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Five years after the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, anticipated legislation in 2019 could see home delivery of cannabis and cannabis-related products, and expanded medical availability.
Governor-elect Jared Polis, who takes office in the new year, probably will take a different approach from outgoing Gov. John Hickenlooper, according to a recent article in the Denver Post. Mr. Hickenlooper vetoed previous legislation intended to increase drug’s accessibility.
“ says Albert Gutierrez, CEO of MedPharm Holdings, a cannabis research and cultivation company.
“You’re going to probably have more variety from these companies, whether they’re offering drinks or chocolate bars. But these companies are going to be the household names that people are going to come to know over the next 30, 50, 100 years,” he says.
Not everyone is on board. “We should all be able to agree that Colorado’s increasingly potent marijuana products are harmful to youth and that we have a collective responsibility to protect Colorado kids,” writes Henny Lasley, the cofounder of Smart Colorado, which was formed in opposition to the legalization of marijuana in the state.
The availability of medical marijuana for people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders is among the vetoed initiatives that are likely to reemerge in 2019. That bill reportedly was opposed by the Colorado Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Society, the Colorado Psychiatric Society, and by Larry Wolk, MD, who recently stepped down as chief medical officer of the state’s department of public health and environment.
Adjusting to life after fires
The latest wildfires have been vanquished in California. For those affected recently and in the past several years has come the reality that the draw of living on the edge of nature means living surrounded by tinder-dry terrain. It’s a great location – until it ignites.
A year ago, the Thomas Fire devastated Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, burning more than 440 square miles. Few people died, but more than 1,000 buildings were destroyed – and hundreds of people were left homeless. A year later, in the Clearpoint neighborhood of Ventura, residential lots sit empty, their owners having abandoned the effort to rebuild. Others, like Sandra and Ed Fuller, are choosing to begin again. The beauty of the area that pulled them there years ago remains strong.
They have come to terms with losing their home to the fire. “I think it was a sort of a breaking point where there was just a flood of peace that kind of went through. It’s like there is nothing we can do about this. We know what we have to do now. We’ll just get on with it,” Ed Fuller says in an interview with NPR.
Having the Christmas season looming has been a boost to their spirits and planning. “My wife is absolutely obsessed that she’s ready for Christmas. Last Christmas we sort of lost.”
The invisibility of asexuality
It can be hard for some to fathom that sex just isn’t important for some. “They are the friends and family members who don’t express any desire to pursue sexual intimacy, who don’t often or ever seem interested in conventional dating, and who get pushed to the sidelines in any conversation about sexual health,” Kate Sloan writes in a recent article in the Walrus.
“Much like same-sex attraction decades ago, this nonattraction was initially (and is sometimes still) conflated with a sexual-desire disorder, worthy of pathologization and medical treatment with pharmaceuticals or therapy. But scientists have confirmed asexuality isn’t a medical issue; it is a sexual orientation on the same plane as heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality,” Ms. Sloan writes.
“If someone is gay, as an example, it’s pretty easy to say, ‘Okay, well, I experience the same type of attraction that everyone else does, it’s just pointed at a different gender,’ ” says Brian Langevin, executive director of the nonprofit organization Asexual Outreach. “For asexual people ... they might not even know that sexual attraction exists, and to them, the whole world could seem very confusing.”
Meanwhile, a 2013 study in British Columbia showed that asexual individuals are more likely to be socially isolated, depressed, and anxious.
“True emotional intimacy is created, according to psychology, by honesty, empathy, and listening,” Ms. Sloan writes. “When we oversimplify relationships by insisting, on a sociocultural level, that sex is the ultimate key to and only sign of a profound connection, we deprive ourselves of the more holistic affinities available to us if we look for more.”
Fundamental churches face allegations
Joy Evans Ryder was 15 when she reportedly was raped by Dave Hyles, youth director at her Baptist church in Hammond, Ind. She was not the youth director’s only alleged victim. He never faced charges; in a scenario strikingly similar to that of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests, he escaped local prosecution by being moved on to other assignments.
An investigation by the Fort Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram has unearthed a decades-old cover-up of more than 400 cases of sexual abuse at independent fundamental Baptist churches across the United States.
Former members of congregations point to the cultlike power of many independent fundamental Baptist churches and the constant pressure to never question pastors or leave the church.
“We didn’t have a compound ... but it may as well have been. Our mind was the compound,” says a former member. Some of the abused believed that if they disobeyed the pastor or left the church, God would kill them or their family.
Some independent fundamental Baptist churches preach separation from the world, nonbelievers, and Christians with other religious views. A natural outcome, according to Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard’s Oklahoma City church, is that for any issues, “even legal issues, you go to the pastor first, not the police. ... You don’t report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government.”
“I see a culture where pastoral authority is taken to a level that’s beyond what the Scripture teaches,” says Tim Heck, who was a deacon at Faith Baptist Church in Wildomar, Calif., and whose daughter said she had been abused by the youth pastor there. “I think the independent fundamental Baptists have lost their way.”
Adam Lanza’s ‘separateness’ exposed
Written musings and other documents by Adam Lanza – who slaughtered 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012 – have been reported by the Hartford Courant.
Adam Lanza was challenged by speech and sensory issues as a child but had a keen intellect. That potential was eclipsed in his teenage years by paranoia, disdain for relationships, and contempt for others, the documents show. Family, teachers, and counselors were aware of his isolation. And, with time, his obsessions and mental/physical deterioration grew. But the documents make clear that no one really had a full grasp of the person he was becoming.
“As a teenager, his sensory condition made him exceedingly sensitive to textures, sound, light, and movement. He shunned his classmates, bothered by their choice of clothes and the noises they made. He cultivated a set of ground rules that fed his separateness,” write reporters Josh Kovner and Dave Altimari. The critical addition to this toxic brew was an absence of empathy and social compassion, according to Harold I. Schwartz, MD, a psychiatrist and former member of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, which studied the shootings.
“In this mental state, known as solipsism, only the solipsist is real. Everyone else in the world is a cardboard cutout, placed there for your benefit and otherwise devoid of meaning or value. It is the most extreme end of one form of malignant narcissism. If the victims have no value, then there is nothing to constrain you from shooting them,” Dr. Schwartz says.
In a note accompanying the article, the editors write: “Understanding what a mass killer was thinking not only paints a clearer picture of the individual, it helps us identify and understand red flags that could be part of a prevention formula for future mass shootings.”
Five years after the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, anticipated legislation in 2019 could see home delivery of cannabis and cannabis-related products, and expanded medical availability.
Governor-elect Jared Polis, who takes office in the new year, probably will take a different approach from outgoing Gov. John Hickenlooper, according to a recent article in the Denver Post. Mr. Hickenlooper vetoed previous legislation intended to increase drug’s accessibility.
“ says Albert Gutierrez, CEO of MedPharm Holdings, a cannabis research and cultivation company.
“You’re going to probably have more variety from these companies, whether they’re offering drinks or chocolate bars. But these companies are going to be the household names that people are going to come to know over the next 30, 50, 100 years,” he says.
Not everyone is on board. “We should all be able to agree that Colorado’s increasingly potent marijuana products are harmful to youth and that we have a collective responsibility to protect Colorado kids,” writes Henny Lasley, the cofounder of Smart Colorado, which was formed in opposition to the legalization of marijuana in the state.
The availability of medical marijuana for people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders is among the vetoed initiatives that are likely to reemerge in 2019. That bill reportedly was opposed by the Colorado Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Society, the Colorado Psychiatric Society, and by Larry Wolk, MD, who recently stepped down as chief medical officer of the state’s department of public health and environment.
Adjusting to life after fires
The latest wildfires have been vanquished in California. For those affected recently and in the past several years has come the reality that the draw of living on the edge of nature means living surrounded by tinder-dry terrain. It’s a great location – until it ignites.
A year ago, the Thomas Fire devastated Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, burning more than 440 square miles. Few people died, but more than 1,000 buildings were destroyed – and hundreds of people were left homeless. A year later, in the Clearpoint neighborhood of Ventura, residential lots sit empty, their owners having abandoned the effort to rebuild. Others, like Sandra and Ed Fuller, are choosing to begin again. The beauty of the area that pulled them there years ago remains strong.
They have come to terms with losing their home to the fire. “I think it was a sort of a breaking point where there was just a flood of peace that kind of went through. It’s like there is nothing we can do about this. We know what we have to do now. We’ll just get on with it,” Ed Fuller says in an interview with NPR.
Having the Christmas season looming has been a boost to their spirits and planning. “My wife is absolutely obsessed that she’s ready for Christmas. Last Christmas we sort of lost.”
The invisibility of asexuality
It can be hard for some to fathom that sex just isn’t important for some. “They are the friends and family members who don’t express any desire to pursue sexual intimacy, who don’t often or ever seem interested in conventional dating, and who get pushed to the sidelines in any conversation about sexual health,” Kate Sloan writes in a recent article in the Walrus.
“Much like same-sex attraction decades ago, this nonattraction was initially (and is sometimes still) conflated with a sexual-desire disorder, worthy of pathologization and medical treatment with pharmaceuticals or therapy. But scientists have confirmed asexuality isn’t a medical issue; it is a sexual orientation on the same plane as heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality,” Ms. Sloan writes.
“If someone is gay, as an example, it’s pretty easy to say, ‘Okay, well, I experience the same type of attraction that everyone else does, it’s just pointed at a different gender,’ ” says Brian Langevin, executive director of the nonprofit organization Asexual Outreach. “For asexual people ... they might not even know that sexual attraction exists, and to them, the whole world could seem very confusing.”
Meanwhile, a 2013 study in British Columbia showed that asexual individuals are more likely to be socially isolated, depressed, and anxious.
“True emotional intimacy is created, according to psychology, by honesty, empathy, and listening,” Ms. Sloan writes. “When we oversimplify relationships by insisting, on a sociocultural level, that sex is the ultimate key to and only sign of a profound connection, we deprive ourselves of the more holistic affinities available to us if we look for more.”
Fundamental churches face allegations
Joy Evans Ryder was 15 when she reportedly was raped by Dave Hyles, youth director at her Baptist church in Hammond, Ind. She was not the youth director’s only alleged victim. He never faced charges; in a scenario strikingly similar to that of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests, he escaped local prosecution by being moved on to other assignments.
An investigation by the Fort Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram has unearthed a decades-old cover-up of more than 400 cases of sexual abuse at independent fundamental Baptist churches across the United States.
Former members of congregations point to the cultlike power of many independent fundamental Baptist churches and the constant pressure to never question pastors or leave the church.
“We didn’t have a compound ... but it may as well have been. Our mind was the compound,” says a former member. Some of the abused believed that if they disobeyed the pastor or left the church, God would kill them or their family.
Some independent fundamental Baptist churches preach separation from the world, nonbelievers, and Christians with other religious views. A natural outcome, according to Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard’s Oklahoma City church, is that for any issues, “even legal issues, you go to the pastor first, not the police. ... You don’t report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government.”
“I see a culture where pastoral authority is taken to a level that’s beyond what the Scripture teaches,” says Tim Heck, who was a deacon at Faith Baptist Church in Wildomar, Calif., and whose daughter said she had been abused by the youth pastor there. “I think the independent fundamental Baptists have lost their way.”
Adam Lanza’s ‘separateness’ exposed
Written musings and other documents by Adam Lanza – who slaughtered 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012 – have been reported by the Hartford Courant.
Adam Lanza was challenged by speech and sensory issues as a child but had a keen intellect. That potential was eclipsed in his teenage years by paranoia, disdain for relationships, and contempt for others, the documents show. Family, teachers, and counselors were aware of his isolation. And, with time, his obsessions and mental/physical deterioration grew. But the documents make clear that no one really had a full grasp of the person he was becoming.
“As a teenager, his sensory condition made him exceedingly sensitive to textures, sound, light, and movement. He shunned his classmates, bothered by their choice of clothes and the noises they made. He cultivated a set of ground rules that fed his separateness,” write reporters Josh Kovner and Dave Altimari. The critical addition to this toxic brew was an absence of empathy and social compassion, according to Harold I. Schwartz, MD, a psychiatrist and former member of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, which studied the shootings.
“In this mental state, known as solipsism, only the solipsist is real. Everyone else in the world is a cardboard cutout, placed there for your benefit and otherwise devoid of meaning or value. It is the most extreme end of one form of malignant narcissism. If the victims have no value, then there is nothing to constrain you from shooting them,” Dr. Schwartz says.
In a note accompanying the article, the editors write: “Understanding what a mass killer was thinking not only paints a clearer picture of the individual, it helps us identify and understand red flags that could be part of a prevention formula for future mass shootings.”
Five years after the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, anticipated legislation in 2019 could see home delivery of cannabis and cannabis-related products, and expanded medical availability.
Governor-elect Jared Polis, who takes office in the new year, probably will take a different approach from outgoing Gov. John Hickenlooper, according to a recent article in the Denver Post. Mr. Hickenlooper vetoed previous legislation intended to increase drug’s accessibility.
“ says Albert Gutierrez, CEO of MedPharm Holdings, a cannabis research and cultivation company.
“You’re going to probably have more variety from these companies, whether they’re offering drinks or chocolate bars. But these companies are going to be the household names that people are going to come to know over the next 30, 50, 100 years,” he says.
Not everyone is on board. “We should all be able to agree that Colorado’s increasingly potent marijuana products are harmful to youth and that we have a collective responsibility to protect Colorado kids,” writes Henny Lasley, the cofounder of Smart Colorado, which was formed in opposition to the legalization of marijuana in the state.
The availability of medical marijuana for people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders is among the vetoed initiatives that are likely to reemerge in 2019. That bill reportedly was opposed by the Colorado Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Society, the Colorado Psychiatric Society, and by Larry Wolk, MD, who recently stepped down as chief medical officer of the state’s department of public health and environment.
Adjusting to life after fires
The latest wildfires have been vanquished in California. For those affected recently and in the past several years has come the reality that the draw of living on the edge of nature means living surrounded by tinder-dry terrain. It’s a great location – until it ignites.
A year ago, the Thomas Fire devastated Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, burning more than 440 square miles. Few people died, but more than 1,000 buildings were destroyed – and hundreds of people were left homeless. A year later, in the Clearpoint neighborhood of Ventura, residential lots sit empty, their owners having abandoned the effort to rebuild. Others, like Sandra and Ed Fuller, are choosing to begin again. The beauty of the area that pulled them there years ago remains strong.
They have come to terms with losing their home to the fire. “I think it was a sort of a breaking point where there was just a flood of peace that kind of went through. It’s like there is nothing we can do about this. We know what we have to do now. We’ll just get on with it,” Ed Fuller says in an interview with NPR.
Having the Christmas season looming has been a boost to their spirits and planning. “My wife is absolutely obsessed that she’s ready for Christmas. Last Christmas we sort of lost.”
The invisibility of asexuality
It can be hard for some to fathom that sex just isn’t important for some. “They are the friends and family members who don’t express any desire to pursue sexual intimacy, who don’t often or ever seem interested in conventional dating, and who get pushed to the sidelines in any conversation about sexual health,” Kate Sloan writes in a recent article in the Walrus.
“Much like same-sex attraction decades ago, this nonattraction was initially (and is sometimes still) conflated with a sexual-desire disorder, worthy of pathologization and medical treatment with pharmaceuticals or therapy. But scientists have confirmed asexuality isn’t a medical issue; it is a sexual orientation on the same plane as heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality,” Ms. Sloan writes.
“If someone is gay, as an example, it’s pretty easy to say, ‘Okay, well, I experience the same type of attraction that everyone else does, it’s just pointed at a different gender,’ ” says Brian Langevin, executive director of the nonprofit organization Asexual Outreach. “For asexual people ... they might not even know that sexual attraction exists, and to them, the whole world could seem very confusing.”
Meanwhile, a 2013 study in British Columbia showed that asexual individuals are more likely to be socially isolated, depressed, and anxious.
“True emotional intimacy is created, according to psychology, by honesty, empathy, and listening,” Ms. Sloan writes. “When we oversimplify relationships by insisting, on a sociocultural level, that sex is the ultimate key to and only sign of a profound connection, we deprive ourselves of the more holistic affinities available to us if we look for more.”
Fundamental churches face allegations
Joy Evans Ryder was 15 when she reportedly was raped by Dave Hyles, youth director at her Baptist church in Hammond, Ind. She was not the youth director’s only alleged victim. He never faced charges; in a scenario strikingly similar to that of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests, he escaped local prosecution by being moved on to other assignments.
An investigation by the Fort Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram has unearthed a decades-old cover-up of more than 400 cases of sexual abuse at independent fundamental Baptist churches across the United States.
Former members of congregations point to the cultlike power of many independent fundamental Baptist churches and the constant pressure to never question pastors or leave the church.
“We didn’t have a compound ... but it may as well have been. Our mind was the compound,” says a former member. Some of the abused believed that if they disobeyed the pastor or left the church, God would kill them or their family.
Some independent fundamental Baptist churches preach separation from the world, nonbelievers, and Christians with other religious views. A natural outcome, according to Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard’s Oklahoma City church, is that for any issues, “even legal issues, you go to the pastor first, not the police. ... You don’t report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government.”
“I see a culture where pastoral authority is taken to a level that’s beyond what the Scripture teaches,” says Tim Heck, who was a deacon at Faith Baptist Church in Wildomar, Calif., and whose daughter said she had been abused by the youth pastor there. “I think the independent fundamental Baptists have lost their way.”
Adam Lanza’s ‘separateness’ exposed
Written musings and other documents by Adam Lanza – who slaughtered 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012 – have been reported by the Hartford Courant.
Adam Lanza was challenged by speech and sensory issues as a child but had a keen intellect. That potential was eclipsed in his teenage years by paranoia, disdain for relationships, and contempt for others, the documents show. Family, teachers, and counselors were aware of his isolation. And, with time, his obsessions and mental/physical deterioration grew. But the documents make clear that no one really had a full grasp of the person he was becoming.
“As a teenager, his sensory condition made him exceedingly sensitive to textures, sound, light, and movement. He shunned his classmates, bothered by their choice of clothes and the noises they made. He cultivated a set of ground rules that fed his separateness,” write reporters Josh Kovner and Dave Altimari. The critical addition to this toxic brew was an absence of empathy and social compassion, according to Harold I. Schwartz, MD, a psychiatrist and former member of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, which studied the shootings.
“In this mental state, known as solipsism, only the solipsist is real. Everyone else in the world is a cardboard cutout, placed there for your benefit and otherwise devoid of meaning or value. It is the most extreme end of one form of malignant narcissism. If the victims have no value, then there is nothing to constrain you from shooting them,” Dr. Schwartz says.
In a note accompanying the article, the editors write: “Understanding what a mass killer was thinking not only paints a clearer picture of the individual, it helps us identify and understand red flags that could be part of a prevention formula for future mass shootings.”