La Stampa 23/08/2006
COMPANY AFTER THE MURDER OF PERUGIA, "but mothers use violence PSYCHOLOGICAL '
War Roses on the skin of children
"Beatings and threats: from 20 crimes per day separated fathers'
of ldi
ROME. Twenty crimes per day, over seven thousand a year, a few murders but many episodes of violence and threats committed by fathers often separated for revenge against the ex-wives. A problem that news reports have sadly reported in the spotlight. Maria Burani Procaccini (Forza Italy), the outgoing president of the Parliamentary Committee for Children, rattles off the data collected through survey of the Ministry of the Interior. These are "crimes of desperation," clarifies the Burani, "to whom we must look to understand the plight of hundreds of thousands of people, a magma which then hide the follies such as the latent consumatasi unfortunately yesterday in Perugia." An issue which also involves the shared custody law approved during the government's center-right and he works on the Secretary of the Minister of Family Rosy Bindi, Chiara Locks. The law should not be deleted but it has its flaws, said announcing the Locks that the government will seek to amend it with the help of the opposition.
Men are no more guilty of women, the reaction to be different, defends Ernesto Emanuele, president of the separated dad. "Often, fathers or parents who did not get custody easily - he says - lose their heads, men resort to physical violence, while women mostly psychological violence." The survey, which does not include the crimes of non-payment of the monthly to wife and children is also understood that one must experience the new law in fact shared custody "to see if it really will ensure both parents," says Burani. And above all makes it essential to monitor the behavior of both parents. "I do not want to criminalize anyone, it is good to have an assessment and that the child is considered a rights holder." If the fault is not all attributable to the fathers, it is also true that 87 percent of men not seeking custody, "showing less interest in the fate of their children." For fathers, therefore, "we must understand the value of fatherhood. The child is seen as a tool to hurt his wife. Man builds a partner and forget the needs of the child. " But the mothers, against ex-husbands, often use the weapon of accusation as slanderous to indecent against children to keep their children, for its part warned that Emanuel also noted that complaints by men against their ex-wives are stored more often than those filed by women.
On the creation of an authority for the child and the unification of the jurisdiction of the child, asked the exponent of the Secretary Locks Fi replication. "I agree with the dialogue, is not an issue that divided the Minister Bindi wants to put his hand to family law in general, the institution of the family court." But first of all monitor the law on custody, which has positive aspects, such as giving the center the child's interest, but also many gaps. "We want understand what is wrong, the law was hastily made and is making not inconsiderable problems of application. We will make proposals and seek dialogue in Parliament. " I've also recognizes the limits of its association with Emanuel that was shared among those who sponsored, "a big step forward because neither parent has now total possession of his son, and then there are both more cautious."
on violence against children Locks offers a comprehensive approach that addresses overall violence inside the home. He calls him a "cultural problem" that must be resolved by looking to see what the school can do, how to help the mothers of the victims and accomplices violence of the fathers, "acting indirectly through education, especially of women."
La Stampa 23/08/2006 Tuttoscienze
There is a part of the brain that can see God
THE 'VISION' OF PATIENTS WITH EPILEPSY confirmed the discovery
Francesco Monaco
(University A . Avogadro - Novara)
What is the relationship between conscience and religion? Or rather, because the man believes? Why is faith still intact, despite scientific advances over time have revealed the mysteries of plagues, floods, earthquakes and even understanding of the universe? Nietzsche had the courage to proclaim the death of God and by his death (1900) ended the era of modernity and into that of postmodernity, or even in a world of ethical relativism. Yet his provocative message has not been able to significantly dent the natural disposition of man to believe in a higher being.
The expansion of the brain and increasing number of recent studies, performed on the brains of nuns at prayer, Buddhist monks in meditation, or patients with epilepsy or difficult children, lead us to say, as a whole, that evolution has prepared over time then what the company has formed: a brain (Or a part of the brain) to believe. In fact, in the development of religious belief was a factor represented by the rapid expansion of our brain when the human species emerged and distinguished from apes. Todd Murphy, a neuroscientist at the University Laurentiana of Canada says that, as the frontal and temporal lobes grew larger, developed our ability to extrapolate and make predictions of future-oriented and forming memories. We were therefore able to capture moving and dramatic cognitive abilities. For example, we could see a dead body and see ourselves in that position one day to come. In other words, we were able to formulate a kind of abstract thought, "This one day happen to me. " The awareness of impending death immediately gave rise to the questions: Why are we here? What happens when we die? Were thus needed answers. Experience
psycho According to Pascal Boyer (Washington University, Saint Louis, Missouri), a primitive religion played an important role in this sense, providing the creation of moral codes aimed at encouraging links between groups, which, in turn, increased the chances survival of the groups themselves. Another way to approach the problem of religion is to study patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (ELT), which are prone to experience psycho so intense that they consider it be visions of God Vilayanur S. Ramachandran (professor at the University of California at San Diego) included by Newsweek among the hundred characters of the "Club of the Century" that are most likely to contribute to society, he noted that a quarter of patients with ELT by he had studied related religious experiences extremely intense during the crisis and development, therefore, metaphysical thinking in intercritical periods. Therefore, on the basis of these and other studies, considered to be a neural circuitry whose activity leads to a religious belief. In other words, in the brains of patients crises reinforce certain neural pathways related to a specific nucleus involved in emotions, the amygdala, that are (in case) excessive emotional meanings attributed to objects or trivial events. Of course this does not mean that in our brain, there is a "form divine," but probably we have circuits that, evolutionarily speaking, are specialized for the faith.
A classic example of a famous patient with this disease is represented by Fyodor M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881), who often suffered from seizures to mental contents or otherwise of religious ecstatic-mystical type, well represented by the character of Prince Mishkin in his novel "The Idiot": "In those moments, which had the duration of lightning, the meaning of life and self-consciousness almost increased tenfold. Mind and heart of an extraordinary light glowed: all emotions, all doubt seemed to subside suddenly and result in a very calm, full of serene harmony and hope, to understand the root causes. "
Consciousness and soul
The problem of God tormented life of the great Russian writer, as well as storm also all its tragic characters. The theme of the mystical "great harmony" echoing the famous speech on Pushkin Dostoievskji pronounce that in June 1880 in Moscow in front of a huge crowd that attended the inauguration of the monument to the great poet, and in which he praised Russia as a "nation intended to pronounce the final word of the great universal harmony, the final agreement of all brotherly races, according to the law of the Gospel of Christ. " The study of patients with epilepsy is therefore confirmed as a vantage point on the mechanisms of consciousness, or - to put it in provocative ways, such as Nobel laureate Francis Crick - the same soul. Beyond the scientific considerations, however, the religious beliefs of mass will continue. In the U.S. the fastest-growing religions are the Mormons and Scientology, especially since - according to Boyer - are new. In other parts of the world, however, other religions, fundamentalist, are successful because they offer a clear vision of the world. Neuroscience can evaluate states of consciousness, but probably not be able to threaten the status of religion.
As the survival of the species "to believe" religion is good is in dispute. Certainly the interference of the concepts and religious beliefs about human behavior, especially when they are fundamentalist or sectarian, has caused more problems than perhaps for ever to mankind than good, and it is not necessary to give examples here. From a purely secular viewpoint, however, we think that the belief in a transcendent principle and in some hypothetical afterlife has, a priori a powerful message of consolation, all of which, after all, we need and that has in fact encouraged the millennia the survival of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.
La Stampa 23/08/2006 Tuttoscienze
NEUROSCIENCE
Love makes smarter
REACTION IS ACCELERATED IN WOMEN LOVE IS IN THE NEO-MOTHER
Paola Mariano
The power of love gestures can not only push the crowd, but gives wings to the intelligence, accelerating cognitive performance.
The test comes from a study conducted by the University Hospital of Geneva and the Dartmouth Functional Brain Imaging Center in the U.S.: the women hit by Cupid's arrow, grappling with the cognitive tests, have faster reaction times when, unconsciously, are induced to think the man they love. But woe to declassified other emotional relationships as less powerful than romantic love. From another study, by Delia Lenzi La Sapienza University of Rome, that the strength of maternal love is no less and, indeed, is able to move heaven and earth for the good of the child. The mothers, in fact, develop a relationship with the emotions of their child to be able to decipher in a flash the needs expressed by the child. It 'still romantic love has always been the guiding principle for the man, poetry, art, dance and music. And now neuroscientists have embarked in the enterprise to reveal the neural basis: they have the nerve located in the subcortical and cortical areas, the realm of emotions. However, not enough to solve one of the most intriguing questions: Why love is good? The Swiss team started to answer the question by examining the effects of love on higher cognitive functions and observed that heat, transportation, passion and affection, as well as being the flame of a 'love story', have the power to shine intelligence. The experts went to the heart of the problem by examining the cognitive performance of a group of women, some of which are overwhelmed by the passion of love. All women have been active in vocabulary exercises, while being subjected to few thousandths of a second neutral subliminal stimuli, affective (as the name of a friend) and, finally, romantic (as the name of a loved one). And here's the surprise: the women in love - and they alone - have shown greatly reduced reaction times and even greater accuracy in the test answers. From the functional point of view this corresponds to the activation of specific neural areas: functional magnetic resonance imaging, in fact, scientists have observed that the nucleus accumbens - a center of pleasure and gratification - is very active when the love is stimulated by unconsciously name of the partner. This activation is not registered, however, between those who are not haunted by the strength of feeling. Even maternal love, however, proves to be a powerful engine cognitive ago rocketing readiness of mother and made her understand the needs of the infant on the fly, even if he does not know yet express in words. The basis of this sharpness is empathy, the ability to empathize with the emotions of others, which is crucial in interpersonal relationships. The unique bond that develops between mother and child seems to be the ultimate expression of this specific skill. The Italian study, in fact, demonstrated the uniqueness and usefulness of these attacks, by observing the neural responses of mothers who look at photographs of different infants. In the brain of a mother only images of their active child, in addition to the centers of empathy, including cortical areas for the implementation of behaviors useful to respond to the emotional state transmitted by the face of the newborn. "For example - he says the line - when the baby cries in the picture, and it is the child, mothers, there is a significant activation in areas of empathy and around the limbic system, especially the most instinctive to react in situations danger and stress. " Also, there is also a strong activity in the pre-supplementary motor, which serves to translate emotions into action, with which to stop the crying, for example picking up and comforting the baby. On the contrary, the emotions painted on face of a child who is not their child is not able to activate the brain with similar intensity of a mother. So, if tradition dwells on anxieties, love - romantic or maternal - is an extraordinary multiplier acumen and intelligence.
The strong association between the mother and the newborn, which ensures a small source of nourishment and protection from the outside environment is established under the effect of 'drugs' natural (endorphins), put into circulation in the brain of small, particularly in the circuits of pleasure. The discovery in mice, announced on "Science" by Francesca D'Amato of the Institute of Neuroscience, Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, CNR, Rome, may have a significant impact on the study of diseases such as autism, but also of anxiety, depression, insecurity and eating disorders.
the poster 8/23/2006
Lebanon Amnesty
William Ragozzino
A randomized during a heated discussion about the rules of engagement and the characteristics of military interposition between Lebanon and Israel . The discussion ends to cover another topic that concerns "the responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah and Israel in the month of conflict." In this regard, according to Amnesty International, "an urgent investigation, thorough and independent by the United Nations. " Also according to Amnesty, "the destruction of thousands of homes and the bombing of several bridges, roads, tanks and fuel depots (are) an integral part of Israeli military strategy in Lebanon, rather than" collateral damage "resulting from legitimate attacks against targets military. " Amnesty added that the "civilian casualties, killed on both sides of the conflict, it must be vindicated." And Amnesty (report on page 5) insists on the theme of 'war crimes', which then are of two types, this time: pointless killing of civilians and terrorist or better environmental disasters: disasters malicious.
During the war, Amnesty has done four missions in Lebanon and Israel, gathering information and testimonies of hundreds of people on both sides of the front, visiting the places of war, ghost towns, countries destroyed. The picture that emerges is of an area destroyed by an earthquake sort of environmental and human. Not that we can surprise, the war is precisely this task: to destroy human settlements built over centuries, the activities of life, nature, made of space, beaches, water, fields and cities, forests and orchards. The damages are calculated in euro in thousands of millions, but it is a cruel and account for its own sake. How much is a child's life? From both sides of the front head of any war, is reflecting. Many mothers, many fathers cry.
Read the reports of Amnesty, then summarized his proposed document to the public and to the Security Council del'Onu, you enter a world of desolation, of hospitals under the guns of scientifically targeted villages and towns from the sea, heaven from earth. Just facts, no outburst of emotion, no superfluous word. But the vision of war and its destruction of lives and property is shared equally intolerable.
Now we must rebuild, moving down the narrow rules of engagement. On the ground there will be soldiers everywhere, the die-hard who wish to fight, and others, called to intervene, to prevent him from starting again, to ensure that there are no errors or coups. A difficult task. But we must go further, to understand what happened, find ways to judge the perpetrators. The war crimes tribunal exists for this. And then you have to choose what to do. Italy seems determined to send many soldiers, some with the intention to defend the cease-fire, a commitment far more generous than that to get the commander in chief and copyright of the code of engagement.
spending to be allocated, very large, it is considered necessary for the maintenance of peace. All right. But it would be better if the same money could, in future, be used to rebuild all the bridges, to bring the necessary water in the houses for a living, to re-found life, secure, peaceful, the city of Haifa and Beirut?
Corriere della Sera 08/23/2006
Research conducted by two Princeton University psychologists
Hot offers: just a tenth of a second
A study in Psychological Science said that in this time we can get an idea of \u200b\u200bwho you have in front
PRINCETON - Just a tenth of a second by a stroke of lightning. Just this tiny fraction of the time, in fact, to decide whether a person is worthy of our trust, attracts us, it seems fair or on the contrary, we better keep up to speed. One-tenth of a second, then, to get an idea of \u200b\u200bwho we are faced with relying on somatic of his face. To support and research conducted by two psychologists at Princeton University, published last July in Psychological Science.
The two scholars have shown a sample of 200 participants asking them to observe different faces for different times, which is between 100 and 1,000 milliseconds. So they found that only needed a tenth of a second because people develop an impression, positive or negative it was. Through various tests, which varied the timing of exposure to images, the researchers were able to observe that the trial completed in the blink of an eye, did not vary significantly by giving the face a little longer offered. If anything was to increase the conviction that the first impression was just right.
Liberation 08/23/2006
UN Mission, if we are pacifists we try
Rina Gagliardi
If we were very naive, more than we will never be, we should express a strong surprise. While on a military mission certainly dangerous, and almost no political utility, such as in Afghanistan, we heard a few dissonant voices (all still on the left) on the project for Lebanon, UNIFIL, so strongly pursued by the Prodi government and the Minister D 'Alema, flake the concerns and doubts, as rarely happened. It is not only puzzled the right, for obvious reasons, instrumental and more evident embarrassment. I am more than cautious, if not hostile, some major newspapers such as The Republic. Military leaders are worried. Union leaders are uncertain prominent. And I'm wary, perhaps because of ideological pique, some sectors of the radical left and the Pacific. Where does a distrust so prevalent? From fear, of course. A certain fear well founded. Nobody is able today to ensure that the multinational force of interposition, intended to deploy on the border of Lebanon, will be able to successfully carry out its basic function: to preserve the fragile truce in place, and indeed go further, building the conditions for genuine peace process. None can assure you, on the contrary, the forces that want war do not use the "blue helmets" for their own advantage, to regroup and impose a relatively short time, their logic. And no one can exclude the possibility that, for our country, for Italy, the whole initiative will be a "fiasco" political and diplomatic - even today, the eve of important European summit, France has not clarified its ambiguities Germany has instead made clear its determination to stay out, other countries, like Spain, do not seem willing to engage in the Middle East, if not with forces limited in quantity. In short, as the minister has already said Parisi, this is definitely a mission "dangerous": not only because it poses a real risk the lives of many people, but because it is really very difficult general. Yet these considerations do not solve the problem. Is there something else behind (or under) doubts, worries, however understandable hostility and "lawful." There is, in our opinion, a comprehensive policy position: he fears the wool over the eyes as possible "new beginning" of a new Italian foreign policy. No more flattened axle Washington-Tel Aviv, but strongly linked to Europe. No more "loyal ally" of a war strategy, but the protagonist of a peace process, certainly difficult, which has peace as its ultimate goal and aware. It is on this type of resistance that should focus attention and reflection.
The dramatic situation in the Middle East - is known - has its roots in distant tragedies, the last of which was the last great World War. But now it has become even more untenable is becoming, has already become a place of endemic war - waged, symbolic, and even indirectly. One just behind us, with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and destruction of air raids on Beirut, was not only the characteristics of a clash "Local" was in many ways, the first evidence of an even more devastating war between the U.S. and Iran, between the West and fundamentalist Islam. Despite the failure of the handheld doctrine of "preventive war", despite the apparent drop-down influence on world politics the Bush neocons, the clash of civilizations is in fact a field perspective, that neither the government nor the deployment of Western Washington actually filed. Moreover, it is the policy of the West to determine mounting imbalances, and critical areas of less and less controllable, in such terms that make the war an increasingly threatened. It is a concrete example, and burning, the current growth of the power and the hegemonic ambitions of Iran: it represents one of the most tangible fruits of the American war on Iraq, which destroyed, in substance, the country that the constitutive stronger counterpart in Tehran (from the point of view of the expansion of religious fanaticism) and changed the balance of the region in depth.
Now, of course, Iran's Ahmadinejad is a very serious threat not only to Israel's security, not only for nuclear weapons which can reach to acquire, but the role of ideological, political and military can play in 'whole Middle East devastated, unstable and suffering - where there is a people, the Palestinians, which is still denied the basic right to their own state, a basic condition of dignity.
But how to intervene, then, before the disaster to become a dominant trend, and indisputable? The only weapon at our disposal is also the most ancient and yet modern politics. The only person who can hope to use it successfully, is also ancient and modern Europe. And the only place where it is immediately experienced is just the Lebanon for reasons of geography and geo-strategic, but also for political and cultural reasons. To date, with its 17 between ethnic groups and religions, with its mixture of Muslims, Maronite Christians, Druze and many other denominations, Lebanon Middle East is the last defense of tolerance and coexistence among different when they fell or, more or not in Syrian hands, or should be, again, the humiliation of the Israeli occupation, Lebanon will lose not just independence, but its nature of "borderland". The idea was born here, for nothing new, of a multinational force, "interposed" between Lebanon and Israel, can perhaps actually "mediate" between the different political subjectivities now mutually exclusive. A contingent, of course, can not and do not win the war, but that is at the service of a more ambitious political project: to rebuild, in the region, a "reasonable political order, respect the rights of peoples, and able to restore true laws. Ensuring the safety of Israelis, of course, as requested by the daily Corriere della sera, but also that of the Lebanese and the Arabs. To encourage, by his presence, the process of "constitutionalization" of Hezbollah, and its integration into the Lebanese army - so far away from the standard necessary for efficiency. Enable the pacification of turning into the peace process, for which obviously will many other instruments - the joint committees, conferences, negotiations - and many other players. But without this first step, the process even begins. As well as without the Rome Conference, the practical effect would not have been so apparent low set in motion the essential mechanism that perhaps is setting in motion: the output dall'unilateralismo American, the failure of a practice based on a fait accompli - the U.S. move, the director will follow. Essential, and very relevant, is that it unfolds under the flags, not at all formal UN. How long has this symbol - which is the only alternative to the imperial government of the world - did not appear in an initiative internationally consistent? And how long Italy, the Italian Government was not included as prim'attore an attempt of this nature? Just the obstacles that still hamper it, enhance - if I may say so - the need and value. Italy, as we were taught half a century of Christian Democrat power, can make its foreign policy only to the condition to get rid of its status as a colony, and to exercise, as it may, his natural vocation to the active dialogue between Europe and the Mediterranean . From this point of view, UNIFIL is also a practical contribution to the birth - also dramatically late - an independent European subjectivity.
Of course, as we said at the beginning, all this for now, is only a draft. Important, necessary and fraught with risks. A project that involves real assumption of responsibility, even for those who - like us - places the policy of peace (and pacifism, and nonviolence) to the top of its scale of values. If there are clear reasons why many powers more or less strong, more or less respectable, many commentators, is contrary to the mission of Lebanon - and they look very worried about the idea, very credible now that it has an Italian leadership - much less understandable there are similar reasons to the contrary and that no push to some area of \u200b\u200bthe radical left, and movements. If you are concerned that UN peacekeepers could be a mere "cover" non-aggression appeased the government of Tel Aviv, it takes an in distorted: Olmert, like the hawks in North America, suffers the initiative, after a campaign war that has resulted, for him, in a disaster, military and political, and that has discredited, perhaps for the first time in sensational terms, the myth of invincibility of the Israeli army. If you think that the policy of Foreign Minister D'Alema remains, overall, subordinate to the interests of the U.S. and the West, it is wrong, once again, the facts: as shown by the controversy over the Roaring walk of our Lebanese foreign minister, and his ability to communicate with everyone, without exception, including Hezbollah. If it is said that UNIFIL, however, is only the beginning of a process so that must involve many other people, places and decisions, it is said that a half-truth, as often happens, it ends up being a whole lie. To be pacifists result, today, it is essential to try. Try to be there. Ban all but a legitimate desire to escape. It stake everything on the thread of hope we have - to transform it, perhaps, in a sturdy rope.
The Reform Wednesday, August 23, 2006
SOCIALIST. What reforms
If the left rediscovered today Riccardo Lombardi lesson
OF CHARLES Patrignani
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