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"Passion comes from the heart and is manifest as optimism, excitement, emotional connection, and determination" Stephen R. Covey (the 8th Habit)
"There are a thousands hacking at the branches of Evil to One who is striking at the root." Henry David Thoreau
As we mentioned some of these tactics or strategies are corrupt; you must know about them and fight them back.
Here is one of them. Let's exaggerate a bit to make our case or clear the idea. The emphasis of the rule below is the keyword buying or shopping.
(Rule 1) = Some Big Corporations have realized and vested interest in our lack of self esteem and are happy that media is pushing depressive news. If you feel bad about yourself, you will work harder, you will ask less for salary rise, stand less for yourself, and most important for some corporations or Brands, you will be buying or shopping more.
It is hard to bring a specific example about this principle. The old theory of management was all about keeping employees on their toes so they stand less for themselves. I also like to emphasize that I do not believe every corporation or big corporation falls into this category. Maybe only a handful are guilty.
I recently saw a great movie or documentary called The Corporation.
I strongly suggest you get the video if not the movie itself. Again, I do not agree that every corporation is guilty of malevolence. However, the principle is worthy of examining.
Before you proceed, take a moment and read some interesting facts about AN HERBAL MIRACLE DRUG called Artemisia. In the pharmaceutical industry some herbals can not be patented, hence they can not make a profit. As a result the Big Pharma do not research their benefits.
http://www.thecorporation.com/about/ One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first to defy history. In this complex and highly entertaining documentary, Mark Achbar, co-director of the influential and inventive MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, teams up with co-director Jennifer Abbott and writer Joel Bakan to examine the far-reaching repercussions of the corporation’s increasing preeminence. Based on Bakan’s book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the 4corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Featuring illuminating interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, THE CORPORATION charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force.
THE CORPORATION In THE CORPORATION, case studies, anecdotes and true confessions reveal behind-the-scenes tensions and influences in several corporate and anti-corporate dramas. Each illuminates an aspect of the corporation’s complex character. Among the 40 interview subjects are CEOs and top-level executives from a range of industries: oil, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, manufacturing, public relations, branding, advertising and undercover marketing; in addition, a Nobel-prize winning economist, the first management guru, a corporate spy, and a range of academics, critics, historians and thinkers are interviewed. A LEGAL “PERSON" THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES MINDSET The people who work for corporations may be good people, upstanding citizens in their communities—but none of that matters when they enter the corporation’s world. As Sam Gibara, Chairman of Goodyear Tire, explains, “If you really had a free hand, if you really did what you wanted to do that suited your personal thoughts and your personal priorities, you’d act differently.“ Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer, had an environmental epiphany and re-organized his $1.4 billion company on sustainable principles. His company may be a beacon of corporate hope, but is it an exception to the rule? MONSTROUS OBLIGATIONS The Corporation exists to create wealth, and even world disasters can be profit centers. Carlton Brown, a commodities trader, recounts with unabashed honesty the mindset of gold traders while the twin towers crushed their occupants. The first thing that came to their minds, he tells us, was: “How much is gold up?“ PLANET INC. Around things too precious, vulnerable, sacred or important to the public interest, governments have, in the past, drawn protective boundaries against corporate exploitation. Today, governments are inviting corporations into domains from which they were previously barred. PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT Today people can become brands. And brands can build cities. And university students can pay for their educations by shilling on national television for a credit card company. And a corporation even owns the rights to the popular song “Happy Birthday.” Do you ever get the feeling it’s all a bit much? Corporations have invested billions to shape public and political opinion. When they own everything, who will stand for the public good? THE PRICE OF WHISTLEBLOWING Fox demanded that they rewrite the story, and ultimately fired Akre and Wilson. Akre and Wilson subsequently sued Fox under Florida’s whistle-blower statute. They proved to a jury that the version of the story Fox would have had them put on the air was false, distorted or slanted. Akre was awarded $425,000. Then Fox appealed, the verdict was overturned on a technicality, and Akre lost her award. [For more information on the case see www.foxbghsuit.com] DEMOCRACY LTD. And corporations do not hesitate to take advantage of democracy’s absence either. One of the most shocking stories of the twentieth century is Edwin Black’s recounting IBM’s strategic alliance with Nazi Germany—one that began in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continued well into World War II. FISSURES As global individuals take back local power, a growing re-invigoration of the concept of citizenship is taking root. It has the power to not only strip the corporation of its seeming omnipotence, but to create a feeling and an ideology of democracy that is much more than its mere institutional version. |
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| Even today the Philip Morris Company receives letters from all over the world, mostly at the beginning of summer, from travelers wishing to know where The Marlboro Country is. |
How do you fight back?
If you ever find yourself victim of these devastating principles, fight back. Here are some remedies experts have suggested:
A) If your job involves repetitive tasks, find something more rewarding, creative, and or uplifting with better people around.
B) Develop a supportive connection to other people or groups
C) Create a sense of autonomy with independence and control
D) Achieve a sense of competence, a sense of purpose
E) Connect more with spiritual side of yours, nature and animals
We also recommend a wonderful book called "Creating Optimism" by Bob Murray and Alicia Fortinberry.
Compare these two articles:
Cigarettes May Serve As an Antidepressant
Cigarette smoking may have effects on the human brain similar to those of antidepressant drugs, possibly explaining the high rate of smoking among depressed people and their resistance to quitting. Chronic smoking produces 'antidepressant-like' effects on the human brain. This may contribute to the high incidence of smoking and difficulty to quit in those who are depressed. Researchers have noted previously that depressed people are more likely to smoke and are more resistant to quitting. However, it was unclear if nicotine or other chemicals taken in during smoking directly affected the brains of those who were depressed. Researchers examined a portion of the brain associated with depression known as the locus coeruleus. The researchers compared a portion of this brain tissue taken after death from seven people who had been heavy smokers and nine nonsmokers, all of whom had been mentally healthy. The investigators found that the brains of long-term smokers had neurochemical abnormalities similar to the brains of animals treated with antidepressant drugs. Specifically, the brains of long-time smokers had significantly fewer alpha-2 adrenoceptors and significantly less of the enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase, which helps to manufacture the brain chemicals noradrenaline and dopamine. These two effects have been reported in animals exposed to antidepressant drugs and are also two of the markers used to identify potential antidepressant medications. Archives of General Psychiatry |
Smoking increases teen depression Recent research suggests a new twist in the relationship between smoking and depression in adolescents. BY DEBORAH SMITH
Teens who smoke appear to be more likely to develop depressive symptoms than their nonsmoking peers, according to new research published in the October issue of Pediatrics. The study, "Depressive symptoms and cigarette smoking among teens," by Elizabeth Goodman, MD, and John Capitman, PhD, analyzed baseline and one-year follow-up data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to assess the relationship between cigarette smoking and depression among teens. Researchers have typically viewed depression as increasing the likelihood of smoking behavior. But Goodman and Capitman's research has found the reverse: "Nondepressed teens who smoked in the prior month faced approximately a four times greater risk of developing depression than nonsmoking teens." The researchers analyzed two samples of adolescents. The first sample of 8,704 nondepressed teens was studied to determine the effects of cigarette smoking on developing high depressive symptoms. After one year, a majority of the sample's smoking behaviors did not change. However, more than one-third of those whose smoking behaviors did progress became moderate to heavy smokers, smoking at least a pack per week. About 6 percent of the baseline nondepressed teens developed high depressive symptoms at the follow-up. The second sample of 6,947 depressed and nondepressed teens had not smoked cigarettes for 30 days prior to baseline; Goodman and Capitman looked for relationships between baseline depression and becoming a moderate to heavy smoker at follow-up. In bivariate analyses, teens who smoked at baseline were more likely to develop depression, and depressed teens were more than twice as likely to become moderate to heavy smokers. Among teens who were not depressed at baseline, smokers were more than twice as likely to become depressed. Smoking behavior at one year was also highly associated with reporting depression. However, in logistic regression modeling, the bivariate relationship between depression and subsequent smoking was not significant. Teens who smoked cigarettes in the 30 days before baseline were significantly more likely to develop depression in all models, even when controlling for sociodemographic factors. Goodman and Capitman explain that this finding "may indicate that depression led to the initial experimentation but that smoking is moderating the expression of the depressive symptoms." Cigarette smoking was the single strongest predictor of developing high depressive symptoms, leading Goodman to say that "These data highlight the importance of providing anticipatory guidance regarding tobacco use to teen-agers and of encouraging smoking cessation among adolescents who smoke." Among those who had never smoked at baseline, baseline depression was not associated with cigarette experimentation or smoking at follow-up. Neither was baseline depression associated with smoking at follow-up among those who had experimented at baseline. "Because high depressive symptoms did not predict smoking behavior in these analyses, it is unlikely that the effect of current smoking on development of subsequent high depressive symptoms is simply a proxy for a past episode of depression," the authors reason. And although depression would not be viewed as an antecedent of smoking in the study's framework, Goodman and Capitman say previous research might be explained in a different way that corresponds with their study. For example, nicotine may affect the central nervous system, causing the increased risk of depression. |
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If both of these articles are correct, what do they tell you? Do they say smoking has depressive effects at the start of your life and totally opposite effects at the later stages of your life? You are hooked for life!
Contact: Sam Fahmy
sfahmy@uga.edu
706-542-5361
University of Georgia
Athens, Ga. -- Some anti-smoking ads are simply ineffective, while others actually make youth more likely to light up. Fortunately, some are successful, and a new University of Georgia study helps explain why.
Hye-Jin Paek, assistant professor at the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, found that anti-smoking ads are most effective when they convince youth that their friends are listening to the ads. Otherwise, the ads appear to stimulate the rebellious and curious nature of youth, making them more interested in smoking. Paek and co-author Albert Gunther from the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined data from surveys of nearly 1,700 middle school students, and their results appear in the August issue of the journal Communication Research.
“Anti-smoking ads have the greatest impact on smoking attitudes and behavior when adolescents think that their peers are listening to those messages,” Paek said. “And that makes sense because people are more likely to listen to what their close peers say rather than what the media says.”
Evidence that anti-smoking ads have the potential to make youth more likely to smoke has been accumulating for the past five years. Paek and Gunther’s study adds to that evidence and helps explain how anti-smoking ads can be effective.
The researchers surveyed students in four middle schools about their exposure to anti-smoking ads and their intentions to smoke. They found that, overall, the more the students were exposed to anti-smoking messages, the more inclined they were to smoke. The exception – where exposure to anti-smoking ads correlated with a reduced intention to smoke – occurred among students who said their friends were influenced by anti-smoking messages.
“Perception is sometimes more powerful than actual behavior,” Paek said. “What we’ve found is that it doesn’t necessarily matter how your friends respond to the ads, but how you think your friends are responding.”
Paek said many health campaigns assume that anti-smoking messages have a simple, direct and strong impact on individuals. She said that by understanding the indirect route that messages often take, health communicators can design more effective ads.
Her results suggest that campaigns don’t work by convincing individuals to avoid tobacco, but rather by helping change the social norms surrounding smoking. With that in mind, she said, campaigns should be designed for a sustained, multi-year effort.
The way the message is designed is critically important, too. Rather than using an authoritarian approach along the lines of “just say no,” Paek urges health communicators to emphasize that most youth don’t smoke, and for good reasons.
“Advertising professionals have only recently become involved in anti-smoking campaigns,” she said. “We need to develop more sophisticated appeals.”
Resisting peer pressure: new findings shed light on adolescent decision-makingPA141/07 — July 24 2007The capacity to resist peer pressure in early adolescence may depend on the strength of connections between certain areas of the brain, according to a study carried out by University of Nottingham researchers. New findings suggest that enhanced connections across brain regions involved in decision-making may underlie an individual's ability to resist the influence of peers. The study, published in the July 25 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, suggests that brain regions which regulate different aspects of behaviour are more interconnected in children with high resistance to peer influence. Professor Tomas Paus and colleagues at The University of Nottingham used functional neuroimaging to scan adolescents while they watched video clips of neutral or angry hand and face movements. Previous research has shown that anger is the most easily recognised emotion. Professor Paus and his team observed 35 ten-year-olds with high and low resistance to peer influence, measured by a questionnaire. The researchers then showed the children video clips of angry hand movements and angry faces and measured their brain activity. They found that the brains of all children showed activity in regions important for planning and extracting information about social cues from movement, but the connectivity within these regions was stronger in children who were marked as less vulnerable to peer influence. Those children were also found to have more activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area important for decision-making and inhibition of unwanted behaviour. Professor Paus said: “This is important if we are to understand how the adolescent brain attains the right balance between acknowledging the influences of others and maintaining one's independence.” Future research will involve follow-ups with the same children to determine whether their resistance to peer influence is related to the brain changes observed in this study. The work was a supported by grants from the Santa Fe Institute Consortium and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organisation of more than 36,500 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. — Ends —
More information is available from Professor Tomas Paus, Brain & Body Centre, University of Nottingham, on +44 (0)115 951 5362, tomas.paus@nottingham.ac.uk ; or Media Relations Manager Tim Utton in the University's Media and Public Relations Office on +44 (0)115 846 8092, tim.utton@nottingham.ac.uk . |
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WASHINGTON, DC July 26, 2007 – Brain regions that regulate different aspects of behavior are more interconnected in children with high resistance to peer influence than those with low resistance, according to a new study published in the July 25 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
"These findings may help develop more effective strategies to prevent the development of lifestyles of violence and crime,” says John Sweeney, PhD, Director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Sweeney was not involved in this study.
In the new study, Tomas Paus, MD, PhD, at the University of Nottingham, and his colleagues used functional neuroimaging to scan adolescents while they watched video clips of neutral or angry hand and face movements. Previous research has shown that anger is the most easily recognized emotion.
Paus and his team observed 35 10-year-olds with high and low resistance to peer influence, as determined by a questionnaire. The researchers then showed the children video clips of angry hand movements and angry faces and measured their brain activity. They found that the brains of all children showed activity in regions important for planning and extracting information about social cues from movement, but the connectivity between these regions was stronger in children who were marked as less vulnerable to peer influence. These children were also found to have more activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area important for decision making and inhibition of socially inappropriate behavior.
“This is important if we are to understand how the adolescent brain attains the right balance between acknowledging the influences of others and maintaining one’s independence,” says Paus.
Future research will involve follow-up studies with the same children to determine whether their resistance to real-life peer influence is related to the differences in brain wiring observed in this study.
The work was a supported by grants from the Santa Fe Institute Consortium and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organization of more than 36,500 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. Paus can be reached at tomas.paus@nottingham.ac.uk.
Sheep in human clothing – scientists reveal our flock mentality
Have you ever arrived somewhere and wondered how you got there? Scientists at the University of Leeds believe they may have found the answer, with research that shows that humans flock like sheep and birds, subconsciously following a minority of individuals.
Results from a study at the University of Leeds show that it takes a minority of just five per cent to influence a crowd’s direction – and that the other 95 per cent follow without realising it.
The findings could have major implications for directing the flow of large crowds, in particular in disaster scenarios, where verbal communication may be difficult. “There are many situations where this information could be used to good effect,” says Professor Jens Krause of the University’s Faculty of Biological Sciences. “At one extreme, it could be used to inform emergency planning strategies and at the other, it could be useful in organising pedestrian flow in busy areas.”
Professor Krause, with PhD student John Dyer, conducted a series of experiments where groups of people were asked to walk randomly around a large hall. Within the group, a select few received more detailed information about where to walk. Participants were not allowed to communicate with one another but had to stay within arms length of another person.
The findings show that in all cases, the ‘informed individuals’ were followed by others in the crowd, forming a self-organising, snake-like structure. “We’ve all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd,” says Professor Krause. “But what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realise they were being led by others.”
Other experiments in the study used groups of different sizes, with different ratios of ‘informed individuals’. The research findings show that as the number of people in a crowd increases, the number of informed individuals decreases. In large crowds of 200 or more, five per cent of the group is enough to influence the direction in which it travels. The research also looked at different scenarios for the location of the ‘informed individuals’ to determine whether where they were located had a bearing on the time it took for the crowd to follow.
“We initially started looking at consensus decision making in humans because we were interested in animal migration, particularly birds, where it can be difficult to identify the leaders of a flock,” says Professor Krause. “But it just goes to show that there are strong parallels between animal grouping behaviour and human crowds.”
This research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and was a collaborative study involving the Universities of Oxford and Wales Bangor. The paper relating to this research, entitled Consensus decision making in human crowds is published in the current issue of Animal Behaviour Journal.
Further information:
Clare Elsley, campuspr Ltd. Tel 0113 258 9880, Mob 07767 685168, Email clare@campuspr.co.uk
Guy Dixon, Press Office, University of Leeds. Tel 0113 3438229, Email g.dixon@leeds.ac.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. Jens Krause is Professor of Behavioural Ecology, in the Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology. His research interests focus on the mechanisms and functions of group-living in animals.
2. The Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds is one of the largest in the UK, with over150 academic staff and over 400 postdoctoral fellows and postgraduate students. The Faculty has been awarded research grants totalling some £60M and funders include charities, research councils, the European Union and industry. Each of the major units in the Faculty has the highest Grade 5 rated research according to the last government (HEFCE) Research Assessment Exercise, denoting research of international standing. The Faculty is also consistently within the top three for funding from the government’s research councils, the BBSRC and NERC. www.fbs.leeds.ac.uk
3. The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK with more than 30,000 students from 130 countries. With a total annual income of £422m, Leeds is one of the top ten research universities in the UK, and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. It was recently placed 80th in the Times Higher Educational Supplement's world universities league table and the University's vision is to secure a place among the world's top 50 by 2015.
4. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK’s main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests more than £500 million a year in research and postgraduate training to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and from mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements in everyone’s health, lifestyle and culture. For more information visit www.epsrc.ac.uk/
Tobacco Could Kill 1 Billion People This Century: WHO
Smoking and other types of tobacco use killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century, and could kill as many as 1 billion people this century unless dramatic global action is taken to curb tobacco use, said a World Health Organization report released Thursday.
It said all countries must significantly boost efforts to prevent young people from starting to smoke, help smoker kick the habit, and protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke, the Associated Press reported.
The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008 listed six specific tobacco-control policies that should be adopted by governments: raise tobacco taxes and prices; ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; protect people from secondhand smoke; warn people about the dangers of tobacco; help people who want to quit smoking; and monitor tobacco use to understand and reverse the epidemic.
"The tobacco epidemic already kills 5.4 million people a year from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses,'' said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan. ''Unchecked, that number will increase to more than 8 million a year by 2030.''
It's expected that more than 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths will be in low- and middle-income countries by 2030, the AP reported.
The WHO report said nearly two-thirds of the world's smokers live in 10 countries, with 30 percent in China and about 10 percent in India. Other countries with large numbers of smokers include Indonesia, Russia, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey.
Governments worldwide collect more than $200 billion in tobacco taxes a year, but spend less than one-fifth of 1 percent of that revenue on tobacco control, the WHO report said.
