lost at all. He gave us a theoretical underpinning for this observation, too: he believed the traits passed from parent to offspring as discrete, individual units in a consistent, predictable, and mathematically precise manner” (p. 7). Sixty years after his death, a friend stated, “Not a soul believed his experiments were anything more than a pastime, and his theories anything more than the maunderings of a harmless putterer” (Henig, 2001, p. 164). During the winter, Mendel spent as much time as he could in the monastery library, doing meticulous work. His relationship to peas was probably similar to that of other persons with autism to numbers.

Social Behavior

Mendel was essentially homebound for his first forty years. In one photograph he is “standing in the precise middle of the group and looking off somewhere past the photographer's left shoulder” — he stands “erect and alone” (Henig, 2001, p. 121).

Mendel was a very shy person, with major peer and relationship problems. He had a naturally reticent personality: a friendly reserve with an underlying privacy. He was unable to do the most basic work that priests were required to do and was not in good health. He took to bed with a mysterious illness. Abbot Napp, the head of the monastery, stated that he was “seized by an unconquerable timidity when he has to visit a sick-bed or to see anyone ill or in pain. Indeed, this infirmity of his has made him dangerously ill” (Henig, 2001, p. 37).

When trying to do some teaching, he panicked and performed poorly at a teaching assessment that involved both an oral and a written examination. Professor Kanner, who examined his geological essay, described it as arid, obscure, and hazy, his thinking as erroneous, and his writing style as hyperbolic and inappropriate. Clearly Mendel had been an autodidact. Six years later he again tried to pass the certificate examination but panicked again and failed. According to Henig (2001), he was relegated for the rest of his career to the rank of uncertified substitute teacher.

Narrow Interests/Obsessiveness

As a boy Mendel was a disappointment to his father because of his reluctance to get out of bed. Mendel was attracted to book learning and joined the local monks.

Henig (2001) referred to a “one-track, simmering genius that had a chance to explode only years later, when the twin stars of intuition and accident were momentarily aligned in Mendel’s favor, providing him an insight into the mystery of inheritance that few but he were prepared to understand” (p. 22). Henig thought that as a young man Mendel was probably eager, driven, and scientifically voracious. Nevertheless, he had interests other than experimental science: He became the official “weather watcher” for the city of Briinn and recorded meteorological readings every day. The fame that he longed for would come to him in his lifetime primarily as a local meteorologist. He was a skilled chess player (persons with autism are often interested in chess); he kept bees and gathered honey. He regarded his bees as his “dear little animals.”

According to Henig:
Mendel was also forever amusing himself with scientific and mathematical ideas that had nothing to do with plants. On the back of a draft of one of his dozens of church-tax missives, he scribbled lists that showed that, even in the midst of administrative tasks, he set himself new intellectual challenges. One of the most intriguing was a list of common surnames. Using several directories — the Military Year Book of 1877, the register of transporters, the register of bankers, a barristers’ year book — Mendel collected more than seven hundred names, which he arranged in different ways in an apparent attempt to spot some sort of pattern. First he placed them in alphabetical order, then he grouped them according to meaning. (2001, p. 165)

Mendel’s experimentation with peas was tedious work: In the autumn of 1857 alone, he had to shell, count, and sort by shape more than 7,000 peas, and that was just for one experiment, involving crosses between round and angular peas (Henig, 2001, p. 81). By the time he finished his work, seven years after he began, Mendel had conducted seven versions of this experiment, seven different monohybrid crosses, designed to look at plants that varied in only a single trait (shape first, then color, then height). By the time he had completed this succession of crosses, re-crosses, and backcrosses, he must have counted a total of more than 10,000 plants, 40,000 blossoms, and a staggering 300,000 peas. Virtually no one except a person with autism could do this.

Henig (2001) noted that Mendel applied his passion for counting almost indiscriminately to everything in his own little world. He counted not only peas but weather readings, students in his classes, and bottles of wine purchased for the monastery cellar. People with high-functioning autism are fascinated by numbers.

After Mendel became abbot of his monastery, he engaged in an obsessive letter-writing campaign against the new “monastery tax,” which he continued until his death.

Routines/Control

“Monastery life was a balm to Mendel. Its regularity provided ease and comfort to a man who had spent his first twenty-one years in a thicket of uncertainty” (Henig, 2001, p. 25).

The orangery became his favorite place in the monastery. This is reminiscent of Ludwig Wittgenstein writing his philosophy in the warm botanic gardens in Dublin. He furnished the orangery with “a game table for playing chess; an oak writing table; six rush-bottomed nut wood chairs; and a few paintings. In his last years, when as abbot he could use the monastery’s grandest rooms, he still spent his time in the orangery ... working through the mathematical, biological, and meteorological problems that vexed and intrigued him all the days of his life” (Henig, 2001, p. 65).

Language/Humor

Mendel, even to the end of his life, had a waggish and somewhat mischievous sense of humor, and “collected good jokes the way Darwin collected barnacles” (Henig, 2001, p. 163). He once upset the local bishop by saying, in what he thought was a whisper, that the bishop possessed “more fat than understanding.” He would “walk slowly among the plants, which he liked to call his ‘children’ to get a reaction from visitors who did not know about his gardening experiments. “Would you like to see my children?’ the priest would ask. Their startled and embarrassed faces were always good for a chuckle” (Henig, 2001, p. 116).

Anxiety/Depression

Mendel became paranoid later in his life, just like Isaac Newton, and was suspicious of everyone, even his fellow monks, whom he thought to be “nothing but enemies, traitors and intriguers” (Henig, 2001, p. 162).

Mode of Thought

Mendel became interested in combination theory, which describes the relationship among the objects in a group arranged in any predetermined way. Henig (2001) saw this belief in combination theory as a mark of Mendel’s genius: “Throughout history, some of the most creative minds have been those capable of maintaining two different mental constructs of the world simultaneously and applying the principles of one model to problems in the domain of the second” (p. 54).

The day he died, the local Natural Science Society heard a eulogy that referred to his “independent and special manner of reasoning” (Henig, 2001, p. 166).

Appearance

Henig (2001) quoted an acquaintance who described Mendel as “a man of medium height, broad-shouldered ... with a big head and a high forehead, his blue eyes twinkling in the friendliest fashion through his gold-rimmed glasses. Almost always he was dressed, not in priest robes, but in the plain clothes proper for a member of the Augustinian order acting as schoolmaster — tall hat; frock coat, usually rather too big for him; short trousers tucked into topboots.” His dress “bespoke his decorum and modesty; he was out in the world, but always a cleric” (p. 90). It is interesting that he is supposed to have had a big head: 50% of people with autism have big heads. This may be due to less pruning of cells early in life but may lead to a greater capacity to carry out mathematical calculations. When he walked, according to an acquaintance, he looked straight in front of him.

Conclusion

Mendel showed many of the criteria for Asperger Syndrome, particularly obsessiveness, social impairment, and love of routine. He also had the interest in counting, classifying, and mathematical calculation that is quite typical of the syndrome.

- Michael Fitzgerald, Former Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

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England as the Workshop of the World

The Crystal Palace Seen From The Serpentine by William Wyld, 1852

I will continue to quote from 'Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist's Inquiry into Western Technology' (1996) by Robert McCormick Adams. The following quote is from the fourth chapter, which is titled England as the Workshop of the World. "The onset of the Industrial Revolution, while an epochal transformation in any longer view, involved no sudden or visible overturning of the established order. Many contributory streams of change had converged and unobtrusively gathered force during the first two-thirds or so of the eighteenth century. Leading elements of technological change presently began to stand out - in engines and applications of rotary power, in the production of iron and steel, and most importantly in new textile machinery. But their sources and significance lay primarily in interactions with a wider matrix of other, earlier or contemporaneous changes. As we have seen, these other changes were largely of a non-technological character. While highly diverse, the most important can be briefly summarized. Among them were the consolidation of large landholdings and the commercialization of agriculture; the widening web of international trade; unprecedented urban growth; rising, increasingly differentiated internal demand and the development of markets to supply it; intensified applications of oversight and discipline in prototypes of a factory system; growing concentration of wealth and the socially sanctioned readiness to invest it in manufacturing; and, not least, the discovery of common interests and meeting grounds by inventors, engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Not as anyone’s conscious intention, it was out of such diverse elements - and the even broader and more diffuse shifts in cultural predispositions that underlay many of them - that an era of profound irreversible change was fashioned. This chapter will sketch the main outlines of how it happened and the role that technology occupied along the leading edges of change. But no less important than England’s taking of commanding leadership was how it slipped away in the later nineteenth century. We will discover that this was no internally determinate, quasi-biological cycle of youthful vigor, maturity, and decline. It mostly had to do instead with the diffusion and further development of core features of the Industrial Revolution itself. External competitors could quickly assimilate the English example while escaping some of its natural shortcomings as a pioneer. Uncapitalized, the term industrial revolution denotes a significant rise in manufacturing productivity and an ultimately decisive turn in the direction of industrial growth, anywhere and at any time. So used, it applies to all of the sequential phases of modernization on a technological base that, at a still-accelerating pace, have cumulatively transformed the world since the late eighteenth century. On the other hand, when stated as the Industrial Revolution, it is widely used, and is used here, to refer specifically to the founding epoch of machine-based industrialization in England that began around 1760 and lasted there for something less than a century. There is no dispute that this was a time of sustained, cumulatively substantial change. Within a human lifetime of seventy years or so England moved forward without serious rival into the status of “workshop of the world.” As such, it came not only to dominate world trade but to transport much of that trade in its ships. Industrialization directly and profoundly altered the fabric of life for many, drawing a rural mass not only into urban settings but into factories and other new, urban-centered modes of employment. Population, having risen only slowly until late in the eighteenth century, turned sharply upward by the early nineteenth and rose by 73 percent (from 10.5 to 18.1 million) between 1801 and 1841. Markets proliferated, and popular dependence on them both deepened and widened. Travel beyond one’s local community or district came within an ordinary wage earner’s reach. National income rose precipitately, although the significance of this for any notion of “average” income or well-being is undermined by growing inequities of distribution. Important as these largely material changes were in their own right, we must not overlook their intersections - but also their differences - with others in the realm of ideas. Introduced in the wake of the American and French Revolutions were new aspirations for individual rights, equality before the law, and widened political participation. Echoing great themes of popular unrest that had risen to the surface in the seventeenth century and never been completely submerged, they gave ideological form and content to the protests of working-class movements as they emerged to meet the new challenges of the factory system. Similarly energizing were the great nonconformist religious movements that from the mid-eighteenth century onward began to challenge the established Church of England. And differentially directed against each of these streams was a backlash, chronicled at length by Edward Thompson who saw it as a ‘political counter-revolution,’ that continued for four decades after 1792. The growing commercial role of coal as a vital resource is one of the central economic trends of the seventeenth century. Without assured, relatively cheap access to this new fuel, London, growing by almost 45 percent in the last half of the seventeenth century, almost certainly could not have become the largest city of Europe. During that period, a growing demand for coal for industrial use was simultaneously added to its already well established reliance on coal for domestic consumption. As a result, by 1700 British production had climbed to the level of 2.5-3 million tons annually, estimated to have been “five times as large as the output of the whole of the rest of the world.” Half of the entire tonnage of the British merchant fleet was by then engaged in the coal trade. Huge forces were at work here, even though the linear succession of their effects is far more anonymous and difficult to document in any way than the line of scientific advances that laid some of the groundwork for - but stopped short of - the Newcomen engine. It is certainly in this economic context, I submit, that we must look for the stimulus to the steam engine as an epoch-making invention. With almost equal certainty, we must assume the existence of a wide, diffuse, relatively unknown circle of entrepreneurs, experimenters, skilled mechanics, and would-be inventors. This, and not the more elevated circle of gentlemen in the Royal Society, was Newcomen’s proper setting and source of creative sustenance. “In round numbers,” E. A. Wrigley estimates that London “appears to have grown from about 200,000 in 1600 to perhaps 400,000 in 1650, 575,000 by the end of the century, 675,000 in 1750 and 900,000 in 1800.” Across the span between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries, in other words, London had risen from housing about 7 percent to an unprecedented 11 percent of England’s total population. Lacking effective provisions for sanitation or for the prevention and treatment of many endemic and epidemic diseases, London of course had a significantly higher mortality rate than the country at large. By all reckonings, Watt’s multiple improvements in the Newcomen engine ultimately came to occupy a place at the very core of the Industrial Revolution. His first (1769) patent added a separate condenser and made related changes greatly to increase its pumping efficiency, immediately making possible the deeper and cheaper mining of coal. Later patents in the early 1780s provided vital adaptations of it for driving machinery of all kinds, stimulating more continuous operations and an expansion of scale in virtually every industry. The city of Manchester, widely regarded as the first citadel of the Industrial Revolution, powered its largest spinning and weaving factories with Boulton & Watt engines. Fundamental as Watt’s contributions proved to be, it is important to recognize that, even with Boulton’s joint efforts, their commercial success was neither immediate nor assured. The economy and reliability of his steam engine as a power source took time to establish, and waterwheels continued for many years to provide a highly competitive alternative. As has often been the case, cumulative smaller improvements in older and competitive technologies substantially delayed the adoption of the new and seemingly superior one. In particular, advances in waterwheel design for which Smeaton had been responsible greatly extended the aggregate reserves of water power available to accommodate new industrial growth. Dominating popular understanding of the Industrial Revolution is an impression of sustained, transformative growth. In the preceding account also, attention has been focused on technological and economic advances. But what has been said may leave the sense of a rising tide that, if at somewhat different rates, surely was managing to raise all boats. Is this impression accurate? The gross disproportion in the levying of the tax burden might suggest otherwise. It had almost doubled by 1815 (to more than 18 percent) as a share of national income, as a result of war expenditures that had spiraled upward from the time of the American Revolution. Excise duties on domestically produced goods and services were principally called upon to sustain the increase. Although they also impacted on the cost of decencies and luxuries for those with discretionary incomes, these duties fell more heavily on price-inelastic necessities for factory workers. By contrast, with relatively minor and temporary exceptions, “There was no effective tax on wealth holders throughout the period.” How disproportionate, in fact, were the respective allocations of the benefits of growth to different groups within British society? What are we to make of the great waves of popular protest, including especially the Luddite movement that aimed at the destruction of textile machinery in the second decade of the nineteenth century, and the working-class movement for parliamentary reform in the late 1830s and 1840s that was known as chartism? Were they only transitory episodes of conspiratorially incited unrest, as was repeatedly proclaimed by the courts and aristocracy in suppressing them with considerable severity? Or were they instead manifestations of deep-seated, broadly felt grievances over declining living standards and a loss of security that was in increasingly sharp contrast with growing national wealth? In impressive detail, Edward P. Thompson’s massive work on The Making of the English Working Class (1963) argues the “pessimistic” case for what he regards as the preponderantly negative impact of the Industrial Revolution on England’s working people. Beyond this, Thompson also records the repressive legal climate with which virtually any form of individual or organized speech or action to obtain redress of political or economic grievances was received. Drawing upon “political and cultural, as much as economic, history” across the half-century or so after 1790, he argues that this forged a working class able self-consciously to identify and struggle for its own strategies and interests. That outgrowth of resistance and self-discovery was, for him, “the outstanding fact of the period.” But Thompson’s emphasis on the centrality of class formation is sharply disputed by some other authorities and is, in any case, not one on which it can be said that any consensus has emerged. More immediately relevant to our concerns is a further judgment reached by Thompson. The working class did not come into existence, he insists, as a spontaneously generated response to an external force - the factory system, or the technological advances of which factories were an outcome. That would imply that the class itself was composed of “some nondescript undifferentiated raw material of humanity,” lacking common, historically derived aspirations and identifying symbols of its own solidarity. “The working class made itself as much as it was made.” It is strongly implied in most contemporary accounts that there was widespread aversion to factory employment. Those whose skills made them members of the “aristocracy of labor” no doubt constituted an at least partial exception. For the mass of less skilled and unskilled workers, however, factory jobs may have been seen as the only alternative following loss of rural livelihoods as a result of enclosures and the consolidation of smaller workshops. No doubt people often entered the mills in the (usually illusionary) conviction that such work was only a temporary expedient and hence could be briefly tolerated. Symptomatic of this is a textile factory owner’s complaint in the 1830s about the “restless and migratory spirit” of his mill workers. Long, closely supervised shifts were, after all, a starkly unpleasant departure from periodically demanding but on the whole far more intermittent agricultural labor schedules. Moreover, the factories themselves often bore a disturbing resemblance to parish workhouses for pauper women and children - from which, in fact, not a little of the early factory labor force had been involuntarily recruited. The pauper apprenticeship system, barbarous as it was in terms of “children working long hours for abysmal wages,” was in any case short-lived. The need for it was greatest prior to the general shift of spinning factories to the more advanced Crompton’s mules driven by steam power. For as long as the availability of waterpower was a requirement, the necessary location of some mills in remote settings had isolated them from the rapidly growing potential work force that was congregating in the new industrial cities. Some, but not all, of the deterioration that had occurred in the material conditions of life can reasonably be laid at the door of the conscious discretion of industrial owners and managers. That applies, for example, to the sometimes almost unbelievably harsh conditions of exploitation of child labor that Thompson cites, and perhaps to some deliberate manipulation of skilled and unskilled, male and female groups of factory operatives in order to depress wages by maintaining an unemployed but dependent reserve. We must not forget that the science of public health was in its infancy. The effects of urban congestion on endemic and epidemic diseases were only beginning to be understood. No body of experience made it possible to gauge the combined effect of malnutrition, pollution, and extended hours of daily employment on expectant mothers and especially on the health and growth of children. It has remained for late twentieth-century analysts to discern such indirect consequences as declining human stature, and persistent high rates of infant mortality, rising illiteracy, precisely in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution when the incomes of male factory operatives are supposed to have risen. The general impression thus is left that there was little or no improvement in living standards before mid-century, “despite the optimists’ evidence of rising real wages.” To whatever degree a product of innocent or willful ignorance, the cumulative effect was that “wherever comparison can be made… staggering differences in life expectancy appear, amounting in the worst decades to an average of twenty years of life expectancy lost by the average male urban wage-earner; and whatever horrors the English statistics showed, the Scottish were invariably even worse.”"