text:
Team Twentytwo.5 to represent CMU at Startup Thailand League 2021
Science and Technology Park, Chiang Mai University (CMU STeP), and the student representatives of CMU participated in the Northern region edition of Startup Thailand League (STL 2021) at Kantary Hills Hotel on June 26, 2021.
Team Twentytwo.5, which was one of the 10 teams that qualified as the representatives of CMU in the competition, invented a platform for safe pet transportation that comes with an application and a pet tracking system. The team members included Miss Parnpanitarn Moongsin and Miss Chabordee Chaloemchokwatthana, from the Faculty of Architecture, Miss Thitima Srikhao and Miss Nalin Puekpong from the Faculty of Agriculture, and Mr. Paisit Senawan from the College of Arts, Media, and Technology.
Startup Thailand League (STL 2021) has 400 participating teams from 40 universities across the nation, 10 of which represent CMU. The qualified teams will receive funding of 25,000 baht and will get to showcase their projects on the Demo Day to be held this September at the KX Knowledge Xchange building in Bangkok.


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text:
Amount of foreign currency sold to Azerbaijani banks disclosed
Finance 5 January 2021 17:58 (UTC+04:00)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan.5
By Zeyni Jafarov – Trend:
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) sold $66.4 million to the local banks at the foreign exchange auction held with the participation of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) on January 5, 2021, Trend reports citing the country's CBA.
The demand from banks at the auction was fully met despite a decrease of 0.2 percent compared to the previous indicator.
At the end of the auction, the weighted average rate of the manat to the dollar amounted to 1.7 AZN / USD.
The first foreign exchange auction for a long time was held with the participation of SOFAZ on March 10, 2020, during which Azerbaijani banks purchased $323.2 million.
The CBA began to conduct currency auctions through a one-way sale of currency in a competitive environment from mid-January 2017.
In March 2020, the CBA decided to hold extraordinary currency auctions in connection with the increased demand of the population for foreign currency amid the failure of the OPEC+ deal, which led to a sharp drop in oil prices.
currency auction
Azerbaijani Central Bank (CBA)
SOFAZ

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
using namespace swift;

void ValueLifetimeAnalysis::propagateLiveness() {
  bool defIsInstruction = defValue.is<SILInstruction *>();
  assert(liveBlocks.empty() && "frontier computed twice");
  assert(
      (!defIsInstruction || !userSet.count(defValue.get<SILInstruction *>())) &&
      "definition cannot be its own use");

  // Compute the def block only if we have a SILInstruction. If we have a
  // SILArgument, this will be nullptr.
  auto *defBB = getDefValueParentBlock();
  int numUsersBeforeDef = 0;

  // Find the initial set of blocks where the value is live, because
  // it is used in those blocks.
  for (SILInstruction *user : userSet) {
    SILBasicBlock *userBlock = user->getParent();
    if (!inLiveBlocks.testAndSet(userBlock))
      liveBlocks.push_back(userBlock);

    // A user in the defBB could potentially be located before the defValue. If
    // we had a SILArgument, defBB will be nullptr, so we should always have
    // numUsersBeforeDef is 0. We assert this at the end of the loop.
    if (defIsInstruction && userBlock == defBB)
      ++numUsersBeforeDef;
  }
  assert((defValue.is<SILInstruction *>() || (numUsersBeforeDef == 0)) &&
         "Non SILInstruction defValue with users before the def?!");

  // Don't count any users in the defBB which are actually located _after_ the
  // defValue.
  if (defIsInstruction) {
    auto instIter = defValue.get<SILInstruction *>()->getIterator();
    while (numUsersBeforeDef > 0 && ++instIter != defBB->end()) {
      if (userSet.count(&*instIter))
        --numUsersBeforeDef;
    }
  }

  // Initialize the hasUsersBeforeDef field.
  hasUsersBeforeDef = numUsersBeforeDef > 0;
  assert(defIsInstruction || !hasUsersBeforeDef);

  // Now propagate liveness backwards until we hit the block that defines the
  // value.
  unsigned workIdx = 0;
  while (workIdx < liveBlocks.size()) {
    auto *bb = liveBlocks[workIdx++];

    // Don't go beyond the definition.
    if (bb == defBB && !hasUsersBeforeDef)
      continue;

    for (auto *predBB : bb->getPredecessorBlocks()) {
      // If it's already in the set, then we've already queued and/or
      // processed the predecessors.
      if (!inLiveBlocks.testAndSet(predBB))
        liveBlocks.push_back(predBB);
    }
  }
}

SILInstruction *ValueLifetimeAnalysis::findLastUserInBlock(SILBasicBlock *bb) {
  // Walk backwards in bb looking for last use of the value.
  for (auto &inst : llvm::reverse(*bb)) {
    assert(defValue.dyn_cast<SILInstruction *>() != &inst &&
           "Found def before finding use!");

    if (userSet.count(&inst))
      return &inst;
  }
  llvm_unreachable("Expected to find use of value in block!");
}

// FIXME: remove the visitBlock callback once DeadEndBlocks is removed.
void ValueLifetimeAnalysis::computeLifetime(
    llvm::function_ref<bool(SILBasicBlock *)> visitBlock,
    llvm::function_ref<void(SILInstruction *)> visitLastUser,
    llvm::function_ref<void(SILBasicBlock *predBB, SILBasicBlock *succBB)>
        visitBoundaryEdge) {
  assert(!isAliveAtBeginOfBlock(getFunction()->getEntryBlock()) &&
         "Can't compute frontier for def which does not dominate all uses");

  /// The lifetime ends if we have a live block and a not-live successor.
  for (SILBasicBlock *bb : liveBlocks) {
    if (!visitBlock(bb))
      continue;

    bool liveInSucc = false;
    bool usedAndRedefinedInSucc = false;
    for (const SILSuccessor &succ : bb->getSuccessors()) {
      if (isAliveAtBeginOfBlock(succ)) {
        liveInSucc = true;
        if (succ == getDefValueParentBlock()) {
          // Here, the basic block bb uses the value but also redefines the
          // value inside bb. The new value could be used by the successors
          // of succ and therefore could be live at the end of succ as well.
          //
          // This should never happen if we have a SILArgument since the
          // SILArgument can not have any uses before it in a block.
          assert(defValue.is<SILInstruction *>() &&
                 "SILArguments dominate all instructions in their defining "
                 "blocks");
          usedAndRedefinedInSucc = true;
        }
      }
    }
    if (usedAndRedefinedInSucc) {
      // Here, the basic block bb uses the value and later redefines the value.
      // Therefore, this value's lifetime ends after its last use preceding the
      // re-definition of the value.
      auto ii = defValue.get<SILInstruction *>()->getReverseIterator();
      for (; ii != bb->rend(); ++ii) {
        if (userSet.count(&*ii)) {
          visitLastUser(&*ii);
          break;
        }
      }
      assert(ii != bb->rend() &&
             "There must be a user in bb before definition");
    }
    if (liveInSucc) {
      for (const SILSuccessor &succ : bb->getSuccessors()) {
        if (!isAliveAtBeginOfBlock(succ))
          visitBoundaryEdge(bb, succ);
      }
    } else {
      // The value is not live in any of the successor blocks. This means the
      // block contains a last use of the value.
      visitLastUser(findLastUserInBlock(bb));
    }
  }
}

// Compute a LifetimeBoundary.
//
// Precondition: no critical edges.
void ValueLifetimeAnalysis::computeLifetimeBoundary(
    ValueLifetimeBoundary &boundary) {
  auto visitBlock = [&](SILBasicBlock *) { return true; };
  auto visitLastUser = [&](SILInstruction *lastUser) {
    boundary.lastUsers.push_back(lastUser);
  };
  auto visitBoundaryEdge = [&](SILBasicBlock *, SILBasicBlock *succBB) {
    boundary.boundaryEdges.push_back(succBB);
  };
  computeLifetime(visitBlock, visitLastUser, visitBoundaryEdge);
}

// FIXME: There is no need for a Mode within the algorithm once critical edges
// are universally prohibited.
//
// FIXME: DeadEndBlocks does not affect value lifetime. It
// should be completely removed and handled by the client.
bool ValueLifetimeAnalysis::computeFrontier(FrontierImpl &frontier, Mode mode,
                                            DeadEndBlocks *deBlocks) {
  bool noCriticalEdges = true;

  // Exit-blocks from the lifetime region. The value is live at the end of
  // a predecessor block but not in the frontier block itself.
  BasicBlockSetVector frontierBlocks(getFunction());

  // Blocks where the value is live at the end of the block and which have
  // a frontier block as successor.
  BasicBlockSetVector liveOutBlocks(getFunction());

  auto visitBlock = [&](SILBasicBlock *bb) {
    return !deBlocks || !deBlocks->isDeadEnd(bb);
  };

  bool foundInvalidLastUser = false;
  auto visitLastUser = [&](SILInstruction *lastUser) {
    if (!isa<TermInst>(lastUser)) {
      // The next instruction after the last use is part of the frontier.
      frontier.push_back(&*std::next(lastUser->getIterator()));
      return;
    }
    // FIXME: DeadObjectElimination and StackPromotion don't currently handle
    // last use terminators, for no good reason. Fix them, then remove the silly
    // UsersMustPostDomDef mode.
    if (mode == UsersMustPostDomDef) {
      foundInvalidLastUser = true;
      return;
    }
    // The last user is a TermInst, and the value is not live into any successor
    // blocks (the usedAndRedefinedInSucc case is never a terminator).  Since
    // there is no further instruction in the block which can be the
    // frontier, add all successor blocks to the frontier.
    auto *termBB = lastUser->getParent();
    for (const SILSuccessor &succ : termBB->getSuccessors()) {
      assert(!isAliveAtBeginOfBlock(succ)
             && "out-of-sync with computeLifetime");

      if (deBlocks && deBlocks->isDeadEnd(succ))
        continue;

      // The successor's first instruction will be added to the frontier. Fake
      // this block as live-out so edge splitting works.
      liveOutBlocks.insert(termBB);
      frontierBlocks.insert(succ);
    }
  };
  auto visitBoundaryEdge = [&](SILBasicBlock *predBB, SILBasicBlock *succBB) {
    if (deBlocks && deBlocks->isDeadEnd(succBB))
      return;

    if (mode == UsersMustPostDomDef) {
      foundInvalidLastUser = true;
      return;
    }
    liveOutBlocks.insert(predBB);
    frontierBlocks.insert(succBB);
  };

  // Populate frontierBlocks and call visitLastUser().
  computeLifetime(visitBlock, visitLastUser, visitBoundaryEdge);
  if (foundInvalidLastUser)
    return false;

  // Handle "exit" edges from the lifetime region.
  BasicBlockSet unhandledFrontierBlocks(getFunction());
  bool unhandledFrontierBlocksFound = false;
  for (SILBasicBlock *frontierBB : frontierBlocks) {
    assert(mode != UsersMustPostDomDef);
    bool needSplit = false;
    // If the value is live only in part of the predecessor blocks we have to
    // split those predecessor edges.
    for (SILBasicBlock *Pred : frontierBB->getPredecessorBlocks()) {
      if (!liveOutBlocks.contains(Pred)) {
        needSplit = true;
        break;
      }
    }
    if (needSplit) {
      // We need to split the critical edge to create a frontier instruction.
      unhandledFrontierBlocks.insert(frontierBB);
      unhandledFrontierBlocksFound = true;
    } else {
      // The first instruction of the exit-block is part of the frontier.
      frontier.push_back(&*frontierBB->begin());
    }
  }
  if (!unhandledFrontierBlocksFound) {
    return true;
  }

  // Split critical edges from the lifetime region to not yet handled frontier
  // blocks.
  for (SILBasicBlock *frontierPred : liveOutBlocks) {
    assert(mode != UsersMustPostDomDef);
    auto *term = frontierPred->getTerminator();
    // Cache the successor blocks because splitting critical edges invalidates
    // the successor list iterator of T.
    llvm::SmallVector<SILBasicBlock *, 4> succBlocks;
    for (const SILSuccessor &succ : term->getSuccessors())
      succBlocks.push_back(succ);

    for (unsigned i = 0, e = succBlocks.size(); i != e; ++i) {
      if (unhandledFrontierBlocks.contains(succBlocks[i])) {
        assert((isCriticalEdge(term, i) || userSet.count(term)) &&
               "actually not a critical edge?");
        noCriticalEdges = false;
        if (mode != AllowToModifyCFG) {
          // If the CFG need not be modified, just record the critical edge and
          // continue.
          this->criticalEdges.push_back({term, i});
          continue;
        }
        SILBasicBlock *newBlock = splitEdge(term, i);
        // The single terminator instruction is part of the frontier.
        frontier.push_back(&*newBlock->begin());
      }
    }
  }
  return noCriticalEdges;
}

bool ValueLifetimeAnalysis::isWithinLifetime(SILInstruction *inst) {
  SILBasicBlock *bb = inst->getParent();
  // Check if the value is not live anywhere in inst's block.
  if (!inLiveBlocks.get(bb))
    return false;
  for (const SILSuccessor &succ : bb->getSuccessors()) {
    // If the value is live at the beginning of any successor block it is also
    // live at the end of bb and therefore inst is definitely in the lifetime
    // region (Note that we don't check in upward direction against the value's
    // definition).
    if (isAliveAtBeginOfBlock(succ))
      return true;
  }
  // The value is live in the block but not at the end of the block. Check if
  // inst is located before (or at) the last use.
  for (auto ii = bb->rbegin(); ii != bb->rend(); ++ii) {
    if (userSet.count(&*ii)) {
      return true;
    }
    if (inst == &*ii)
      return false;
  }
  llvm_unreachable("Expected to find use of value in block!");
}

// Searches \p bb backwards from the instruction before \p frontierInst
// to the beginning of the list and returns true if we find a dealloc_ref
// /before/ we find \p defValue (the instruction that defines our target value).
static bool
blockContainsDeallocRef(SILBasicBlock *bb,
                        PointerUnion<SILInstruction *, SILArgument *> defValue,
                        SILInstruction *frontierInst) {
  SILBasicBlock::reverse_iterator End = bb->rend();
  SILBasicBlock::reverse_iterator iter = frontierInst->getReverseIterator();
  for (++iter; iter != End; ++iter) {
    SILInstruction *inst = &*iter;
    if (isa<DeallocRefInst>(inst))
      return true;
    // We know that inst is not a nullptr, so if we have a SILArgument, this
    // will always fail as we want.
    if (inst == defValue.dyn_cast<SILInstruction *>())
      return false;
  }
  return false;
}

bool ValueLifetimeAnalysis::containsDeallocRef(const FrontierImpl &frontier) {
  BasicBlockSet frontierBlocks(getFunction());
  // Search in live blocks where the value is not alive until the end of the
  // block, i.e. the live range is terminated by a frontier instruction.
  for (SILInstruction *frontierInst : frontier) {
    SILBasicBlock *bb = frontierInst->getParent();
    if (blockContainsDeallocRef(bb, defValue, frontierInst))
      return true;
    frontierBlocks.insert(bb);
  }
  // Search in all other live blocks where the value is alive until the end of
  // the block.
  for (SILBasicBlock *bb : liveBlocks) {
    if (frontierBlocks.contains(bb) == 0) {
      if (blockContainsDeallocRef(bb, defValue, bb->getTerminator()))
        return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
}

void ValueLifetimeAnalysis::dump() const {
  llvm::errs() << "lifetime of def: ";
  if (auto *ii = defValue.dyn_cast<SILInstruction *>()) {
    llvm::errs() << *ii;
  } else {
    llvm::errs() << *defValue.get<SILArgument *>();
  }
  for (SILInstruction *use : userSet) {
    llvm::errs() << "  use: " << *use;
  }
  llvm::errs() << "  live blocks:";
  for (SILBasicBlock *bb : liveBlocks) {
    llvm::errs() << ' ' << bb->getDebugID();
  }
  llvm::errs() << '\n';
}

void swift::endLifetimeAtFrontier(
    SILValue valueOrStackLoc,
    const ValueLifetimeAnalysis::FrontierImpl &frontier,
    SILBuilderContext &builderCtxt, InstModCallbacks callbacks) {
  for (SILInstruction *endPoint : frontier) {
    SILBuilderWithScope builder(endPoint, builderCtxt);
    SILLocation loc = RegularLocation(endPoint->getLoc());
    emitDestroyOperation(builder, loc, valueOrStackLoc, callbacks);
    if (isa<AllocStackInst>(valueOrStackLoc)) {
      builder.createDeallocStack(loc, valueOrStackLoc);
    }
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Agyneta vera is a species of sheet weaver found in Queensland, Australia. It was described by Wunderlich in 1976.

References

vera
Fauna of Queensland
Spiders of Australia
Spiders described in 1976

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Player's Own Voice
More NHL
Workers go on strike at delayed World Cup stadium | CBC Sports Loaded
Workers go on strike at delayed World Cup stadium
Workers went on strike over late pay at one of the stadiums enduring the longest delays ahead of the World Cup in Brazil, officials said Saturday. The work stoppage happened in the southern city of Curitiba, where world champion Spain is expected to be based during football's showcase event next year.
Work stoppage lasts 3 days
CBC News · Posted: Dec 15, 2013 12:22 AM EST | Last Updated: December 15, 2013
Workers from Haiti take a break Saturday at the Arena da Baixada venue in Curitiba, Brazil, for the FIFA 2014 World Cup. (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Workers went on strike over late pay at one of the stadiums enduring the longest delays ahead of the World Cup in Brazil, officials said Saturday.
The work stoppage happened in the southern city of Curitiba, where world champion Spain is expected to be based during football's showcase event next year.
Curitiba Mayor Gustavo Fruet said about one-third of the stadium's 1,200 workers took part in the strike that lasted up to three days this week. He said protesting workers blocked a city avenue for about an hour on Friday.
"There was a delay of the payment and there was a strike," he said.
The deadline for Curitiba's stadium has already been pushed back to mid-February because of construction delays that officials said resulted from belated financing. The stadium belongs to Brazilian first division club Atletico Paranaense and is undergoing extensive renovation to host matches in next year's World Cup.
Mauro Holzmann, the club's marketing and communications chief, downplayed the labour unrest.
He claimed that only 150 workers were involved and they only downed tools for two hours on Friday. He also said their pay was just one day late and that the labour contractor has since been paid. He didn't know, however, if the contractor had relayed the payment to the workers.
"It won't happen again. It was just a little misunderstanding," Holzmann said.
A group of workers taking a break in the stadium said they were owed one month's pay. They said they would down tools again next week if the money promised to them doesn't arrive.
The Arena da Baixada will host four World Cup matches, including Australia vs. Spain on June 23. The Curitiba stadium is expected to hold its first test game in February, two months after the original deadline established by FIFA for stadium delivery.
Officials said it took longer than expected to put together the stadium's complex financing.
"It was just red tape, Brazilian bureaucracy," Holzmann said. "A state development bank loan originally expected in June 2012 was seven months late."
Atletico Paranaense, which finished third in this year's Brazilian league, is funding one third of the renovation costs, with the rest coming from state and city governments. The renovation was expected to cost about $80 million but is now budgeted at almost $115 million.
The pitch has not been laid or even flattened, with mounds of earth and gravel still in place. Most of the seats haven't been installed, the roof isn't finished and VIP boxes have no glass or fittings.
Organizers recently gave up on installing a retractable roof that was in the original design. FIFA made the request to remove the roof from the World Cup project because it would not be finished in time and would delay the overall construction.
In early October, a Brazilian labour judge halted work at the Arena da Baixada for nearly a week because of safety concerns.
In the World Cup stadium in the jungle city of Manaus, where on Saturday a worker fell to his death and another died of an apparent heart attack outside the venue, a local union threatened to start a strike on Monday to complain about inadequate conditions offered to labourers.
In Curitiba and Cuiaba, another World Cup city with an overdue stadium, journalists who visited this week were subjected to the somewhat surreal experience of being shown presentations that bore scant resemblance to the reality outside.
At Cuiaba's stadium, officials showed slides of a beautifully green pitch, VIP lounges with comfy seats and a landscaped exterior. But in reality the newly seeded pitch is a muddy field, the stadium has no seats and its surroundings are still red earth turning gooey with the onset of the rainy season.
CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices|About CBC Sports
Corrections and clarifications|
Struggles continue for Brazil ahead of World Cup deadline
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All consumers have a right to expect that the prescription drugs we take will help rather than harm us. The simple act of taking medication requires a degree of trust in the manufacturers of that drug. If a drug injures or kills you or a loved one, the pharmaceutical company should be held accountable and should compensate you or your loved ones for your injuries and losses. An experienced Virginia dangerous drugs lawyer can help you hold drug manufacturers responsible when their products cause unnecessary harm.
Many clinical trials don't reveal all of the potential dangers of drugs, which then find their way onto the market, are prescribed by physicians, and are eventually used by consumers. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, like any business, are motivated by profit, and aggressively market their drugs to physicians and directly to consumers with massive ad campaigns. In some cases, evidence may reveal that a drug company or manufacturer knew of a dangerous defect and deliberately concealed the fact or provided misleading statements on the product's packaging or advertising. In the case of some defective drugs, civil action has shown some drug companies submit their products for U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval without sufficient testing, or submit dubious clinical trial data that underplays dangerous side effects that they suspect, or know, might exist. If you or family members have been injured or if a loved one has been killed as a result of side effects of dangerous drugs, you may be entitled to compensation from the responsible drug company, and possibly other entities, for the harms and losses suffered. Depending on the case, a doctor, or even a pharmacist, might become a co-defendant.
In many dangerous drug lawsuits, a pharmaceutical company is charged with having known about harmful side effects tied to its unsafe medicine and failing to warn of such a risk. Some cases have proven that defendants knew of dangerous side effects months, or even years, in advance of FDA approval.
Drug stores and pharmacies have a duty to provide you with the correct medicine and prescribed dosage. Taking the wrong medicine or the wrong dosage can be frightening, and unwanted side effects may lead to serious, and potentially life-threatening, injuries. If a pharmacist makes a mistake and negligently fills a prescription, they can be held responsible for harm to the patient. It is vital that pharmacists and drug store employees pay close attention to your prescription and provide you with the correct drugs and prescribed dosage information. Always check to make sure that your local pharmacy or drug store fills your prescription exactly as prescribed by your doctor. In Virginia, if a judge or a jury finds that you are partially responsible, even 1 percent at fault, for your own injuries, this can be a complete bar to recovery. If you checked your medication and still became a victim of a pharmacy error, preserve as much evidence as you can. Keep the pill bottle or packaging, as well as the original prescription bag and drug label. These should have the prescription fill date, the medication prescribed, and the prescribed dosage.
Some jurisdictions also include strict products liability, though that is not a theory that is generally recognized in the Commonwealth. You can read more about the theories of liability and how they can be used to prove your case here.
Minor side effects can be anticipated in some patients who take prescribed drugs, but all too often the amount, and seriousness, of the injuries completely eclipse the stated benefits. If you or a loved one have suffered serious side effects from taking defective or dangerous drugs, you should speak with a personal injury attorney to determine whether you have a viable claims. Call our firm today and we will help you find a dedicated dangerous drug lawyer to review your case.


text:
<component name="InspectionProjectProfileManager">
  <profile version="1.0">
    <option name="myName" value="Project Default" />
    <option name="myLocal" value="true" />
    <inspection_tool class="MissingDeprecatedAnnotation" enabled="true" level="WARNING" enabled_by_default="true" />
  </profile>
</component>


Following The New Testament closely, Norman Mailer recreates the life of Jesus and the Holy Land of 2,000 years ago. Jesus, a skilled and devout carpenter asks himself: Is God speaking to me? Do the voices I hear come from God? And if so, why has he chosen me? Meanwhile, the public world into which Jesus is thrust by his visions is governed by a complacent but fearful establishment that rules over a despairing middle class. As his sermons and miracles rock that world, the son of God emerges as a protagonist both divine and human, wracked by passion and doubt as he progresses inexorably toward his apocalyptic end.


text:
HomeOpinionWhy Delhi's government school teachers feel they are not doing the job...
Why Delhi's government school teachers feel they are not doing the job they were hired for
A survey in Delhi's schools shows teachers feel helpless, guilty and like clerks. They are overworked and spend less time teaching.
Vincy Davis
25 June, 2019 12:02 pm IST
Representational image | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint
I feel helpless and guilty for not being able to give full time to my students… makes me think what am I getting this salary for?"
"I feel like a clerk most of the time!"
These statements embody two powerful narratives that we have repeatedly heard in government schools across different states in India. The narratives are of teachers feeling overworked and overburdened, and of teachers expressing concerns about spending a lot of time on activities other than teaching, which cut into teaching time and affect their self-identity as teachers.
If teachers' narratives about working in Delhi's government schools hold true, it would in fact amount to violation of children's legal right to acquire a good quality education as stipulated under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE).
A report released by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) stated that only 19.1 per cent of a teacher's annual school hours were being spent on teaching related activities, while 42.6 per cent time went in "non-teaching core activities" and 38.3 per cent time went in school management and other education department related activities. The study covered government school teachers from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Odisha.
Delhi's DoE/MCD schools
This study by Accountability Initiative focused on teachers who had to juggle multiple tasks, to see to what extent teachers were able to manage teaching along with other activities and understand the range of issues surrounding such multitasking.
The final school sample consisted of 39 schools with 12 Directorate of Education (DoE) i.e. state government administered schools, 3 DoE Aided, and 24 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools. The median student enrolment was 687 in the sampled DoE schools, 384 in the MCD schools and 244 in the three sampled DoE Aided schools.
Also read: To be happy, be an adult: The new lesson for children in Delhi schools
Understanding of their roles as teachers
Of all the activities that teachers do, a majority of the respondents felt that the following were their "primary" responsibilities as teachers: Preparing lesson plans and designing activities for student learning; invigilation/exam duties; attending trainings and workshops.
Some teachers felt it was impractical to prepare and follow detailed lesson plans or to use activity-based methods to teach, due to time, infrastructure and other constraints.
Similarly, teachers had mixed reactions to the idea of attending workshops and seminars. Many teachers responded that while they recognised trainings were essential for professional development, they wished for trainings that were of higher quality, less theoretical and addressed their school specific issues.
'Non-academic' duties in school
Teachers made a distinction between two types of recordkeeping work, preferring to work on one type of record over the other.
The first type involved maintaining basic information that is directly related to the students they were teaching, which includes student attendance, test scores and enrolment data. While 37 per cent and 32 per cent respondents said this should be a primary task and secondary task, respectively, 31 per cent of teachers felt they should not be doing this at all.
The second type was more clearly described as "administrative", "non-academic" and/or "clerical" work. This involved records that teachers recognised as essential to school management, but were not directly related to teaching-learning processes or outcomes. For instance, opening bank accounts, updating students' Aadhaar IDs, distributing and maintaining records of entitlements like uniforms, scholarships, books etc., responding to department circulars and feeding UDISE (Unified District Information System for Education) information, were viewed as "administrative" and/or "clerical" tasks by the respondents. These activities were further described as time-consuming as they had multiple steps – from collecting the information to organising the data to verification to online data entry – all of which cut into teaching time.
Teachers stated that they had no choice but to do these activities in the current schema because of the students' backgrounds. Many parents could not be relied upon to fill forms accurately. Vacancies and/or low competence of clerical staff in DoE schools and lack of such posts in MCD schools exacerbated the problem.
Also read: Teachers can't be asked to perform non-educational duties outside RTE Act, rules Delhi HC
While overall trends in responses on "non-academic" duties were similar for MCD and DoE teachers, two main differences were noted. First, with respect to the task of distribution, 29 per cent of MCD teachers felt this was a primary task for them while 7 per cent of the DoE teachers felt the same way. This is not surprising since MCD schools cater to primary school students who are of a very young age.
Second, the percentage share of school management duties which were viewed as "primary" was slightly higher for MCD teachers who were most likely influenced by the fact that their schools do not have clerical staff.
Through this combination of responses, it emerged that tasks which were not directly related to teaching-learning appeared to clash with teachers' fundamental perception of who a teacher was or should be. As one teacher succinctly pointed out: "Our job is to teach, not to do the work of lower division clerks…"
Everyday experiences in school
Teachers were also asked about the major hurdles they faced while working in their school. The top 5 issues identified by both MCD and DoE teachers were the same.
There was a sense of exasperation with which most teachers spoke about teaching their students. Many of the respondents expressed their disappointment and frustration with students and their family background.
Difficulties in planning and time-management
Teaching and other academic activities:
Time spent on teaching constituted 41 per cent and 39 per cent of the overall time spent by teachers in MCD and DoE schools, respectively, across the three phases. When this includes "academic" activities such as classroom management, games and sports, and teaching-learning supporting activities, the overall percentage of time goes up to 49 per cent and 52 per cent in MCD and DoE schools, respectively. It is, however, important to highlight that many of the sampled teachers could not spend even half their time in school, teaching.
Regular interruptions, usually related to routine "school management" tasks, cut into teaching time in both types of schools.
A closer look at the timesheet of 35 DoE teachers and 54 teachers from the MCD sample shows that even though total time spent on certain non-teaching tasks was not significantly high, its intermittent distribution throughout the day could be a reason for teachers' perception of feeling bogged down by "non-academic" tasks.
In MCD schools, the issue of teachers having to split time between teaching and "school management" activities is compounded by the fact that teachers are not assigned any scheduled "free periods" to tend to essential non-teaching tasks. Instances of guardians disrupting classes to resolve administrative queries around admissions, bank accounts or school leaving certificates, among other issues, were also noted in MCD teachers' timesheets.
School management:
Despite assigning specific "additional charges" to teachers, work was often delegated and/or distributed among several teachers, especially when data from multiple classes had to be collected and prepared. In other words, multiple teachers might be affected by a "school management" task, and not just the teacher who has been officially charged with the responsibility of a task. Thus, timesheets of many of the teachers reflected activities which were not under their official charge.
Routine "school management" tasks such as noting and submitting students' and teachers' attendance, timetable adjustments, organising and participating in the school assembly, managing students outside classrooms, overseeing dispersal of students, and supervising MDM distribution, frequently took up more time than needed. This was largely due to procedural inefficiencies, limited capacities and resource constraints. In MCD schools, daily tasks including attendance, MDM (mid-day meal) and overseeing student dispersal took up more time than needed due to a combination of staff shortage and technical difficulties such as malfunctioning biometric machines and poor to no internet connectivity.
A similar trend was observed in DoE schools, although the nature of time-consuming routine work, differed slightly. Most disruptions to teaching generally occurred in the first half of the day, particularly in the first period, primarily due to start-of-day classroom management and everyday tasks such as taking and uploading attendance, arranging the timetable for the day, settling down the class, going through circulars, responding to letters and so on.
Also read: Teachers' Day: Professors who teach to question are the first ones to go
Working beyond school hours:
Teachers were found to be working beyond school hours, fairly regularly, especially in MCD schools, where teachers are expected to stay back till guardians collect their wards from the school. However, overall time spent working beyond school hours was not as high on the days the time use data was reported by teachers, when compared to how teachers appeared to portray it in the perception survey.
Of the total 39 hours reportedly spent by DoE teachers working beyond school hours, 49 per cent was spent on tasks that were "academic" in nature, while 51 per cent was spent on tasks related to "school management" activities such as, marking their attendance, managing student dispersal and record-keeping work like making exam result summaries, external exam invigilation duties, and responding to official mails and circulars.
In MCD schools, teachers spent a total of 49 hours working beyond school hours, of which a mere 6 per cent was spent on "academic" activities like checking copies, unit test answer scripts and lesson planning, while 94 per cent was spent on "school management" and "other" activities. MCD teachers spent significantly more time on management activities such as recording facial attendance of students, waiting with students whose guardians were late to collect them, addressing guardians' inquiries regarding admissions and withdrawal, as well as collecting documents, signatures and filling out various forms for parents including bank, and Aadhaar forms.
Recommendations and way forward
To maximise the time available to school actors, the following recommendations could be considered by education planners:
1. Preparing people to take on the role of a government school teacher and managing expectations.
2. Improving planning, managing workflows, and setting school priorities straight.
3. Reducing time spent on record-keeping related tasks such as recording information, analysing, retrieving and managing school related data.
4. Improve staffing and infrastructure in MCD schools.
The author is a Senior Research Associate at the Accountability Initiative (AI), Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi.
The article is an edited excerpt from 'Report on Time Allocation and Work Perceptions of Teachers'. The full report can be accessed here.
Delhi school
Manish Sisodia
PABITRA CHATTERJEE 7 August, 2019 At 11:13 am
Very True, I must congratulate the writer for stating the facts in such cohesive manner.Most schools do under staffing and most of the non-teaching stuff falls on the teacher, at this point the standard of teaching , imparted knowledge , skills are completely out of question. The management believes in Jargon,and only concerned with the revenue and at the same time the only objective that becomes primary is to appease the affluent parents who have huge money to spend on their children but have no time for them. They expect their children to come out as scholars not as an educated person. The irony is that the good days aren't near as we are trying to imitate other countries in pursuing our own education system. The education systems suggests that we are simply creating CEOs and not great thinkers, we value credibility by the the marks scored and the pay cheque. SO in these circumstances where everything has turned materialistic so an abstract thing like good teaching never stands a question.
N Nagarajan 25 June, 2019 At 5:30 pm
What about election duty and survey etc.


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text:
Just Another War Movie
There is a bitter beauty to the uniformed misery of men as they cut through the jungles or trudge into the mud, their unique characters entertaining us, the engaged voyeur. The captivating arcs of these protagonists as they survive another bleak day, far from home, serving what ever cause their masters demand it is thrilling, saddening and at times comical. War is entertaining. It is more than just choreographed violence and special effects, famous speeches and harrowing scores it is the relatability or even the contrast to the movie goers' experiences. It is just fiction, however. Not real. War in real life is not a fun experience, it is horrible. Yet film and fiction bring us the battles of imagination and it can barely satisfy many of us and our demands of pretend violence and make-believe history.
Recently the Chinese People's Liberation Army released its new recruitment video, it is short but sets a strong narrative. Like longer films it drives a message home with the intent of appealing to men of obligation, pride and nationalism guiding their instinct to enlist. It lionises such men before a wider public, garnering an image of bravery and better men who would dare stand the line for their safety, sacrificing in their names. Dying, killing for them. The short recruitment clip is powerful, it is however not a film. Films as a story often have the same effects, even when they are supposed to be anti-war or grounded, they appeal to many for the right and wrong reasons.
Many like to criticise a war movie for its errors or the liberties that a film maker takes a story down a certain direction, despite the known facts of history. This is the nature of fictionalising history, narratives and stories need to be steered in a cohesive and artistic manner to allow for a satisfying consumption. Sometimes film makers get it right, other times they err too drastically. It is what the film makers decide to omit or edit from the final product that often represents a callous disregard for truth, perhaps at times it is done to appeal to the general public, a viewership accustomed to simplistic representations. Or maybe it is done because an ideology or a propaganda message is needed to help promote either a pro war or anti-war message, a nationalistic anthem or a real-life person needs to be bolstered despite their historical actions.
It is the magic of movie making. It is why Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now', does not seek to tell a specific story of historical relevance but instead meanders into a myriad of miserable sensations leaving the viewer wary of what war can do to the mind of man. It is visually immense, its characters are larger than life and it is quotable, so while it ticks the boxes for film snobs it also has an appeal to those who love and hate war. Though warfare is painted it in an unfavourable series of colours. Its message is lost as its moments of impact are instead embraced, notably the Air Cav's attack on the VC village, helicopters rushing in with Wagner blaring loudly in concert with rockets, machine guns and spinning rotor blades. An impressive action scene of mayhem and weapon porn so that the beach could be surfed by the films characters. Afterall "Charlie don't surf". The attack is punctuated with incoming mortar fire and a tall standing Lt Col "Bill" Kilgore played by Robert Duvall, behind him a tree line is burned by the fury of napalm. Computer Games and other medium have attempted to pay homage to that cinema moment, none doing it justice. Men in uniform in wars thereafter admiring Kilgore and his indifference to killing and gore. To them he is a hero. The violence is a pornography satiating their desires to witness killing and to role play the 'bad ass' in another person's country.
"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning." Lt. Col William 'Bill' Kilgore
The protagonist Captain Benjamin Willard played by Martin Sheen could only witness the chaos and volatile men of the war, until he finally reaches his destination where Marlon Brando's Col. Walter E Kurtz presents a moral quagmire for the young Captain who has been sent to kill him. Kurtz is seemingly mad, a deity among a people lost to the war has left its murderous carnage only to carve inside the deep jungles his own dark society. Much like the book and then film 'Catch 22' the film defines the nature of war and legislated slaughter as the ultimate form of madness, it is so incomprehensible in its stupidity and destruction that it is simply accepted as a normality. The film takes the crazy extends of this normalised bloodshed and presents it to the viewer as an artistic slap in the face and yet it is only seen as high art, entertainment or for some as mentioned, a validation of the excitements of war.
"We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!" Col. Walter E Kurtz
Years later, Martin Sheen's son Charlie would play the young private Chris Taylor in the 1986 film 'Platoon'. Inside this fictionalised representation of writer-director Oliver Stone's war time experiences. He is green and is the story teller's ambassador, the classic protagonist for the viewer to cling. He was the uniformed innocence of the young serviceman fighting in a war that he need not understand. Two father figures emerge for Taylor, Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Sgt. Elias (Wilem Defoe) both guides for his survival one a tough killer and the other empathetic and patient. Many have criticised the historical accuracy of Oliver Stone's story, claiming lies and false depictions of events, questioning his service in the war. Yet we know that atrocities were committed by all sides fighting that war and others. The films focus is on Chris Taylor and his comrades as they get by. The films moral meeting spot culminates in the horrible scene where Taylor is forced to watch a village full of civilians suffer rape and murder, he is helpless to stop the blood lust of his brothers in arms. It was not until Elias's arrival that the conscience of the audience is realised. Yet like Barnes and those other soldiers bashing boys faces in with the butts of their shotguns, raping teenage girls and shooting at the feet of the unarmed there are those who watch in the audience cheering with drooling joy.
War always allows a certain context to satisfy the most vulgar terror, it legitimises it. Sergeant Barnes after the village massacre goes on to murder Elias, telling his comrades that he was killed by the enemy. It is as they evacuate by helicopter that the stubborn Elias runs from the enemy soaking up their bullets, his death a powerful punctuation of Taylor's own realisation. It is a poster moment. In the end, at the climax of an NVA attack young Taylor kills Barnes. Chris Taylor physically survives the war, but he is changed by it. Not so much as those condemned to suffer through it shall continue to reap its legacy, for them beyond the silver screen the war's shadow continues to loom. To the watching audiences the Vietnam war is a cool soundtrack and a genre of films, television shows and other mediums. To those in South East Asia it is an American war of bitter memories.
"Somebody once wrote, "Hell is the impossibility of reason." That's what this place feels like. Hell." Private Chris Taylor
"Are you smoking this sh-t so's to escape from reality? Me, I don't need this sh-t, I am reality. There's the way it ought to be, and there's the way it is." Staff Sgt. Barnes
"I love this place at night, the stars. There's no right or wrong in them. They're just there." Sgt. Ellias
Unlike the men in the film 'Platoon' who are the youth of America, Sam Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron" (1977) follows another platoon of lost characters facing the onslaught of a miserable set piece of a long war and the Soviet war machine, this time they are tired Wehrmacht soldiers. Lead by Sergeant cum Corporal cum Sergeant Steiner (James Cockburn) the veterans of his reconnaissance platoon are cynical in their professionalism. The film gives the viewer a gritty lived in setting, the soldiers are not just survivors but are living fixtures of the misery of the frontlines. A new commander Captain Stransky (Maximiilian Schell) is fresh from the comforts of occupied France and has volunteered to serve in the East, though of noble upbringing he envies the dishevelled commoner Steiner who had been awarded the Iron Cross for bravery, a medal that the Captain yearns to earn. A child prisoner, a baby faced private and a young lieutenant depict the youthful innocence, each dying during the film. The prisoner by his own side in a battle after Steiner sets him free, the young private from a Russian female soldier who stabs him after offering him a drink and the platoon lieutenant Meyer as he heroically leads a counter attack as the Soviets attack. Steiner bears helpless witness to each death. Unable to protect the youth in his charge.
Few survive, Steiner leads his platoon back from enemy lines only to have them gunned down by Stransky's adjutant Lt. Triebig himself depicted as a corrupter of the young. Steiner guns him down once reaching German lines, confronting Stransky leading him through the vicious hell storm of a final Soviet attack. Behind the lines are the commanding officers Colonel Brandt (James Mason) and Captain Kiesel (David Warner) who are as wary and cynical of the war as Steiner is. It is a film based upon the book by Willi Heinrich, 'The Willing Flesh', though it steers from the novel it captures the books heart with a touch of Peckinpah's visual telling. It is a book about reality in the time of irrational unreality of war. Where man can barely grasp the truth of their setting, Steiner in a scene with Cpl Schnurrbart (Fred Stillkrauth) discuss Clausewitz and God in the moments before the carnage of war consumes them. The message of war is depicted in its action, in the futility of war and the destruction it has on innocence. The lust for glory and the desperate desire for survival meeting beneath the banner of state policy and its horrible child, warfare.
"I believe God is a sadist, but probably doesn't even know it." Sergeant Steiner.
"Sergeant, if I go back without the iron cross, I couldn't face my family." Captain Stransky
"Steiner… is a myth. Men like him are our last hope… and in that sense, he is a truly dangerous man." Captain Kiesel
Unlike the confused story telling of men of violence trying to survive mayhem other films that have been lauded as greats by film buffs and war movie goers tell a simpler and more direct tale. They are "Westerns" in khaki, not the Sergio Leone or even Sam Peckinpah dirty story of the frontiers but the classic good guy versus bad, cowboy and Indian fantasy. 'The Green Berets' (1968) starring John Wayne perfectly encapsulated this hearty telling of a simple story, 'the Duke' depicting a special forces officer going to the Orient to help win the 'good' war against blood thirsty communists. It was a war worth fighting and like the West needed taming so too was the Far East in need of civilising, so the film glorified the message even as the 'Tet' offensive flickered on the television screens of the same movie goers visiting the drive in to see the Vietnam 'Western'.
'Go Tell the Spartans' (1978) and 'Siege of Firebase Gloria' (1989) in a similar anthem to 'The Green Berets' sees a veteran leader (Burt Lancaster and R lee Ermey) inspire his warriors in a South East Asian 'Beau Geste' last stand before the hordes of countless savages. Though only 3-4 years exists in the time line between the two films, 'Go Tell The Spartans' set in 1964 shows an escalation of the war to come and the naïve arrogance of the American war machine that thinks itself better than the French whose graves are near to the battleground of the film. The South Vietnamese are shown as brutal and primitive in need of a colonial guidance, much like the British Rank era of films set in the North West Frontier of India or deep in the dark continent of Africa. "The Siege of Firebase Gloria" takes place in 1967-68 and the war has already run deep, the heroes of it are trapped and isolated in their own mini Khe Sahn like firebase. Both are films full of brave men fighting because they are heroes. Not because of any righteous calling but because they are simply soldiers, looking out for their buddy.
"Foreign policy decisions are not made by the military. A soldier goes where he is told to go, and fight whom is told to fight. " Sgt Muldoon
"[to a wounded, one-eyed Viet Cong scout] I'm going home, Charlie… if they'll let me." Cpl. Courcey, Go Tell The Spartans
"The nights are always beautiful that time of year. But you were no safer at night. And the long hours of stillness worked on your fears. Night was the time you wondered what the *hell* you were doing here… and whether or not you'd get your balls blown off tomorrow. You could do some pretty ugly thinking at night. For some of us, the nights were getting far too long." Sgt Bill Hafner, The Siege of Firebase Gloria
After the Post-Vietnam war era of movies where an anti-war message rained throughout the productions from Francis Ford Copolla to Stanley Kubrick in their efforts as film makers the 1990s and 2000s saw an energetic resurgence in action military movies. Veteran film maker Ridley Scott in 2001 made the film adaption of the book 'Black Hawk Down' an exciting, though singular explanation for the October 1993 events in Somalia, leading to the deaths of numerous US soldiers. Again, the protagonists are relatable for the films intended audience, all-American men who find themselves inside a foreign and feral world, a place that is beneath their benevolence. Scott manages in many ways to tap into similar feelings one experienced while watching James Cameron's military sci fi sequel 'Aliens' in that it shows a group of stranded warriors in a grim isolated location fight off alien infestation of violent and relentless killers. Whereas Cameron shot an entertaining almost schlocky motion picture, Scott's movie is to be taken seriously it is filmed in a realistic and graphic tone.
The history buffs can debate about the truth of the film's historical facts doing so beneath the loud and entertaining on screen violence. The US soldiers are the heroes, the Somalia 'Skinis' have more in common with Xenomorph's in Cameron's sci fi franchise. They are depicted as dark black, soul-less inhuman killers. A contrast to the smiling and loving familiars of the protagonists who must survive isolation and immense adversity as a city of unreason and death pursue them. The film does show with mixed emotion the plight of the civilians trapped, they are the damsels in distress. Heroism often needs its victims, though in Scott's film they are props. For the most part however the story is quite simple, a black and white tale of good versus evil. That is all that matters, and the film was timely, still fresh in the cinemas and on the new release shelf as the United States and its allies came to terms with the tragedy of 11 September 2001. Then all that mattered in the World was America's grieving, their need for vengeance. 'Black Hawk Down' confirmed a simmering hatred and prejudice, the dark barbaric hordes were dangerous and uncivil. With Han Zimmer's unique, edgy and modern sound track the anthem for the new war could just as well fit the invasion of Mesopotamia some two years later.
"Y'know what I think? Don't really matter what I think. Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window." 'Hoot', Black Hawk Down
"Now, there will be some shooting. Bakara Market is the Wild West, but be careful what you shoot at because people do live there." McKnight, Black Hawk Down
"You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage." Ripley, Aliens
It is the film makers job to entertain, the medium rarely lends itself for a true retelling of history or to present all of the facts. It is perhaps a criticism not of the medium and the many movies made about the subject but those who watch and never once seek to investigate. Those who allow the emotional strings to be enough to knot their convictions and to secure their bias. 'Breaker Morant' can murder civilians and Boer POWs with ease because he is a heroic scapegoat, a legend of the early ANZAC spirit, betrayed by the British in their war. Just as Chris Kyle in 'American Sniper' is all that is brave and skilled when it comes to the professional killing class, he is the thin camo line between civilisation and the darkness beyond. The real-life Kyle is a dark tragedy of the warrior, the film grapples with this but leaves one feeling satisfied in its depiction that he was apparently a hero doing a job. Not a more complex being who likely loved killing.
The British enjoyed a glorious era of film, epics and romantic illustrations of the triumphs of Empire and the Anglo way of life. The celebration of colonial mastery and heroism in their exploitation to the last man standing moral drama of a few versus the many help to glorify the sense of British majesty. Perhaps one of the best films for this is the 1969 classic "The Battle of Britain" it is a remarkable film with great attention to detail, perfect music and characters that help to lift the movie. Set during the perilous period of late 1940 when Britain "stood alone" against the evil Nazi regime of Germany. For the Finns in the north suffering the brunt of a Soviet invasion overcoming far greater odds is of less historical importance in world of simplistic depictions for World War Two. It was apparently a triumph over genocidal fascism. With that in mind, 'The Battle of Britain' is a masterpiece. The real courage of the RAF and British people is a sustaining mark of pride, though it was not the only defiance that existed during that period.
It is unlikely that the glory period of entertaining action films that movie watchers experienced in the late 1970s into the middle 1990s shall ever visit the world again, let alone the 1950s-80s war films of majestic simplicity and terrible messages. The political correctness and lack of flexibility when it comes to context and discourse stand to cause controversy which in turn harms the financial success of a movie. It is unlikely that a Sam Peckinpah or even a John Carpenter could appear inside of modern Hollywood, let alone a prime George Lucas telling a whimsical space fantasy with a layer of contemporary morality meshed within. It is an age of Super Heroes and monsters versus humanity, the military blockbuster is often on the nose or most are fatigued by the genre because real war is more accessible to them thanks to modern media. They are apathetic about that as they are the fictional. Perhaps in some ways as 'Heavens Gate' marked the end of the Western genre, despite the occasional success such as 'Dances with Wolves', great war films and those with a successful message have also stalled beneath the weight of Michael Bey styled action.
To tell an unfavourable movie today is hard, as the military often works hand in hand with the film makers, at times funding, approving and cooperating with them so that they may have all the cool weaponry and filming locations. In the importance to this access and funding a film needs to abide by certain constrictions it is not merely the constraints of focus groups, corporate executives but the Pentagon itself which helps to mutate the final cut of a creator's vision. It is no wonder that most modern films are a mess. Computer games have been for the past two decades a new outlet for the familiar narrative, many of which are simply an interactive motion picture, an evolution of the many dreaded full motion video games of the 1990s. Just as most modern films seek the approval and assistance of the military so to do these modern computer games.
Most nations have its film that drools with nationalism, for some the preferences are so expansive that they can be specific to national holidays and periods. China is enjoying this modern investment in films and the power that they convey in telling a national narrative. The future will not likely be dominated by a Hollywood version of history, whether pro or anti-war, the new era will be in subtitles. Though many nuanced and contrary films were absent in their mentions it is in the imagery of war that often many forget the underlying truth of the reality. Certainly, larger than life characters exist for better and worse in this world we live, they are not as easy to know as the many of the heroes and villains envisioned in fiction. It is because of that fiction and movies are a powerful inspiration and conveyor of ideology and impressions. If the consumer only ingests the simplified and homogenised version of an event with little course to investigate beyond that sole source, then the future looms grim as war will grow to become an accepted and glorious undertaking. In the past a separation from the battlefield and peace created a romantic paradise for those feeding, funding and supporting the wars. With technology and instantaneous access to raw footage, primary sources and debating perspectives the truth to war is no longer hidden, ignorance of its gloom and terror can only be a choice. For the impressionable such films can inspire enlistment without serious thought, the film 'Top Gun' is famously credited with seducing scores of men to join the Navy. The movies can also engender a disregard to the suffering and lingering aftermath of war, no Vietnam war film revisits the battlefield decades later showing the dismembered children setting off landmines and unexploded bombs or the mutations caused by depleted uranium and other chemicals.
Gene Hackman's character Lt Col Iceal Hambleton of the United States Air Force, who eludes capture from the enemy after he was shot down in a B-52 bomber does not return after the war, he would not leave the comfort of a golf course to inspect the pock holes of South East Asia left by the bombers he rode in. The millions of unexploded munitions ticking away claiming lives every year, decades after the war ended are an inglorious truth. Just as the heroes of the 'Dam Busters' do not look at the drowned civilians unfortunate to be near the dams that they destroyed, flooding all beneath. In the arc of the hero's journey inside the story, that post script does not matter. Yet, in the real world it is all that should matter. It is the outcome, whether intended or not of the valiant acts. The civilian is the prop to the men of honour and glory, they are those in need of rescuing or merely background extras needed to enshrine the uniformed hero's importance. They are not just the little boy that John Wayne befriends, but a fighting age male acceptable for abduction or killing on site, especially if inside a 'free fire zone'. War is Hell, but unlike Hell it is not theological or imagined. War is far worse because it is very real. And no matter how sincere a film maker is in their attempts to convey this message, it shall never do the misery justice.
So, while it is not a film, the new recruitment video like many others is a fictional celebration of war. All propaganda is. All recruitment imagery must be a lie. The Chinese will run deep into the new century experiencing in their own way a celebration of their own history with graphic deception and subtle honesty. The film industry is already swelling, war movies with heavy messages are being produced. How Western audiences so accustomed to an Anglo-American version of war telling and history shall consume these films does not really matter. War is everything it is depicted to be, yet so much more. It is in the grand omissions; the facts and realities absent from any story or glorification that we find truth. "Peace behind me, war to the front of me" the narrator says in the Chinese PLA recruitment video, for many it is never so simple. The oppression and tyranny of the Peoples Republic government is the peace, a still silence. The war, that is the disharmony, the uncertainty. Dissent. It is also the realisation that perhaps one day the next superpower shall meet the ailing one. The one constant of every medium is that war is inevitable, how we remember and exhibit it is relevant to how one can gain from it.
"Well, killing a man isn't clean and quick and simple. It's bloody and awful. And maybe if enough people come to realize that shooting somebody isn't just fun and games, maybe we'll get somewhere" Sam Peckinpah.
Kym Robinson, November 2018
Published inWar, History and Foreign Policy
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Cause and Effect (S03E21) is the twenty-first episode of season three of "The Flash (2014)"... More Cause and Effect (S03E21) is the twenty-first episode of season three of "The Flash (2014)" released on Tue May 09, 2017. Over 40,155 TV Time users rated it a 8.46/10 with their favorite characters being Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow and Candice Patton as Iris West-Allen.
Why nobody is talking about this?
Me pretending to understand how Saviatar was created.
Am I the only one with this theory?
In the end, Killer Frost is going to betray Savatar!!
When Barry says he was on the Glee Club.


text:
Mother Maker
Sarah MenkedickWriter
Sarah Menkedick
Writer • Pittsburgh, Pennsyvlania, USA
sarahmenkedick.com
Interviewed by Emma Koi
Edited by Alissa Zimmerman-Exley
After spending her 20s traveling and living all over the world, Sarah Menkedick felt an unexpected call to return home to rural Ohio to put down roots. Following years of wandering and self-discovery, she found herself living in her father's small cabin, with her husband and dog, nurturing a pregnancy, a baby, and a new self. Sarah's book Homing Instincts is a beautiful account of a profound transition: a wandering spirit called home by a primal instinct to learn the art of nurturing. The stories Sarah tells are at once familiar and a breath of fresh air. We all experience motherhood differently, but always with the common thread that what once drove us must now share its space with a little one. This book is now on my list of go-to gifts for new moms, because we all could use a reminder that there is a companion out there, in her little midwestern cabin, feeling all the same things we are. I was thrilled to get the chance to talk with Sarah about the book, and also about how her life has changed since that time. Thanks for reading. Love, Emma.
I was so excited to read your book. I related to it so much, in so many ways. First of all, I grew up in Madison, and you went to school in Madison. I went to school in Pittsburgh. You ended up in Pittsburgh. And more importantly, reading it made me feel like you were voicing all of the thoughts that I had in my pregnancy and in early motherhood. It's amazing that you have this account of your story in such detail. How do you work, as a writer, to compile all of your thoughts and information to create a book like this? Are you just constantly journaling? That book was exceptional, because I'd done that before while traveling, taking lots of notes and things. But this book really grew out of the heat of the experience. I could never write it now, looking back. It was something that really had to come out of that particular moment. There's something surreal about those early months. I was just sort of making sense of being in this liminal zone. It was the only thing I could think or write about.
I know some women who become mothers and don't want anything to do with it in their creative work. For me, it was very much the opposite. My brain literally could not deal with anything else, and that was where I was going to direct all of my energy. Part of it was definitely things that I wrote down in my journal, and part of it was that I would have a writing spell where I would just get it all out, whatever was going on in my mind at the moment. Some people would tell me that I would need time to digest the experience before I wrote a book about it, and in my case I needed to write that book when I did. I needed to be in that experience to write it.
It was also so striking when I was pregnant. I remember just going to the bookstore and getting directed to the pregnancy/parenting section and feeling like there was nothing other than pink clipart of a baby on a parenting manual. I had to do so much digging to find the few literary books that exist on pregnancy. I couldn't understand how that was possible, but the experience felt insane!
"Some people would tell me that I would need time to digest the experience before I wrote a book about it, and in my case I needed to write that book when I did. I needed to be in that experience to write it."
You had talked in your book about devouring work by other mother authors. What are some of your favorite things that you've read and connected with? The number one book came in right at a critical moment in my pregnancy when I had to tell myself, okay, I can do this. It's going to be okay. That was Louise Erdich's book The Blue Jay's Dance. I loved it because it's a very subtle book. My tendency as a reader and writer is to take a subtle everyday focus. I love language that brings out the everyday experience, and the kind of book where you close it and you feel your life in a different way. Dance was a beautiful example of that. I loved seeing Erdich's intelligence at work in the context of pregnancy and motherhood. It was beautiful and compelling as a literary work, and the writing itself gave me relief. I realized that this is an area where I can use my skills, where I could use my brain. It was so redemptive in that way.
Then I read Anne Enright's Making Babies, which I just loved, and it's a little bit lighter. I just wanted something that captured the more ethereal, fleeting nuances of that particular moment and those particular transitions.
The poet Beth Ann Fennelly has a book called Great with Child, filled with letters that she wrote to a friend who was pregnant. That's also really beautiful. And then there's Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work, which got a lot of press because it's a very unsparing look at some of the brutalities of the first years of motherhood. I was terrified a little to read it because I sort of intuited all of that already. I didn't know if I needed it spelled out! But the writing was so compelling and it was totally worth it. It was good to position myself against that, and realize that's not my experience. I consider myself someone like her, with an artistic and intellectual life, and thought I would be totally stifled by this, and I wasn't. It was so inspiring and interesting to see that type of intelligence at work, considering breastfeeding and all of the everyday realities. The fact that it is so compelling and surprising seems a little bit sad to me.
As a writer, reading is the way that I make sense of things, so I needed to A) get into the depths of the experience, and B) have something show me that it was possible to write about motherhood.
Take us back to your childhood growing up in Ohio. How was writing a part of your life as a kid? I was always writing. That was very clearly my skillset. I knew I was not going to be a mathematician. I was very much in the art world from the beginning. I've always been more interested in nonfiction, and writing was my way of expressing these complicated ideas. Oh my god, some of the essays I wrote in high school, about things like A People's History of the United States. Now when I do more journalistic writing, it comes out of that same impulse, which is probably horrifically righteous, and of course has been somewhat tamed down, thank goodness!
Back then, it was more about ideas, and that's why I always thought I'd go into academia. I loved that play of ideas and the way I expressed that was in writing. Then I grew older and became more creative, and got more interested in the writing itself.
What did you study in undergrad at the University of Wisconsin-Madison? History of Science. I made a life out of choosing the most esoteric little pockets of impractical academic work. I did my undergrad in History of Science and then I went on and got an MFA. Kudos to my parents! My brother got degrees in theatre and jazz, so we've always been in this competition of who can choose the most impractical degrees! In theory it seemed like it could go somewhere!
What did you think you were going to do with your degrees? I thought I was going to get my PhD in history. I thought I would take some time off to travel, and that time off ended up being a decade of traveling. I graduated in 2004, and then I went back to grad school in 2010, but for an MFA, not for history. As time unfolded while I was living overseas and traveling it became clear to me that I wasn't particularly interested in that. To be an academic, you really have to go down a rabbit hole of research in one area, and while I love reading and academic work, what I was really interested in was writing and translating that for a larger audience.
"I bought a one-way ticket to Peru, and wanted to see what I could do, how far I could go, and how long I could last."
What were you doing while you were traveling? Where did you go, and what were you exploring at that time? When I first left, I took a trip by myself to Mexico City. It was my senior year of college. I had lived in France, I had traveled a little bit in Europe, and I did a study abroad program, but that was the first time I really went by myself to somewhere that wasn't Europe. I met all of these Europeans who were traveling for like, two years in Central America. So when I came back, I was like, I'm going to go traveling. This is a thing I'm going to do. So I just worked and saved up money and the goal was to test the limits of the possible.
I bought a one-way ticket to Peru, and wanted to see what I could do, how far I could go, and how long I could last. So I traveled for about eight months and then came back home and started this early 20s self discovery sort of thing. I wanted to see how far I could take the traveling. So I applied for a teaching assistant position on Reunion Island, which is a little island in the South Indian Sea, French territory, and I got it. So the first trip was very much a situation where I saved up money, and I camped on hostel roofs and somehow managed to live with a teeny tiny amount of money that I cannot even imagine today. And from then on I applied for teaching jobs that paid for the travel and allowed me to earn a basic living. That position was ridiculous. It was the French dream. I had a month of paid vacation and a seven month contract for 12 hours a week. So I just kept seeking those things out. From then on out it was teaching—teaching in Mexico, and then in China, then Japan. And it was on the pretext of how much I enjoyed the teaching, but while living there and continuing to have these little mini-lives in different places.
Were you teaching English? I was teaching English. In China I taught writing, basic composition. Everywhere else I taught English.
How long did you think the traveling lifestyle would last for you? I thought that would just be the way it would be. I didn't see an end to it. When I was in it, I never saw it as a phase. I never saw myself settling down someday. I just thought that was the way I was going to live my life. I did want more of a career. By the time we got back from China, in 2008, I started thinking about applying for a PhD and pursuing writing. So I started to get a little more serious about that, and then I started to think about graduate programs. But when I was in graduate school, I was never thinking about how I could get a job and live and work in the US. It was very much all over the place.
When did meet your husband Jorge? I met him in 2006 in Oaxaca. I had gone down there to teach a month-long intensive course. And then I got a job at a scrappy little language school and ended up staying. I met him at a cafe. It was one of those things where we met in the cheesiest possible way, where he was like, "What are you working on?" He still insists to this day that he was just fulfilling his role. He was temporarily managing that coffee shop, so he's very insistent that he was just fulfilling his administrative duties as a manager. Then we hung out every night for a week, and I think I moved in two weeks later. It was just a done deal.
"Then I got pregnant, and that was really when I realized I didn't want to go anywhere."
When did that urge to move back home start for you and what did that look like? I think when it initially started I was probably in graduate school, and it was something I had to back into without acknowledging it. I really love being near my parents, but it was just an accident of funding, really. I got full funding at Pitt, so it was very clear that I would go there. I ended up two hours from my parents' farm, and I loved it so much that once the program was finished, we didn't just high-tail it somewhere else. It wasn't necessarily a conscious decision to stay near family; it was more like, what are we going to do? And then my dad offered us his cabin, so we moved in.
Then I got pregnant, and that was really when I realized I didn't want to go anywhere. It just tied into this understanding I started to have that who I am as a person and the way I see the world is rooted in this particular place. And that I will always have a certain affinity for that, and my aesthetic and my perspective is very tied to that. I became more interested in embracing and acknowledging that after assuming for a decade that none of it mattered. I could totally reinvent myself.
When you were there, you kind of just felt more settled. Yeah, and like I said, there was this emerging pattern where I was becoming more interested in what it meant to have a more settled life that didn't necessarily mean committing to one place for 20 years, but for me, meant not always searching for the next thing. Where everything is so temporary, a novel experience, and then I move on to the next experience. And also because I had happened to be so close to where I grew up, I just got more interested in seeing that again. Really paying attention to that, in a way that I had assumed for so long that it was uninteresting, and I wasn't going to notice anything there. And then as I was literally pregnant and in this cabin for nine months, it was like, well, there's nothing else to look at, so let's look at Ohio.
I think a lot of creative people kind of live like that, just kind of hanging on and grabbing for any next opportunity that comes along. But that decision to stay put can feel so comforting. Yeah, and I think that really deepened my work. Not having something external to always aspire to forced me to go deeper with my work and to contend with some different questions.
What were you doing for money while you were living there? We were living off of Jorge's salary. I was doing some freelance work, here and there, that brought in a little bit. But basically we weren't paying rent. We lived in the countryside. Never went out anywhere, especially compared to our life now. Look at our life in Pittsburgh today. We go to the coffee shop all the time. We go to restaurants. And we did none of that back then. We were literally just in the cabin all day. Or hanging out with my parents, or hiking. So we had basically no expenses, but also Jorge was doing weddings in Pittsburgh a lot at that time, and then we went to Oaxaca for several months, and he was doing weddings down there, so that allowed us to sort of squeak by. And that last summer, too, when I was done with graduate school, I still had a stipend and he had worked weddings all summer, so we had saved up a little bit of money. But I mean, it was very minimal, and we were sort of able to squeak by on that.
Just thinking of all the things when you have a baby that you think you need. I'm sure if you're living in a cabin, you realize you don't need as much as the rest of us think we do. Yeah, we went back there maybe a year ago, and we hadn't been there in awhile, and I was like, oh my god. I cannot believe we lived here. It's tiny! It's a little tiny cabin. It's extremely rustic. At the time, it did not feel weird to me at all. It seemed like as good a place as any. Now we have a house in Pittsburgh, and we have a much more conventional life—it's so different. Obviously we were going to have to do something after our daughter was born. We weren't going to live there for the next 10 years, but we aren't the kind of people who thought much about that, beyond immediate plans.
What were some of your expectations of how you were going to feel as a mother once your daughter was born? I think this is fascinating and something I would like to write about a lot more. It's not like I ever planned on not having kids, I was never one of those people who knew from a really young age that I wasn't going to have children. But I was never particularly interested in it either. Once I met Jorge and I started to get a little bit older, I began thinking I could have one kid. That might be a possibility. But I had always assumed that when I did have a kid, I would be able to keep it in it's own space where it belongs. Not literally, but it'll be in this realm, and I'll have my career and my life and all of this stuff that I've built up as the important stuff. I'll have that, and I won't be one of those women who's totally absorbed by my child.
"…motherhood is one of those transitions that really tests your idea of who you are."
It was a weird point of pride I think, and the whole logic seems so strange and a little bit sad to me now. Now I hear from women that they're completely shocked at the complexity of motherhood or the realities of motherhood. Not referring to so many diapers, but how it's actually a really intense, complicated, personal change. And I think that speaks to how little attention we pay to motherhood culturally, beyond the sort of sentimentalized stuff that you can find everywhere. I had really thought that I would make this transition and have this baby and go back to work and that'll be that. And maybe some women totally do that, but motherhood is one of those transitions that really tests your idea of who you are. All I really wanted to do was be with my daughter, and my entire life philosophy shifted dramatically. I wasn't even interested in the same questions that I was interested in before. Nothing had any bearing anymore in the same way it had before I was pregnant. All of those things—my work and my projects—just so completely lost their relevance, and it was like starting anew.
And now, let's talk about when your daughter was born. What were the logistics of you getting the time and space to write in that tiny cabin? In some ways that feels like it was such a luxurious time, just because she was born in the summer and Jorge was working a lot. That was good because it's how we were maintaining our lives. I didn't have any plans to work. I wasn't stressed out. I just thought I would do this thing and make it work for the time being.
For a writer or an artist, that's a wonderful way to approach work, because you just don't care. If I have the time, I'm going to write about what I really need to write about, or what's fascinating to me. I'm not thinking about it in terms of publication or success or trajectory. That's part of where the book came from. Also, I had a little bit of a "screw it" attitude towards publishing. I didn't care. I was going to write what I wanted to write, and I had had enough experiences with success, rejection, success, rejection. I grabbed the time where I could, and Jorge would take her for a few hours, and my parents would take her for an hour or two, and I would write. It was not like it is now, where it's a constant juggling act!
What does it look like now? Now, she's in preschool, so I have a "day," which is really surreal. She's gone from eight or eight-thirty until three, Monday through Friday. We kind of went from zero to a full day, and I was really worried about that, but she did fine. Now I have a work day, but it feels way more stressful because I have to make it incredibly productive. It has to be real work that is aimed at something. It's a different rubric to work under. I've also really underestimated the intensity of the working mom chaos and making that shift every day at three o'clock from being in writer world to mom world. I totally underestimated how jarring that would be.
When did you move out of the cabin? I got a Fulbright in 2015, so we went to Mexico for that whole year, and when we moved back we chose Pittsburgh because Jorge's photography business is here. It was the most viable option for where I could write and we could have a decent lifestyle.
So your daughter's a really good traveler, then? She is a really good traveler! She's just like, now we're on a plane, now we're like in a taxi, now we're at this giant fiesta and people are throwing candy everywhere and now we're sleeping on this mattress. She's really, really good.
How does it feel for you to be doing what you love in front of your daughter? Yeah, that's complicated. I want her to grow up with this sense of possibility that you don't have to adhere to a rigid societal track. You don't have to conform to these certain expectations. At the same time, I've heard so many stories of women who feel pressure to set a standard for their daughters, and the kid walks away with the opposite thing. I feel wary of trying to project anything onto her in terms of life goals or what her life should look like. Both Jorge and I joke that we're living under the Mexican model where she's got to take care of us when we're old. She's got to be an accountant or something practical, so we have to keep her out of arts classes, for god's sake!
What's more important to me is that she feels at home in the world, in the sense that it's not weird for her to get on a plane and go to Mexico. That she feels really comfortable in her life, going out and trying new things. I don't want her to get sucked into this really narrow life where that feels crazy or exotic. Maybe that is part of being an artist, a little less conventional. But it's more about the sort of priorities and perspective I want her to have on life. I want her to have a fluid sense of what's possible, what her community is, and what's "normal." I want her to know that she can live her life in all sorts of ways, and be spontaneous and creative.
What are you working on now? I'm working on my second book, also at Pantheon, which is very exciting. It's about the dark side of motherhood, the things we never really talk about, in terms of the psychological and emotional depths of early motherhood. There is an element of grief and loss and fear, and all of those dark, haunting things that we tend to keep out when we're telling our motherhood stories. I'm looking at it from a lot of angles, covering the stories of a group of women. I'll tell each story in detail, and interwoven with that will be a lot of research into anxiety, our cultural relationship to risk, and the neurobiology of the maternal brain. I'm looking at our normative understandings of that period, versus what's actually going on biologically.
It's fascinating, because we know so much—to almost an absurd level of detail—of what's going on with the developing fetus. And we know almost nothing about what happens to the mother's brain. I want to look at how that makes a significant number of women vulnerable to mental illness, and also grief and fear. I think it's really surprising how much research has been done on the baby, and how little has been done on the mother.
"I would say to the women who are on the fence or worried about being marginalized because of motherhood to try to shut down the standard, very male paradigm that defines what is intellectually or artistically relevant."
What advice do you have for other Mother Makers? This is probably very specific to me, but some women don't want to engage artistically with motherhood. I totally understand that. I would say to the women who are on the fence or worried about being marginalized because of motherhood to try to shut down the standard, very male paradigm that defines what is intellectually or artistically relevant. If you want to focus on motherhood in your creative work, do it. Shed light on that. Find your own consciousness there. That was part of my journey, being able to say that I would occupy this space, and own occupying this space. I think it's really empowering when women decide to do that. And if you don't want to do that, by all means, don't. But my advice to people who are hesitant is to embrace motherhood, and see it as artistically valid and interesting.
Interviewed by Emma Koi on April 26, 2018
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For 50 years we've been told fat is a killer. Public health messages would say it contributes to coronary heart disease, stroke, obesity and even cancer. This is what set off the low-fat diet craze of the 80s along with a few decades worth of misguided dietary advice to avoid fat, particularly saturated fat, at all costs. People were encouraged to swap butter for margarine and animal fats for vegetable oils.
I'll be brief with the history lesson, but the whole "fat is bad" thing started in the 1950s with a guy named Ancel Keys who proposed his lipid hypothesis which was that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease. The key point here is that his hypothesis was never proven, but the vegetable oil and food processing industries jumped on the bandwagon and helped propagate his fake science that industrial processed vegetable oils are healthier than saturated fat.
Mainstream media got on board and all of a sudden Americans were indoctrinated with the notion that margarine was their saving grace and butter was the devil. Everyone was spreading margarine on their toast, cooking with canola oil, eating fat-free or low-fat dairy products and not going anywhere near the breakfast their grandparents ate, bacon and eggs.
While we have come a long way since the low-fat diet craze of the 80s, old belief systems die hard – people are still apprehensive about eating foods high in fat, especially saturated fat. And it doesn't help when coconut oil scare stories pop up regularly in the media. You may have seen the recent USA Today article about the Harvard professor who said coconut oil is "pure poison." The professor's name is Karin Michels and she gave a lecture in Germany this summer warning people of the dangers of coconut oil because it contains saturated fats which she says clogs coronary arteries. Her claim parrots the statement the American Heart Association (AHA) put out last summer saying that saturated fats such as coconut oil increase heart attacks and strokes and therefore should be avoided.
The first thing to consider here is that there has never been a debate over the fact that coconut oil contains high amounts of saturated fats and can increase total cholesterol levels. That's not breaking news – we've known that for a while now. The studies cited by the AHA link coconut oil consumption to increased cholesterol numbers; but these studies do not link coconut oil to increased risk of heart disease. This is a VERY important distinction.
The key thing to know is this: Total cholesterol is a poor predictor for assessing heart attack and stroke risk.
The coconut oil studies the AHA cite show that coconut oil raises both HDL and LDL cholesterol. So, that means it increases our protective HDL (aka "good") cholesterol while also raising LDL cholesterol, often dubbed as "bad cholesterol. Here's the kicker - having more LDL isn't always a bad thing. It depends on the type of LDL cholesterol particles you have. Research shows that large, fluffy LDL particles do not contribute to heart disease. However, small, dense particles are more dangerous because they easily oxidize and contribute to a build-up of plaque in your arteries, putting you at greater risk of heart disease.
So which type of LDL particles does saturated fat increase? You guessed it! The benign large, fluffy particles; NOT the dangerous small, dense ones. Even more interesting is that studies show eating saturated fat may actually change the small, dense particles in your body to the healthier large, fluffy ones.
Bottom line: there is no solid scientific evidence that natural foods containing saturated fats are associated with cardiovascular disease, heart disease or stroke. In fact, it's quite the opposite! Evidence shows that coconut oil is good for your heart because it optimizes your protective HDL cholesterol, while also lowering triglycerides and dangerous LDL cholesterol particles. Need proof? Here's a Harvard University study showing that eating more saturated fats can actually prevent the progression of heart disease!
If you're eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) full of processed carbs and sugar, then it is not a good idea to eat large amounts of saturated fat. This "mixed meal" of sugar and saturated fat amplifies the negative effects of the carbs and sugar (namely, inflammation). Solution: cut out the carby junk foods! If you're not willing to do that, then you should limit your saturated fat intake.
With the keto diet gaining popularity, I've seen people swing the opposite direction of low-fat and now they're drenching everything they eat in saturated fat. Think plates of butter, bacon and cheese. That's usually not a good idea either.
Remember the key principle of bio-individuality when it comes to nutrition. The right amount of saturated fat for one person might be too much for another. If you're struggling, I recommend working with a holistic health practitioner to figure out what works for your own body!
What are the best fats to consume?
Coconut products, i.e. coconut milk, coconut flakes, coconut yogurt, etc.
Calorie-wise, all oils are about the same – 120 calories per tablespoon. And their fat content is about 14 grams per tablespoon. Where oils differ is in their fat composition, i.e. the distribution of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats they contain.
After reading the above, hopefully you're no longer scared of saturated fat. That's great because these fats are excellent for high heat cooking. They tolerate high heat temperatures without becoming oxidized.
These fats can be easily damaged and oxidized when heated so I recommend using the following for low-medium heat cooking only. They're great for dressings and dips.
What are the worst fats to consume?
Rancidity - Due to the high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids, these oils oxidize easily when exposed to light, heat or air. These exposures turn the oils rancid which turns breaks down the oil's chemical structure creating free radicals which contribute to oxidative stress in the body.
Solvent-based extraction – most industrially processed vegetable oils are extracted from plants using chemical solvents such as hexane, a byproduct from gasoline production. While solvents are mostly removed during the refining process, hexane residue can remain in the oil and that's seriously toxic!
Hydrogenation – in order to include vegetable oils in shelf-stable products such as baked goods, these oils are either partially or fully hydrogenated. This process creates "trans" fatty acids which are the worst fats to consume!