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  • Rose Madeline Mula: Color Me Overwhelmed; Every Aspect of Life is Characterized by Multiple Choice, Even Kindergartners Must Choose Which Action Hero or Disney Princess Should Decorate Their Backpacks

     

    A variety of Crayola products available for sale at a New York art supply store, Wikipedia

    by Rose Madeline Mula

    If you’re of my generation, you may remember that Liberace — that outrageously flamboyant, talented pianist of our era — always said that too much of a good thing is wonderful. I, on the other hand, believe that too much of a good thing is, well, too much.

    For example, I loved coloring when I was a kid.  Opening a new box of Crayolas was as big a thrill for me as booting up a new video game is for kids today.  When I lifted the lid, there they were! Eight beautiful crayons — red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange, black and brown!  All the colors anyone could ever want. Not quite. Today Crayola manufactures 152 colors, including 23 different shades of red alone — Radical Red, Razzle Dazzle Rose, Hot Magenta and twenty others.

    So what does a kid do when presented with an outline of an apple to color?  When I was four, I simply plucked the only red crayon from my box. Today it’s not that easy. Too many choices. So much pressure. No wonder so many of today’s toddlers are tense.

    One way to solve the apple dilemma would be to decide the apple is a Granny Smith; because though Crayola also manufactures myriad shades of green, one is actually called Granny Smith Apple, making that decision a slam dunk. Fortunately. Otherwise, the kid would have to choose from Yellow Green, Electric Lime, Screamin’ Green, Forest Green, Sea Green, Jungle Green, Caribbean Green, Shamrock … and a couple of dozen other possibilities.  The only shade that seems to be missing (thank heaven!) is Puke Green.

    Apples are not the only fruit contributing to Toddler Tension these days.   Other fruit shades present their own challenges:  Outrageous Orange, Atomic Tangerine, Banana Mania, Laser Lemon, and Mango Tango are just one of the long lists of choices for each of those fruits.

    The jeweler’s showcase offers a minefield of additional colors — Emerald, Ruby Red, Blue Sapphire, Gold Fusion, Sonic Silver. But those pickings are meager compared to what the flower garden inspires: Goldenrod, Blue Violet, Carnation Pink, Cornflower, Orchid, Periwinkle, Wisteria — and so many more.  Then there are all those others whose names don’t provide much of a clue to their color, including Inch Worm, Jazzberry Jam, Outer Space, Razzmatazz, Shadow, Timberwolf, Purple Pizza (Huh? Pizza? Purple??)

    Crayola’s 152 colors, though impressive, is by no means a record of excess.  It actually pales in comparison to the number of different cereals manufactured today — over 1,000 according to my personal research assistant (Google), which vie for attention in crowded supermarket aisles.  Pity the poor mother searching for one her children will eat but which isn’t coated with enough sugar to rot their teeth.

  • California Man Charged with Making Violent Threats Against Boston Globe Employees

    “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”

    Boston Globe front page

    From the FBI: 

    A California man was arrested [August 30,2018] and charged with making violent threats against Boston Globe employees in retaliation for the newspaper’s editorial response to political attacks on the media.

    Robert D. Chain, 68, of Encino, California, is charged with one count of making threatening communications in interstate commerce. Chain will appear in federal court in Los Angeles this afternoon and be transferred to Boston at a later date.

    Right, Boston Globe front page, Wikipedia

    “In the past few months, this office has charged people with threatening to bomb a minority commencement ceremony at Harvard, threatening to shoot people at a Second Amendment rally, offering money to anyone who kills a federal agent, and mailing white powder and threatening notes to certain public figures,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling. “Anyone – regardless of political affiliation – who puts others in fear for their lives will be prosecuted by this office. In a time of increasing political polarization, and amid the increasing incidence of mass shootings, members of the public must police their own political rhetoric. Or we will.”

    “Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but threatening to kill people, takes it over the line and will not be tolerated,” said Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division. “Today’s arrest of Robert Chain should serve a warning to others, that making threats is not a prank, it’s a federal crime. All threats are taken seriously, as we never know if the subject behind the threat intends to follow through with their actions. Whether potentially hoax or not, each and every threat will be aggressively run to ground. These investigations are expensive and are costly to the taxpayers, can put innocent people at risk, divert law enforcement from responding to actual emergencies, and cause undue stress to victims. I commend the great work of the Boston and Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Forces for their diligence and professionalism, and continue to seek the public’s support to immediately report threats or suspicious activity to law enforcement.”

    On Aug. 10, 2018, the Boston Globe announced that it was requesting that other newspaper publications around the country publish a coordinated editorial response to political attacks on the media. The coordinated editorial response was to be published on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. 

    According to court documents, immediately following the announcement, Chain began making threatening calls to the Boston Globe’s newsroom. In the calls, Chain referred to the Globe as “the enemy of the people” and threatened to kill newspaper employees. In total, it is alleged that Chain made approximately 14 threatening phone calls to the Globe between August 10 and 22, 2018. 

    It is further alleged that on Aug. 16, 2018, the day the coordinated editorial response was published in the Boston Globe, Chain called the Globe newsroom and threatened to shoot Globe employees in the head “later today, at 4 o’clock.” As a result of that call, local law enforcement responded to the Globe’s offices and maintained a presence outside the building to ensure the safety of the employees. 

    The charge of making threatening communications in interstate commerce provides for a sentence of no greater than five years, one year of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

    U.S. Attorney Lelling and FBI SAC Shaw made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Los Angeles Field Division; the Drug Enforcement Administration, Los Angeles Division; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Los Angeles Division; the California Highway Patrol; and the Los Angeles Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney George P. Varghese of Lelling’s National Security Unit is prosecuting the case.

    The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

  • Lacking Meaningful Connections with Others: Social Isolation and Loneliness for the United States, United Kingdom and Japan

    Loneliness illustrationThe Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with The Economist, conducted a cross-country survey of adults in United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan to examine people’s views of and experiences with loneliness and social isolation. The survey, the second in partnership with The Economist, explores the public’s perceptions of the issue, including their views of the role of government and society in helping to reduce it, and how technology contributes to or stems the problem. It includes additional interviews with individuals who report always or often feeling lonely, left out, isolated or that they lack companionship to better understand the personal characteristics and life circumstances associated with these feelings, the reported causes of loneliness, and how people are coping.

    Photograph from Ktoine, France, Wikimedia Commons

    Coverage from The Economist:

    Loneliness is a Serious Public Health Problem

    Introduction

    In recent years, the issue of social isolation and loneliness has garnered increased attention from researchers, policymakers, and the public as societies age, the use of technology increases, and concerns about the impact of loneliness on health grow. To understand more about how people view the issue of loneliness and social isolation, the Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with The Economist, conducted a cross-country survey of adults in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The survey included additional interviews with individuals who report always or often feeling lonely, left out, isolated or that they lack companionship to better understand the personal characteristics and life circumstances associated with these feelings, the reported causes of loneliness, and how people are coping.

    Key Findings

    Some of the key findings from the survey across all three countries are as follows.

    More than two in ten report loneliness or social isolation in the U.K. and the U.S., double the share in Japan. More than a fifth of adults in the United States (22 percent) and the United Kingdom (23 percent) as well as one in ten adults (nine percent) in Japan say they often or always feel lonely, feel that they lack companionship, feel left out, or feel isolated from others, and many of them say their loneliness has had a negative impact on various aspects of their life. For example, across countries, about half or more reporting loneliness say it has had a negative impact on their personal relationships or their physical health. While loneliness is often thought of as a problem mainly affecting the elderly, the majority of people reporting loneliness in each country are under age 50. They’re also much more likely to be single or divorced than others.

    • Loneliness appears to occur in parallel with reports of real-life problems and circumstances. Across the three countries, people reporting loneliness are more likely to report being down and out physically, mentally, and financially. People experiencing loneliness disproportionately report lower incomes and having a debilitating health condition or mental health conditions. About six in ten say there is a specific cause of their loneliness, and, compared to those who are not lonely, they more often report being dissatisfied with their personal financial situation. They are also more likely to report experiencing negative life events in the past two years, such as a negative change in financial status or a serious illness or injury. Three in ten say their loneliness has led them to think about harming themselves.
    • Those reporting loneliness appear to lack meaningful connections with others. Those reporting loneliness in each country report having fewer confidants than others and two-thirds or more say they have just a few or no relatives or friends living nearby who they can rely on for support. While individuals who report loneliness are more likely to express dissatisfaction with the number of meaningful connections they have with family, friends and neighbors, in the U.K. and the U.S., many still report talking to family and friends frequently by phone or in person. In Japan, reports of communication with family and friends are much less frequent, regardless of whether someone reports loneliness.
    • Among the public at large, across countries, many have heard of the issue but views vary on the reasons for loneliness and who is responsible for helping to reduce it. Across the U.S., the U.K. and Japan, majorities say they have heard at least something about the issues of loneliness and social isolation in their country. In the U.S., the public is divided as to whether loneliness and social isolation are more of a public health problem or more of an individual problem (47 percent vs. 45 percent), and a large majority (83 percent) see individuals and families themselves playing a major role in helping to reduce loneliness and social isolation in society today and fewer see a major role for government (27 percent). In contrast, residents of the U.K. and Japan are more likely to see the issue as a public health problem than an individual issue (66 percent vs. 27 percent in the U.K. and 52 percent vs. 41 percent in Japan). And, while large majorities in the U.K. and Japan also think individuals and families should play a major role in stemming the problem, six in ten also see a major role for government, unlike in the U.S. A majority of people in the U.K. say “cuts in government social programs” is a major reason why people there are lonely or socially isolated, compared to minorities in the U.S. and Japan.
    • Some are critical of the role technology plays in loneliness and isolation, but some see social media as an opportunity for connection. Many in the U.S. (58 percent) and U.K. (50 percent) view the increased use of technology as a major reason why people are lonely or socially isolated, whereas fewer people in Japan say the same (26 percent). Across countries, more say technology in general has made it harder to spend time with friends and family in person than say it has made it easier. However, when it comes to social media specifically, in each country, more say that they think their ability to connect with others in a meaningful way is strengthened by social media rather than weakened. But, for those experiencing loneliness or social isolation personally in the U.K. and the U.S., they are divided as to whether they think social media makes their feelings of loneliness better or worse. In addition, people who report being socially isolated or lonely in each country are not more likely than their peers to report using social media.
    • Despite fewer people in Japan reporting loneliness, reports of the severity of the experience are worse. Half of those experiencing loneliness in Japan (or 5 percent of residents of Japan overall) say it is a major problem for them, compared to a fifth of those experiencing loneliness in the U.S. and the U.K. In Japan, more than a third (35 percent) of those who self-identify as lonely say they have felt isolated or lonely for more than 10 years, compared to a fifth of those in the U.S. (22 percent) or the U.K. (20 percent). Half of those reporting loneliness in Japan report dissatisfaction with their family life or employment situation and two thirds say the same about their financial situation. Higher shares in Japan than in the U.S. or U.K. say their loneliness has had a negative impact on their job and their mental health. Many people reporting loneliness in Japan are younger — nearly six in ten are less than 50 years old, compared to 42 percent who don’t report loneliness. People in Japan experiencing loneliness are also much more likely to be dissatisfied with the number of meaningful connections they have with friends. More generally, large majorities in Japan think the Japanese concepts of Hikikomori and Kodokishi are serious problems.

  • Delaware Art Museum: Civil Rights-themed Exhibition Trio Capstone of the City-wide Wilmington 1968 Initiative – On View Until September 9

    Students demonstrating in Wilmington

    High school students flow up Market Street to attend a memorial service for Martin Luther King Jr. in Rodney Square in April 1968. Image credit: John Peterson/The News Journal (“After learning photography in the U.S. Navy, John worked as a photojournalist, first as a photographer at the Wilmington News Journal, then as an editor at the News Journal, United Press International in New York and as art director at the Toronto Star.”)

    Looting and fires following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., prompted a request for the National Guard to restore peace in Wilmington, Delaware. Although other American cities experienced the same level of the uprising after April 4, 1968, the National Guard occupation in Wilmington spanned a staggering nine and a half months. This extensive patrol drastically changed Delaware’s largest city from the inside out. Residents went about their days and nights watched, restricted, angry, and fearful. Numerous businesses along Market Street-Wilmington’s main thoroughfare-closed and many families moved out of city neighborhoods.

    Throughout the summer, the Delaware Art Museum has continued to reflect on the aftermath of these events with three complementary exhibitions examining the local and national struggle for equality. The exhibitions Danny Lyon: Memories of a Southern Civil Rights Movement and The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Drawings by Harvey Dinnerstein and Burton Silverman are on view now through September 9, 2018. These exhibitions will formally open with a preview event at the Delaware Art Museum on Friday, July 13 from 6-8 p.m. During this event, the Museum will open its third civil rights-themed exhibition, Black Survival Guide, or How to Live Through a Police Riot, which will remain on view through September 30, 2018. Commissioned from conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, this innovative, participatory exhibition draws attention to the “holes” in narrative history through the melding of words and pictures.

    “From a curator’s perspective, our summer exhibitions are exciting because we’re really throwing the whole exhibition playbook at this project,” says Heather Campbell Coyle, Chief Curator and Curator of American Art at the Delaware Art Museum. “We’ve created an exhibition from our collection; incorporated a traveling show; and commissioned a contemporary artist to respond to images and events from our community.” The result is a strikingly nuanced exhibition trio with programming which offers ideas for specific local social action, opportunities for an in-depth look the artistic styles represented, and multiple vehicles through which residents can share their stories and recollections.  

    Tense moment

    Tense moment during the time of the April 1968 riots in Wilmington after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.  The Wilmington News Journal

    “Our community has been eager to engage in these healing conversations about our challenging past,” says Sam Sweet, Executive Director and CEO, “The Delaware Art Museum is thrilled that these exhibitions-in the works since 2016-have been the catalyst for meaningful dialogue and civic action as Delaware remembers Wilmington 1968.” More information about related exhibitions, performances, events, and community forums, classes, and workshops happening throughout the community can be found on Wilmington1968.org, a website spearheaded by the Museum in partnership with 20 Wilmington-area civic, religious, and cultural organizations to share historical information about the local civil rights movement.

    About the Exhibitions

    Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement

    On view through September 9, 2018. A giant of post-War documentary photography and film, Danny Lyon helped define a mode of photojournalism in which the picture-maker is deeply and personally embedded in his subject matter. A self-taught photographer and a graduate of the University of Chicago, Lyon began his photographic career in the early 1960s as the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a national group of college students who joined together after the first sit-in by four African American college students at a North Carolina lunch counter.

    From 1963 to 1964, Lyon traveled the South and Mid-Atlantic documenting the civil rights movement. The photographs were used for posters, sent out with press releases, and later compiled in Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement (1993), Lyon’s own memoir of his years working for the SNCC. This exhibition includes 57 of Lyon’s photographs taken during this important period of his career.

    The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Drawings by Harvey Dinnerstein and Burton Silverman

    On view through September 9, 2018. Harvey Dinnerstein and Burton Silverman were observers of the boycott and court proceedings that began with the arrest of Rosa Parks on charges of disorderly conduct on December 1, 1955, when she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. As a result, the African-American community was galvanized to action and the Montgomery Improvement Association was founded, with the 26-year-old Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as president. The Association filed suit in federal court on behalf of those discriminated against by the bus service. In 1956, the federal court ruled in favor of the Association and declared segregated bus service unconstitutional. After an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the boycott finally ended on December 20, 1956, when the high court ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system.

    New York artists Dinnerstein and Silverman spent several days drawing Montgomery’s African American citizens walking and carpooling, listening to speeches by community leaders and civil rights activists, and participating in the trial that challenged the segregation of public transportation. This exhibition features 29 of Dinnerstein and Silverman’s drawings-all taken from the Museum’s permanent collection. The drawings range from expressive portraits to impassioned courtroom drama, and capture the spectrum of actions and emotions that marked the boycott as a turning point in the struggle for civil rights.

    Black Survival Guide, or How to Love Through a Police Riot

    On view July 14 through September 30, 2018. This commissioned exhibition, which includes a series of 14 large-scale retroreflective screen prints, interprets and employs archival documents from the Delaware Historical Society and photographs of the 1968 National Guard occupation of Wilmington taken by local News Journal staff. Commissioned by the Delaware Art Museum from renowned conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, this work confronts gaps in our collective histories by centering lesser known stories in the search for truth. Viewers participate in the experience using direct light sources to reveal alternate images not visible to the naked eye.

    “I aim to look at our current moment with hindsight of our past. The content of my work focuses on framing and context, not just of an image but also of an historical moment, and how our position as viewers affects our interpretation,” says Thomas. “The revelation of the Wilmington, Delaware riots of 1968 in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King and the subsequent occupation by the National Guard has challenged me to reconsider again what I know, who I am and how we got here.”

    Sponsors

    The trio of civil rights exhibitions is sponsored by Bank of America, WSFS Bank, and DuPont. Additional support was provided, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com.

  • Seth Frotman: *Broken Promises: How Debt-Financed Higher Education Rewrote America’s Social Contract and Fueled a Quiet Crisis

    Editor’s Note: Seth Frotman has resigned his post at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; this is part of an article he wrote for the Utah Law Review: https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=ulr, dated May 8, 2018

    APNewsBreak: Nation’s top student loan official resigns; photo of Frotman,  CFPB

    Seth Frotman AbstractSeth Frotman

    The U.S. student loan market stands at $1.5 trillion—the second largest consumer debt market in the country. Despite the vast size of this market and the far-reaching spillover effects of student loan debt on individuals and communities, the American higher education system increasingly relies on debt financing as the predominant mechanism by which American families pay for college. Furthermore, student loans still lack a comprehensive twenty-first century consumer protection infrastructure. Researchers and policymakers are only now beginning to acknowledge the threat runaway student debt poses to the American social contract—even as millions of borrowers across the country struggle with the consequences of this quiet crisis.

    I. INTRODUCTION Student loan debt has fundamentally changed the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of people. This notion is both obvious and intuitive to the forty-four million Americans who currently owe more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, yet remains surprisingly controversial in Washington.1 America’s embrace of a debt-financed higher education model has broken the basic tenets of the social contract between the U.S. government and its citizens—the contract that relies on the supposed notion that higher education is the nation’s great equalizer; and that attending college always provides a clear pathway to the middle class.2 An honest assessment of the situation shows this to no longer be true. This student debt crisis did not happen by accident. A $1.5 trillion market is never an accident.3 This quiet crisis is the consequence of incremental policy decisions that drove up college costs and shifted the burden for shouldering these costs to individual students—a shift financed by consumer debt. It is imperative to understand the array of decisions that led to this place for two reasons. First, because the people whose lives have been so severely impacted by student debt deserve an accurate accounting of why they have been uniquely asked to bear this burden. And second, so that policymakers and the higher education community—from universities, to researchers, to foundations—can shape a response that recognizes and effectively addresses the real problems that student loan borrowers face across their financial lives.

    In 2008, the worst economic recession since the Great Depression crippled the nation and destroyed trillions of dollars in household wealth. 4 Millions of Americans stood by, powerless to intervene in their own financial lives.5 The financial crisis exposed deep rooted systemic problems underlying the most basic functions of consumer credit markets. 6 The economy failed consumers at every turn. Millions of people needlessly lost their homes.7 The most vulnerable people in the country were hit the hardest. 8 Nearly a decade later, many families and communities have yet to recover.9 As is often the case, researchers and policymakers engaged in a familiar cycle of study and reaction—diagnosing the causes, learning the lessons, and enacting the “right” reforms. 10 In response, America’s leaders made three promises. First, they promised that the public and private spheres would install a framework to stop many of the practices that led to the financial crisis.11 Second, they promised that this framework would protect individual consumers accessing and repaying the financial products that underpin a twenty-first century economy.12 And finally, they promised that by learning from the practices that ignited the last crisis, America’s financial system could prevent the next one. 13 In effect, leaders promised the country that they would never let something like this happen again.14 The current student loan market is the first real test of this proposition. For nearly a decade, the federal government has attempted to get a handle on the country’s growing student debt problem. 15 And yet, as policymakers across the government have supposedly worked to prevent another crisis, it remains clear—it is too late. Those promises were broken and, yet again, America finds itself facing a crisis. Today, more than eight million federal student loan borrowers are in default.16 Another three million borrowers are at least two payments behind.17 In 2017 alone, 1.1 million federal student loan borrowers defaulted—that is one default every twenty-eight seconds.

    To put these numbers into context, in 2016, three times as many people defaulted on a student loan than lost their home due to foreclosure.19 In fact, the rate of student loan defaults in 2016 is comparable to the foreclosure rate following the mortgage meltdown.20 However, this is only one part of the crisis. Ballooning, unaffordable student loan debt does not end with the millions of borrowers who are behind or in default on a student loan. Some people have tried to explain away the student loan crisis by relying on an overly narrow definition of what it means for a borrower to be “struggling.”21 However, by limiting the definition of the student debt problem to those borrowers who are behind or in default, the literature assumes that the remaining thirty-three million borrowers are doing just fine.22 This perspective is deeply flawed. 23 First, it is certainly not acceptable to write off the financial futures of eleven million people. Second, by defining down what it means to “struggle” to include only those in immediate, documented financial distress, these commentators are ignoring the broader reality of debt-financed higher education. For every borrower who misses a student loan payment or defaults on a debt, there is another borrower who is struggling to buy a home, start a business, or save for retirement due to the burden of their student loans.

    Read the rest of the article at the Utah Law Review, Utah Law Review Volume 2018 | Number 4 Article 1: Broken Promises: How Debt-financed Higher Education Rewrote America ’s Social Contract and Fueled a Quiet Crisis by Seth Frotman

  • Chicago Institute of Art and John Singer Sargent, Georg Jensen and Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance

     

    John Singer Sargent. Mrs. George Swinton (Elizabeth Ebsworth), 1897. Wirt D. Walker Collection

    Elizabeth Ebsworth

    Through September 30, 2018, the Art Institute of Chicago will present an exhibition of American portraitist John Singer Sargent with a focus on his numerous Chicago connections. Featuring nearly 100 objects from the Art Institute’s collection, private collections, and public institutions,  John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age examines Sargent’s impressive breadth of artistic practice and the network of associations among the artist, his patrons, his creative circle, and the city. Through the lens of Sargent’s work, this exhibition explores the cultural ambitions of Chicagoans to shape the city into a center of art, the development of an international profile for American artists, and the interplay of traditionalism and modernism at the turn of the 20th century. 

    John Singer Sargent. La Carmencita, 1890. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN (Musée d’Orsay) /Gérard Blot

    La Carmacita

    John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was the most sought-after portraitist of his generation, creating powerful, striking likenesses of his sitters. Although he is best known for his portraits, Sargent excelled in a variety of genres and media, including landscapes, watercolors, and murals.

    This exhibition presents the full range of Sargent’s talents, surveying his touchpoints to Chicago while also illuminating the city’s vibrant art scene. Sargent first showed at the Art Institute — at the time located at Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street — in 1890, the year Chicago officially became the nation’s “second city” in terms of population. Among his paintings on view was La Carmencita, a commanding portrait of a Spanish dancer that is at once old and new — a tribute to Old Master painting that is also an John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)  the most sought-after portraitist of his generation, creating powerful, striking likenesses of his sitters. Although he is best known for his portraits, Sargent excelled in a variety of genres and media, including landscapes, watercolors, and murals. exploration of color and brushwork. The composition drew crowds of visitors to the museum, helping to put Chicago on the map as a recognized center for contemporary art and culture. After rebuilding from the Great Fire of 1871, the city was an amalgam of new and old itself — attuned to innovation and change while also recognizing the value of traditions. 

    In the late 19th century, Chicago leaders endeavored to advance the city’s cultural profile to match its already prominent reputation as a center of industry and transportation. Exhibition curator Annelise K. Madsen, Gilda and Henry Buchbinder Assistant Curator of American Art, describes this study of Chicago through the lens of Sargent: “The Midwest is perhaps an unexpected point of departure for an examination of this thoroughly cosmopolitan painter, who made his career in Europe, attracted a transatlantic set of patrons, and cultivated professional ties primarily on the East Coast. Yet Sargent was indeed a fascinating player in the cultural history of Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. This exhibition presents the scope of Sargent’s talents while also recounting the integral narratives of local collectors, exhibitions, and institutions that are part of the artworks’ own histories.”

    Between 1888 and 1925, Sargent’s paintings were included in more than 20 public displays in the city, among them the Inter-State Industrial Exposition, the World’s Columbian Exposition, exhibitions at the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Art Institute’s American Annuals. The artist’s Chicago story owes much to local businessman Charles Deering, who built an important collection of his works over a lifetime of friendship. Other area patrons and Art Institute supporters, including Martin A. Ryerson, Annie Swan Coburn, Robert Allerton, and the Friends of American Art, attest to the city’s enthusiasm for the artist and made possible the museum’s early acquisitions of his work.

  • Painting A Nuanced Picture of Brain System Regulating Moods, Movements

    By Ker Than

    As Liqun Luo was writing his introductory textbook on neuroscience in 2012, he found himself in a quandary. He needed to include a section about a vital system in the brain controlled by the chemical messenger serotonin, which has been implicated in everything from mood to movement regulation. But the research was still far from clear on what effect serotonin has on the mammalian brain.

    A 3D rendering of the serotonin system in the mouse brain

    A 3D rendering of the serotonin system in the left hemisphere of the mouse brain reveals two groups of serotonin neurons in the dorsal raphe that project to either cortical regions (blue) or subcortical regions (green) while rarely crossing into the other’s domain. Image credit: Jing Ren

    “Scientists were reporting divergent findings,” said Luo, who is the Ann and Bill Swindells Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. “Some found that serotonin promotes pleasure. Another group said that it increases anxiety while suppressing locomotion, while others argued the opposite.”

    Fast forward six years and Luo’s team thinks it has reconciled those earlier confounding results. Using neuroanatomical methods that they invented, his group showed that the serotonin system is actually composed of at least two, and likely more, parallel subsystems that work in concert to affect the brain in different, and sometimes opposing, ways. For instance, one subsystem promotes anxiety, whereas the other promotes active coping in the face of challenges.

    “The field’s understanding of the serotonin system was like the story of the blind men touching the elephant,” Luo said. “Scientists were discovering distinct functions of serotonin in the brain and attributing them to a monolithic serotonin system, which at least partly accounts for the controversy about what serotonin actually does. This study allows us to see different parts of the elephant at the same time.”

    The findings, published online on August 23 in the journal Cell, could have implications for the treatment of depression and anxiety, which involves prescribing drugs such as Prozac that target the serotonin system — so-called SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). However, these drugs often trigger a host of side effects, some of which are so intolerable that patients stop taking them.

    “If we can target the relevant pathways of the serotonin system individually, then we may be able to eliminate the unwanted side effects and treat only the disorder,” said study first author Jing Ren, a postdoctoral fellow in Luo’s lab.

    The Stanford scientists focused on a region of the brainstem known as the dorsal raphe, which contains the largest single concentration in the mammalian brain of neurons that all transmit signals by releasing serotonin (about 9,000).

    The nerve fibers, or axons, of these dorsal raphe neurons, send out a sprawling network of connections to many critical forebrain areas that carry out a host of functions, including thinking, memory, and the regulation of moods and bodily functions. By injecting viruses that infect serotonin axons in these regions, Ren and her colleagues were able to trace the connections back to their origin neurons in the dorsal raphe.

    This allowed them to create a visual map of projections between the dense concentration of serotonin-releasing neurons in the brainstem to the various regions of the forebrain that they influence. The map revealed two distinct groups of serotonin-releasing neurons in the dorsal raphe, which connected to cortical and subcortical regions in the brain.

    “Serotonin neurons in the dorsal raphe project to a bunch of places throughout the brain, but those bunches of places are organized,” Luo said. “That wasn’t known before.”

    In a series of behavioral tests, the scientists also showed that serotonin neurons from the two groups can respond differently to stimuli. For example, neurons in both groups fired in response to mice receiving rewards like sips of sugar water but they showed opposite responses to punishments like mild foot shocks.

    “We now understand why some scientists thought serotonin neurons are activated by punishment, while others thought it was inhibited by punishment. Both are correct – it just depends on which subtype you’re looking at,” Luo said.

    What’s more, the group found that the serotonin neurons themselves were more complex than originally thought. Rather than just transmitting messages with serotonin, the cortical-projecting neurons also released a chemical messenger called glutamate – making them one of the few known examples of neurons in the brain that release two different chemicals.

    “It raises the question of whether we should even be calling these serotonin neurons because neurons are named after the neurotransmitters they release,” Ren said.

    Taken together, these findings indicate that the brain’s serotonin system is not made up of a homogenous population of neurons but rather many subpopulations acting in concert. Luo’s team has identified two groups, but there could be many others.

    In fact, Robert Malenka, a professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford’s School of Medicine, and his team recently discovered a group of serotonin neurons in the dorsal raphe that project to the nucleus accumbens, the part of the brain that promotes social behaviors.

    “The two groups that we found don’t send axons to the nucleus accumbens, so this is clearly the third group,” Luo said. “We identified two parts of the elephant, but there are more parts to discover.”

    Luo is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland and a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Cancer Institute, and the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Other Stanford coauthors on the study include Drew Friedmann, Jing Xiong, Cindy Liu, Brielle Ferguson, Tanya Weerakkody, Katherine DeLoach, Chen Ran, Albert Pun, Yanwen Sun, Brandon Weissbourd, John Huguenard, and Mark Horowitz.

    The research was supported by BRAIN initiative grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.

  • The Donut Hole and Closing the Medicare Part D Coverage Gap: Trends, Recent Changes, and What’s Ahead

    Editor’s Note: A year ago I received a notice that I was nearing the drug coverage gap, aka “donut hole”. I challenged this with my drug plan company and was reassured that this was not the case. The story below will list explanations and moderations in most Medicare plans regarding these changes.  The below is from KKF, the Kaiser Family Foundation

    Juliette Cubanski; , Tricia Neuman, , and Anthony Damico
    Published: Aug 21, 2018, KKF

    SUMMARY

    • In 2016, the most recent year of available data, more than 5 million Part D enrollees without low-income subsidies (LIS) reached the coverage gap, spending $1,569 out of pocket, on average, and receiving an average manufacturer discount of $1,090. Due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to phase out the coverage gap, average out-of-pocket costs for non-LIS Part D enrollees who reach the coverage gap decreased substantially between 2010 and 2011 but have increased somewhat in recent years.
    • Under changes made by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA), Part D enrollees’ out-of-pocket costs for brands in the gap will decline from 35 percent of total costs in 2018 to 25 percent in 2019—rather than in 2020—while plans’ share of costs for brands will decrease to 5 percent and the manufacturer discount will increase from 50 percent to 70 percent. Recent calls to modify the BBA changes to the coverage gap could lead to higher beneficiary out-of-pocket costs and higher Medicare spending.
    • Between 2019 and 2020, the annual out-of-pocket spending threshold—the amount beneficiaries must spend before the coverage gap ends and catastrophic coverage begins—is projected to increase by $1,250. This is due to the expiration of the ACA provision that slowed the growth rate of this threshold between 2014 and 2019. Enrollees who take only brands in the coverage gap will face $375 in additional direct out-of-pocket costs in 2020, with the remainder covered by the manufacturer discount.
    • Counting the manufacturer discount as beneficiary out-of-pocket spending has contributed to a growing number of non-LIS Part D enrollees qualifying for catastrophic coverage, doubling from just under 500,000 in 2011 to 1.0 million in 2016. This has led to an increase in Medicare Part D spending in recent years, since Medicare pays 80 percent of enrollees’ total drug costs in the catastrophic phase.
    • A Trump Administration proposal to exclude the manufacturer discount from the calculation of out-of-pocket spending would substantially increase Part D enrollees’ out-of-pocket costs and would lead to fewer enrollees qualifying for catastrophic coverage.

    BACKGROUND ON THE PART D COVERAGE GAP AND LEGISLATIVE CHANGES SINCE 2006

    Under the original design of the Medicare Part D benefit, created by the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, when Part D enrollees’ total drug spending exceeded the initial coverage limit (ICL), they entered a coverage gap. Enrollees who did not receive low-income subsidies (LIS) were required to pay 100 percent of their drug costs in the coverage gap until their out-of-pocket spending reached the threshold amount that qualified them for catastrophic coverage. (The coverage gap does not apply to beneficiaries who receive low-income subsidies.) In 2007, the first full year of the Part D benefit, 8.3 million Part D enrollees (32 percent of all enrollees) had total drug costs above the initial coverage limit and in the coverage gap (Figure 1). This total includes 3.8 million non-LIS enrollees who were required to pay 100 percent of their drug costs out of pocket in the coverage gap.

    Figure 1: The number of Medicare Part D enrollees without low-income subsidies who reached the coverage gap increased from 3.8 million to 5.2 million between 2007 and 2016

  • Does Your State Have an Environmental Health Hazard Assessment Agency/Office? California Does

     Announcement about October Meeting

    Editor’s Note: We decided to post the actions of this California agency after reading a New York Times article, California Rethinks Coffee Cancer Warning. Frankly, I’d rather know about the contents of what I drink, eat, sleep on, clothe myself with and be informed about mercury in tooth fillings, phthalates in vinyl couch cushions, than not know. Recently, I stood in the aisle of a major retail store while my husband shopped for electrical supplies and saw a sign warning women about the contents of products in that aisle that could affect reproductive organs; it was sobering, to say the least.

    The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA); About Us*

    Our mission is to protect and enhance public health and the environment by scientific evaluation of risks posed by hazardous substances.

    To learn more about OEHHA click here.(link is external)

    Wild Fire Smoke – A Guide for Public Health Officials is designed to help local public health officials prepare for smoke events, take measures to protect the public when smoke is present, and communicate with the public about wildfire smoke and health.

    Protecting Public Health from Home and Building Fire Ash This report summarizes safe methods of ash cleanup. Protección de la Salud Pública contra las Cenizas de Incendios en Casas y Edificios (Spanish)

     For more information on: How Smoke from Fires Can Affect Your Health (link is external)(link is external)

    News

    Air

    Aug 16, 2018: Notice of Adoption of Cancer Inhalation Unit Risk and Slope Factors and Cancer Oral Slope Factor for Tert-Butyl Acetate

    The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is adopting a new cancer inhalation unit risk factor (IUR) for tert-butyl acetate (TBAc).  IURs are used to estimate lifetime cancer risks associated with inhalation exposure to a carcinogen. 
    Risk Assessment

    Aug 16, 2018: Art Hazards and Children’s Health at OEHHA
    Art and Craft Material Exposures and Impacts to Children’s Health.  2018 list of Art materials that cannot be purchased for use in kindergarten through 6th grade.
    Proposition 65

    Aug 14, 2018: Interpretive Guideline No. 2018-01, Residential Exposure to Methyleugenol
    Interpretive Guideline No. 2018-01, Residential Exposure to Methyleugenol
    Risk Assessment

    Aug 13, 2018: 2018 Children’s Environmental Health Symposium
    2018 Children’s Environmental Health Symposium exploring “Air Pollution and Lifecourse Neurological Impacts.” The symposium will be held October 2, 2018 and will examine the potential factors underlying children’s unique vulnerabilities to the cumulative impacts of pollution and socioeconomic and community stressors.
     
    Proposition 65
    Aug 9, 2018: New Section 25501.1 Naturally Occurring Concentrations of Listed Chemicals in Unprocessed Foods; Inorganic Arsenic in White and Brown Rice
    This provides guidance for businesses and the public by establishing default natural background levels for inorganic arsenic in white and brown rice.  These default background levels can assist businesses in determining the applicability of the warning requirements of Proposition 65.
    Proposition 65

    Aug 3, 2018: Notice of Intent to Modify a Listing by the Labor Code Mechanism: Alcoholic Beverages

    The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) intends to modify the listing of alcoholic beverages as shown in the table below as known to the state to cause cancer under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65).  This action is being taken pursuant to the “Labor Code” listing mechanism.
     
    Fish

    Jul 31, 2018: Updated Fish Advisory for San Diego Bay Offers Safe Eating Advice for Fifteen Species of Fish

    The advisory issued provides safe eating advice for Barred Sand Bass, Pacific Chub Mackerel, sharks, Shiner Perch, Spotted Sand Bass, Topsmelt, Yellowfin Croaker, Diamond Turbot, Pile Perch, Rainbow Surfperch, Spotted Turbot, Black Perch, Round Stingray, Shovelnose Guitarfish, and Spiny Lobster.
     
    Proposition 65

    Jul 27, 2018: Announcement of the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee Meeting Scheduled For October 11, 2018 and Availability of Hazard Identification Materials for Nickel and Nickel Compounds

    Nickel and nickel compounds will be considered for possible listing by the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee. The meeting will be held in the Sierra Hearing Room at the CalEPA Headquarters building, 1001 I Street, Sacramento, California.  The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. and will last until all business is conducted or until 5:00 p.m.
     
    Proposition 65

    Jul 25, 2018: Amendment to Section 25805 Maximum Allowable Dose Level – Metham Sodium

    This regulation establishes a MADL of 290 micrograms per day for metham sodium.  
     
    Water

    Jul 20, 2018: Announcement of Publication of Public Health Goals and Availability of Technical Support Document for Cis- and Trans-1,2-Dichloroethylene in Drinking Water

    The technical support document, presents an update of the cis- and trans-1,2-DCE PHGs.
     

    About

    OEHHA’s mission is to protect and enhance public health and the environment by scientific evaluation of risks posed by hazardous substances.

    Sacramento Office
    1001 I Street,
    Sacramento, CA 95814
    (916) 324-7572
    Map and directions(link is external)

    our mailing address:
    Post Office Box 4010
    Sacramento, CA 95812-4010.

    Oakland Office
    1515 Clay Street, 16th floor
    Oakland, California 94612
    (510) 622-3200
    Map and directions

  • Recent Reads from Retraction Watch: A Gold Star in Astronomy; Leading Journals Underrepresent Women in Photos; How Papers Can Mislead

     

    Over a week ago Retraction Watch featured the story of a journal that took 13 months to reject a paper, then published a plagiarized version days later; a look at whether institutions gaslight whistleblowers; and news that a medical school had put a researcher found to have committed misconduct in charge of a grant. Oh — and it was RW’s eighth birthday. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: