text:
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Academy of Sport blog
Golf: widening the gap between those who can and cannot
Posted on 26/07/2016 by Grant Jarvie
By Dr Paul Widdop and Dr Dan Parnell
Golf is a multi-million pound industry. We have just seen the open in Scotland that will do much for raising the profile and interest in the sport. Indeed, the Open in the UK is one of the four big annual major tournaments, with Sky paying a reported £15m a year to broadcast the event, which itself can be worth some £140m to the local host economy (Wilson, 2016). A report by Sheffield Hallam also highlights that UK golfers spend a whopping £4billion per year. Despite this golf still has its problems with gender inequality and falling participation.
Given the limelight associated with The Open and in-turn Golf, Dr Paul Widdop (Leeds Beckett University) and Dr Dan Parnell (Manchester Metropolitan University) take a close look at golf to help better understand the current landscape.
Eminent sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984) once stated that the practice of sports such as tennis, riding, sailing or golf doubtless owes part of its 'interest', just as much nowadays as at the beginning, to its distinguishing function. More precisely, to the gains in distinction which it brings. It is no accident that the majority of the most select, i.e. selective, clubs are organized around sporting activities which serve as a focus or pretext for elective gatherings. Certain sport like the arts is then used as a symbolic marker (distinct from other less worthy forms of sport) used to reinforce and reproduce the class position. Furthermore, through relational mechanisms individuals can use access to certain sports as an instrument to develop social capital and access to lucrative job market. This is certainly true of golf, where certain clubs put economic barriers up through obtrusive membership fees and strict rules of etiquette, to remain exclusive and exclude those not worthy of membership. Clearly for Bourdieu the taste for the game will be consumed by members of the higher classes, due to the social profit that it brings (such as building new networks, enhancing social capital, both of which can be exchanged at a later date for economic benefit). In other words as in other leisure and cultural fields, sporting taste and sport participation is intertwined with social class, or the symbolic meaning a given sport presents to others, which brings us to golf.
Indeed, inclusivity did not appear at the forefront when the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (Scotland) admitted females to its membership for the first time in history. The first female being, The Princess Royal, reaffirming the class orientations and distinction of the sport (Widdop and Parnell, 2015). Despite this, the future might offer some hope, with another 'THIS' branded initiative, This Girl's Golf, which was launched in 2015, to change female perception of and participation in golf. Nigel Freemantle, chairman of the British Golf Industry Association (BGIA), said "Females are getting more and more into the game…Also, if we can get women with children to take up the sport, then they might bring their youngsters to the club and get them into the game too." Freemantle also offers further positivity suggesting golf is not in a bad place.
Despite the positivity, and the excitement and grandeur associated with The Open 2016, we are reminded of our colleague, Professor Jim McKenna's comments on the legacy of the Grand Depart in Leeds. McKenna draws on the work of Dennett to help us consider the ploy of 'using lay audiences as decoys'. So, a big sport event may get the audiences, public attention and the associated media spreads, pages, tweets and likes. It is all too easy to follow, enjoy, consume and applaud who ever heads the leader board. Therefore, as easy audiences we act as decoys.
Like the Grand Depart, The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and no-doubt The Open 2016, we will adopt what Dennett terms 'Occam's broom'; when this broom is being used it whisk inconvenient evidence under the carpet. Freemantle and others offering positivity, might just be well-intended advocates of the broom, whisking the broom clearing inconvenient truths about golf and the more genuine and likely impact and non-impacts of a this event away.
Much work has been undertaken to ensure golf accessibility to the masses in terms of class and geography, despite persistent regulations and codes, such as the firmly enforced attire and etiquette, which are hard to decipher for those lacking in the prerequisite cultural credentials, creating symbolic boundaries of exclusion.
Yet, according to KPMG, England reported a decline of 2.4% in registered players in 2015, while Scotland recorded a drop of 0.8%, although it may be that golfers prefer to play on an increasingly ad hoc basis, paying for golf per round rather than registering with a club or course (Wilson, 2016). This is not just about participation, it is about class, geography and inequality.
Using data from the DCMS, Taking Part Survey (2006-2010) a worrying trend had emerged. Indeed, rather than a systematic narrowing of class inequalities, there is in fact a growing disparity. Figure 1 below illustrates, from 2006 to 2010 salariat classes (i.e., the professional and managerial occupations) have an upward trend in the consumption of Golf, whereas in comparison, the working class consumption rate is decreasing systematically year on year. Clearly more evidence is needed to determine if this trend is continuing. However what is not in any doubt is that there are major class disparities in the game that need to be addressed, to rid it of elitist connotations'.
Alongside class, gender, and ethnicity, there are hidden spatial inequalities that impact upon consumption, which includes golf. Mapping the aggregate data from the Taking Part Survey (2006-2010) against Government Office Regions of England, highlights these spatial inequalities in Golf participation. Individuals residing in the affluent South East, and East of England make up 33% of golf participants. There is a fraction of evidence that points at the much debated North South divide. Whilst we must be aware of the limitations of inferring from a large spatial scale, the data supports the finding that you are more likely to participate in Golf if you reside in the South of England.
"Golf is still too often wrongly stereotyped as something from yesteryear, but it is not a sport from bygone days or just for old boys in funny trousers," says Mr Freemantle (in Wilson, 2016).
Freemantle offers a hope that golf doesn't cost too much, suggesting a basic set of children's golf clubs costing around £50 (Wilson, 2016). Whilst this doesn't account for club fees, other equipment and balls (the authors were often explorers of the 'rough' during golf and after hours to retrieve their or others balls!)
Despite this, we believe the much of the nation, whether related to general house-hold responsibilities or participation choices, are 'tightening their belts' or just have less to spend. Austerity has had a real impact on the lives of people and research has shown that spending on sport per household has been negatively impacted as a result (Eakins, 2016).
The price to play may have got higher. Like others sports such as swimming (Parnell, Millward and Spracklen, 2014), municipal golf has faced financial changes. With many municipal golf courses, who mainly cater for the working class golfers up and down the country, either under threat, have been sold (sometimes for housing) or have been left in disrepair (see the below case studies).
There are examples across the country of courses closing or under threat of closure. Indeed, Western Park Golf Course in Leicestershire is one such example of a golf course under threat of closure (Leicester Mercury, 30th July 2013). A further example is Amington Golf Course, which has been lost because of funding cuts by Tamworth Borough Council (BBC, 28th September, 2014). Many municipal courses have also been sold to private companies and enterprises, for example, Wirral Council and neighbouring West Cheshire have agreed to sell-off seven municipal golf courses: Arrowe Park, Brackenwood, Bebington, The Warrens, Hooton, Knights Grange and Westminster Park. Tenders have been invited although it is not known what will happen if the council does not receive any attractive bids. Councillor Chris Meaden, Wirral's cabinet member for leisure, sport and culture, said: "Along with our colleagues in Cheshire West and Cheshire, we are keen to continue pay to play provision, and are confident this combined package across the two boroughs will attract customers and operators who will be able to put those courses on a sound and sustainable financial footing." (Golf Club Management, 2nd February, 2015). The most disturbing case may well be Keele Golf Course in Staffordshire. RMW Ltd, fronted by Masters winner Ian Woosnam was due to take control of the course, but the deal with Newcastle Borough Council collapsed after the councillors claimed the company had begun making unreasonable demands. Since then, the course has remained closed (The Sentinel, 10th March, 2014). The only activity on the course is the opportunistic local entrepreneurs who have ploughed the overgrown fairways. The council is considering a number of options including a housing and golf re-development (The Sentinel, 10th March, 2014), yet at the time of writing the course remains closed (and overgrown).
What does the future hold for golf? The announcement of opening up the game to female golfers should see a spike in participation for this group, and this should see a diversification in Golf consumers. However, there remains concerns this just reinforce the growing class and spatial inequalities currently inflicting the game. As we move towards greater levels of unease at what appears to be institutional inequalities, it is difficult to envisage a future whereby Golf can free itself of elitism. Despite this, England Golf (the national governing body for the sport) recently recruited a new Chief Executive. Nick Pink, who steps into this role offers some hope for those wanting to raise participation in the sport. Pink, who in his past role as European Manager of the International Cricket Council was able to able to claim a 35% in participation in cricket in the Europe. A laudable achievement that may serve England Golf well during this difficult fiscal period.
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Q: $3^{3n+1} < 2^{5n+6} $ for all non-negative integers $n$. Is my induction solution correct? Show using mathematical induction that $3^{3n+1} < 2^{5n+6} $ for all non-negative integers $n$. I'm not sure whether what I did at the last is valid?
Basis step:
for all non-negative integers
$$P(n) = 3^{3n+1} < 2^{5n+6} $$
$$P(0) = 3^{3(0) + 1} = 3 < 64 = 2^{5(0) + 6}$$
$$P(0) = T$$
Inductive Step:
Assume: $3^{3k+1} < 2^{5k+6}$
Show: $3^{3(k+1)+1} < 2^{5(k+1)+6}$
$$ 3^{3(k+1)+1} = 3^{3k+4} = 3^3 \cdot 3^{3k+1}$$
By inductive hypothesis~
$$3^3 \cdot 3^{3k+1} < 3^3 \cdot 2^{5n+6} $$
This is the part where I'm not sure if you can do this in induction but it seems logically correct.
$$3^3 \cdot 2^{5n+6} = 27 \cdot 2^{5n+6}$$
$$2^{5(k+1)+6} = 2^{5k+5+6}= 2^5 \cdot 2^{5n+6} = 32 \cdot 2^{5n+6}$$
I'm not sure whether it should be $\le$ or $<$ but I used '$<$' for $3^3 \cdot 2^{5n+6}<2^{5(k+1)+6} $
Therefore:
$$3^{3(k+1)+1} <  3^3 \cdot 2^{5n+6}<2^{5(k+1)+6} $$

A: Excellent work:
You can conclude, since you have shown
$$3^{3(k+1)+1}\;\; <\;\;  3^3 \cdot 2^{5n+6} \;\;{\color{blue}{\bf <}}\;\; 2^{5(k+1)+6}$$
or simply, $$3^{3(k+1)+1}\; {\color{blue}{\bf <}}\;  2^{5(k+1)+6}$$ as desired.
The "blue" strict inequality is all you need. You have shown, prior to your conclusion, that  $$3^{3(k+1)+1}\;\; <\;\;  3^3 \cdot 2^{5n+6}$$ and $$3^3\cdot 2^{5n+6} \;\;<\;\; 2^{5(k+1)+6}$$

A: After your first invokation of the inductive hypothesis you reach
$3^3 \cdot 3^{3k+1} < 3^3 \cdot 2^{5k+6}$
So why not just direction show that $3^3 < 2^5$, completing the proof?
$3^3 \cdot 2^{5k+6} < 2^5 \cdot 2^{5k+6} = 2^{5(k+1)+6}$

A: It's fine. You can compress it to a single chain of inequalities:
$$3^{3(k+1)+1}=3^3\cdot3^{3k+1}=27\cdot3^{3k+1}<32\cdot3^{3k+1}<32\cdot2^{5k+6}=2^5\cdot2^{5k+6}=2^{5(k+1)+6}\;.$$

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Newest Little Irishman....2 month old Owen Lahm....in and out of his carrier.
The sign-in table....Becky's jello....Alex caught a butterfly.
Dan and Becky....Kathy and Steve....Pat and Brian reclaim their title as Horseshoe Champions!


The South Shore of Lake Superior is shockingly underrated. Its scenic beauty rivals that of the more popular North Shore. Visitors to the South Shore can expect a more laidback experience, sandy beaches and an array of unique eateries running the gamut from traditional Wisconsin tavern to farm-to-table bistro.
In the interest of giving kudos to the eateries of our underappreciated neighboring region, Perfect Duluth Day is running the Perfect South Shore-area Restaurant poll.
The first step is to establish a list of nominees. What qualifies as a South Shore-area restaurant? For the purposes of this poll, we're focused not just on restaurants within Frisbee-tossing distance of the lake, but anything in the six-county area of Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland, Burnett, Washburn and Sawyer.
Our additional gerrymandering rule: The establishment must be at least 16 miles away from the Aerial Lift Bridge — a rule we impose to eliminate Superior and South Range eateries for this particular poll because they are eligible for PDD's more general array of awards.
The focus here is on places that are at least a minor road trip from Duluth but still roughly within 100 miles. Examples of towns where eligible restaurants are located: Ashland, Hayward, Minong, Iron River, Solon Springs, Washburn, Cornucopia, Cable, Herbster, Port Wing, Bayfield and LaPointe (Madeline Island). Any food-serving establishment in that vicinity is eligible.
What's the perfect South Shore-area restaurant? Leave a comment below to nominate your favorite. We'll round up the nominees and launch a poll next week.
Wild Rice is the obvious winner, right? Do we even need a poll?
After sixteen years of being By the Water, In the Woods, On Lake Superior we announce that Saturday, October 14th will be the last day of service to the public who have supported us faithfully through all of these seasons. It has been phenomenally rewarding to have provided you the highest quality dining experience in Northern Wisconsin. As this final chapter of Wild Rice Restaurant ends Wild Rice Reborn begins. Wild Rice is exploring a partnership with Artspace, to be reborn as A Center for Arts and Well Being. Artspace is the nation's leading nonprofit developer of arts facilities. We feel Artspace will be a wonderful compliment to this beautiful building and the arts community of Chequamegon Bay.
As we close out our 17th Season we invite you to join us in making this summer special. As always, for over 34 years -- including the years at The Clubhouse on Madeline Island, Jim and Randy plus our entire staff will be here to provide you with the dedication to excellence you've come to enjoy. By the Water, In the Woods, On Lake Superior.
Oh, and for my part there's nothing finer than the Delta Diner.
Come on! Do you not know the magic of the Fat Radish? Family owned, farm to table culinary cuisine? Check it out and thank me later.
Hyde's Resort on Busky Bay.
Twin Gables Lounge & Cafe in Brule. Made-from-scratch food is just the beginning of the welcome you receive here. The generous portions never leave you hungry. The homemade bakery section is a must try! The family atmosphere in the restaurant as well as among the employees makes dining here a absolute must. The place will never leave you disappointed.
Wild Rice, of course.  And yes, I've heard.  One last meal there coming up.
Three more nominations via Facebook: Paige Rautio throws her support behind the Round Up North in Brule. Dawn Marie digs Greunke's First Street Inn in Bayfield. Joshua Plummer recommends Bear Paw Cafe in Port Wing.
Cafe Coco in Washburn. Only because Wild Rice is closing.
Coco's in Washburn, hands down.  Amazing breakfasts, fabulous lunches and the best damn coffee around.  Oh yeah, they do baked goods too.


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January 2023 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 Year 3 and 6: Kingfisher Award Scheme Prosper Class: St Stephen's Church Rosemellyn Class: Junior Life Skills Melbur Class: Outdoor Learning Eden Class: Reflections April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019
On Wednesday afternoon, our Year 6s visited St Austell Fire Station where they took part in a Junior Life Skills afternoon organised by GWR and Cornwall Council. The children were treated to a variety of workshops and informative talks on a range of organisations including the RNLI, Cornwall Fire Service, the Police and the Tri-Service Safety group. They learnt some vital new skills, including CPR and how to prevent electrical fires, and all groups were particularly fond of the interactive story box about railway safety.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Fight "Gang Stalking"
Expose illegal stalking by corrupt law enforcement personnel
Here – in chronological order by dates published – are some books which address many of the issues related to organized stalking, such as corrupt police officials, government secrecy, corporate mercenaries, fascism, criminality in the U.S. intelligence community, and the cowardice and self-censorship in the mainstream corporate news media.
Animal Farm (1945)
Although Animal Farm is a critique of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and of Stalin's communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union, its lessons about corrupt leaders, abuses of power, and political propaganda are relevant to all societies.
No explanation is needed about the relevance of Orwell's classic to America's current surveillance state. After Edward Snowden's revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, CNN reported that at one point sales of 1984 on Amazon.com had increased 9,000 percent.
Operation Mind Control (1978)
Walter Bowart
This book about the CIA's mind control experiments (Project MK Ultra) was originally published in 1978. An updated and expanded "researcher's edition" published in 1994 can be viewed and downloaded as a free pdf document here: Operation Mind Control – Researcher's Edition
The Private Sector (1978)
George O'Toole
from Kirkus Review:
O'Toole's diligent mapping of rent-a-cops, security guards, intelligence services, wiretappers, and industrial espionage outfits makes it clear that this growth industry has left both Pinkerton and Sam Spade far behind. Wary rather than frantic, O'Toole looks at such powers as the Wackenhut Corporation, which under the guise of investigating the Mob in Florida became a partisan force in that state's politics; Intertel, the elite intelligence-gathering organization that whisked Howard Hughes to the Bahamas; and Bell Telephone which, unlike the government, can tap anyone's phone at will. These organizations, as well as the security forces of major airlines, oil companies, and the automobile and electronics industries augment their power with top executives who are frequently alumni of the FBI, CIA, or the municipal police. O'Toole, himself a former CIA specialist, finds Old Boy networks such as the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI particularly threatening; informal civilian auxiliaries of the Bureau, they form a kind of ""private police subculture"" which invisibly–and often irresponsibly–extends or circumvents government power. Many of the abuses of private police powers which O'Toole airs here will be familiar to readers on the lookout for illegal surveillance scandals, but there is no doubt that the "police-industrial complex"–growing at the rate of 10-15 percent annually–looms larger and focuses more sharply as a result of his compendium.
The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate" (1979)
John D. Marks
Subtitle: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences
Published in 1979, this award-winning book about the CIA's mind control and interrogation experiments (Project MK Ultra) was based on documents discovered under the Freedom of Information Act.
The author, John D. Marks, was a former Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. State Department.
Anyone who doubts the plausibility of allegations that the U.S. government would acquiesce in sadistic crimes against its own citizens such as gang stalking, should read this book.
"A wonderful piece of investigative reporting. The best account we'll ever get of one of the seamiest episodes of American intelligence."
– Seymour Hersh
Policing a Class Society (1983)
Sidney L. Harring
A Marxist analysis of the history of policing in the U.S.
From the website of the publisher, Haymarket Books:
"An in-depth critical analysis of how ruling elites use the police institution in order to control communities.
"…Looking at the growth of the urban police force around the turn of the 20th century, Harring argues that the police protected the interests of manufacturers, working almost as hired guns. Rather than fighting crime, the historical role of police was to control the leisure activity of the developing working-class and maintain the existing order of capitalist relationships."
Manufacturing Consent (1988)
You do not need to read this entire book – which by most accounts is a dry and textbook-like treatment of its topic, and you do not need to even watch the good – but now somewhat dated – 1992 documentary based on the book.
On the other hand, if you want to understand the nature of political power in the U.S., you do need to at least understand the thesis of this influential book – namely, that the mainstream corporate news media reliably promote the interests of the dominant elite groups in society.
At a minimum, you should read or listen to a few of Chomsky's comments on this issue, such as this short excerpt.
Silent Terror (1988)
Arnold Lockshin & Lauren Lockshin
Subtitle: One family's history of political persecution in the United States
Arnold Lockshin was an American cancer research scientist who fled with his family to the Soviet Union in 1986 and was granted political asylum. According to Lockshin, he and his family were being intensely harassed by U.S. federal agents because of their socialist political views. The alleged harassment tactics included many of those associated with other cases of organized stalking: slander, spying, break-ins, threats, harassing phone calls, etc.
Some excerpts from an October 11, 1986 newspaper article in the Gadsen Times:
Lockshin reiterated claims publicized by Soviet media that he was harassed by the FBI and CIA for his political beliefs.
He said the harassment went on "for many years, but this year was a bad year."
"There were harassments and physical threats. Complete strangers would drive across blocks and threaten to beat me up," he said. "Death threats were given to us in the mail; our home was broken into."
Mrs. Lockshin "repeatedly received disgusting, obscene, provocative and life-threatening phone calls," he said. "She was accosted by an individual identifying himself as an ex-Green Beret…with an armed [sic] weapon."
….He contended the harassment must have been organized by the FBI, but offered no proof. The State Department has called Lockshin's allegations of official harassment absurd.
….Lockshin said his bosses at St. Joseph Hospital in Houston told him not to campaign against the Star Wars program of researching a space-based missile defense.
Arnold Lockshin has generously made his book available for free. Here is a pdf scan of the book: Silent Terror
Here is Mr. Lockshin's website: http://arnoldlockshin.wordpress.com/
War at Home (1989)
Brian Glick
War At Home is an account of the state-sponsored terrorism perpetrated by the U.S. government against its own citizens during the Cointelpro era – and the continued use of those illegal practices against American political activists during the 1980s. The author, Brian Glick, is currently a faculty member at the Fordham University School of Law.
Philip Agee, a CIA agent who became a whistle-blower, said this of War At Home:
"This is a must handbook for private study and group discussion by all progressive and radical activists. Today's defense depends on our knowledge of yesterday's repression. The message: the political police haven't forgotten us – we can't afford to forget them and their methods."
You can view or download this booklet as a free pdf file here:
Protectors of Privilege (1990)
Frank Donner
A review of Protectors of Privilege in the Los Angeles Times
"The cops love these free-wheeling, elite units. They were ostensibly created to combat terrorism, but have been used mostly to infiltrate and suppress liberal and radical political organizations and civil rights groups. They lift their members out of the routine of police work into something of a James Bond life. As Frank Donner points out in this excellently researched, thoughtful and well-detailed study of police spying, their excesses have been many. But Donner, who directed the American Civil Liberties Project on Political Surveillance, concludes with the chilling thought that the Red squads will be around long after there are any Reds."
L.A. Secret Police (1992)
Mike Rothmiller & Ivan G. Goldman
The Los Angeles Police Department has a well-known history of brutality and racism. Less well-known is the department's illegal spying activities. One reason that part of the LAPD's history is not widely known is that police chief Daryl Gates apparently used threats and blackmail to scare city council members and the Los Angeles Times away from digging into his activities. Such behavior by the American law enforcement community goes a long way toward explaining how crimes such as organized stalking could be kept off the public's radar.
Here is an excerpt from the book's description on Amazon:
"L.A. cops ruined lives and reputations, inflicted mindless brutality, committed murder and engaged in massive cover-ups. In Los Angeles, police corruption was much more than unmarked envelopes stuffed with cash. It was a total corruption of power. For decades LAPD engaged in massive illegal spying and lied about it. Its spying targets included politicians, movie stars, professional athletes, news reporters and anyone wielding power or those of interest to Daryl Gates."
Here is an April 2010 article about the Daryl Gates era of LAPD posted on Truthdig.
Zersetzung der Selle ("Decomposition of the Soul") (1995)
Klaus Behnke and Jürgen Fuchs
Subtitle: Psychologie und Psychiatrie im Dienste der Stasi ("psychology and psychiatry in the service of the Stasi")
This book, published in 1995, is regarded as one of the essential writings on the psychological terrorism perpetrated against targeted individuals by the Stasi (East Germany's secret police agency). The authors both studied psychology in East Germany before being expelled in 1977.
Zersetzung der Seele ("Decomposition of the Soul") is the term that was used by the Stasi to describe the psyops (psychological operations) element of their counterintelligence subversion intended to emotionally and socially destroy individuals who were perceived as dissidents.
Some of the methods used by the Stasi were also employed by the FBI during its original Cointelpro operations, and are currently being used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be an English language translation of this book. Similarly, the 2002 documentary based on this book does not seem to be available with English subtitles.
Snitch Culture (2000)
Jim Redden
"Even before September 11, the government was running COINTELPRO-style operations against a coalition of radical labor, environmental, and human rights organizations opposed to corporate control of the global economy."
"The truth is, there's a long and sordid history of government operatives committing the very crimes they are supposed to prevent and setting up dissidents with phony charges."
Customer reviews of Snitch Culture at Amazon
Into the Buzzsaw (2002)
Kristina Borjesson
"The government doesn't need laws to censor information. Ever-more-close ties between business and government have allowed a highly effective system of information suppression and manipulation to evolve organically." – from the introduction by the editor, Kristina Borjesson
Understanding Power (2002)
An excerpt – on the nature of "debate" in the American news media:
So what the media do, in effect, is to take the set of assumptions which express the basic ideas of the propaganda system, whether about the Cold War or the economic system or the "national interest" and so on, and then present a range of debate within that framework — so the debate only enhances the strength of the assumptions, ingraining them in people's minds as the entire possible spectrum of opinion that there is. So you see, in our system what you might call "state propaganda" isn't expressed as such, as it would be in a totalitarian society — rather it's implicit, it's presupposed, it provides the framework for debate among the people who are admitted into mainstream discussion.
In fact, the nature of Western systems of indoctrination is typically not understood by dictators, they don't understand the utility for propaganda purposes of having "critical debate" that incorporates the basic assumptions of the official doctrines, and thereby marginalizes and eliminates authentic and rational critical discussion. Under what's sometimes been called "brainwashing under freedom," the critics, or at least, the "responsible critics" make a major contribution to the cause by bounding the debate within certain acceptable limits — that's why they're tolerated, and in fact even honored.
Gloria Naylor
Gloria Naylor is a winner of the National Book Award for her 1982 novel The Women of Brewster Place – which was later made into a mini-series by Oprah Winfrey.
Naylor wrote a semi-autobiographical book which was published in December 2005 in which she described her experiences as a target of organized stalking. The book's title, 1996, was the year it became apparent to Naylor that she was being stalked.
Booklist's Review:
In 1996 novelist Naylor moved to secluded St. Helena Island. A minor fracas with a crotchety neighbor, whose brother worked for the National Security Agency, set into motion a series of events that made Naylor the object of close scrutiny by the government. The intensely private Naylor found herself in the company of other prominent black writers and activists targeted by the government. She was harassed until she feared for her sanity and consulted a psychiatrist. When she discovered that her tormentors were using mind-control techniques, she fought back with the only weapon she had–her writing talent. Naylor's account, with first-person recollections of her experience and third-person speculation on the motives of her tormenters, not only raises alarms about government actions but also raises many questions about this work. She includes addenda with research and litigation regarding government experiments with mind control. Whether readers think Naylor has been the victim of pernicious abuse or that she has suffered a breakdown, her incredible book will spark debate about government surveillance and the blurring of the lines between fiction and nonfiction.
National Public Radio's Emmy-award winning journalist Ed Gordon interviewed Gloria Naylor about this book in January 2006. An audio recording and transcript are posted here.
The Authoritarians (2006)
Robert Altemeyer
Participants in the original Cointelpro and its current form – gang stalking – have what psychologists sometimes refer to as an "authoritarian personality."
Robert Altemeyer, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba, has studied this subject extensively. An October 2004 article in Reason describes his findings about the authoritarian type personality:
"….authoritarians are cognitively rigid, aggressive, and intolerant. They are characterized by steadfast conformity to group norms, submission to higher status individuals, and aggression toward out-groups and unconventional group members."
The article notes that Altemeyer's views were confirmed by research at the University of California at Berkeley, where they found that such people – who are typically very conservative politically – have common psychological factors described by the article's author as follows:
"fear and aggression, dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty avoidance, need for cognitive closure, and terror management that causes conservatives to shun and even punish outsiders and those who threaten the status of their cherished world views."
Dr. Altemeyer wrote a book on this subject called The Authoritarians (2006). In his book, he makes clear that his references to "right-wing" authoritarian followers is a psychological – not ideological – category. Citizens in communist East Germany who served as informants for the Stasi (state police) were "authoritarians" just like far-right kooks in America today who participate in organized stalking. Because they are subservient to authority figures, such people are easily manipulated by those in power.
Professor Altemeyer generously made his book available to the public as a free pdf document: The Authoritarians
Blackwater (2007)
Understanding organized stalking in the U.S. requires an awareness of the massive shadowy industry of private security-intelligence contractors with secret clearances. This book does not address the issue of domestic counterintelligence activities, but it does offer a close look at one of the hundreds of contractor firms which are deeply connected to the executive branch of the U.S. government but which are largely unaccountable to either Congress or the Judicial branch.
Blackwater is investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill's account of the secretive paramilitary contractor Blackwater USA, a private security company founded in 1997 by former Navy SEAL and right-wing Christian Erik Prince.
Blackwater was the concept of Jamie Smith, a former CIA officer who became the vice president of the corporation. From 2006 to 2008, the company's vice chairman was Cofer Black, director of the CIA's counter-terrorism center.
The company has been involved in multiple controversial – and arguably criminal – activities. Allegations were made, for example, that the firm tried to bribe Iraqi officials to retain its services after an incident in 2007 when a group of Blackwater mercenaries shot at Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad, killing 17 and injuring 20. The Department of Justice investigated the matter, but eventually dropped the investigation.
Blackwater, which is based in McLean, Virginia, was renamed "Xe Services" in 2009, and then renamed as "Academi" in 2011 when it was purchased by private investors.
JFK and the Unspeakable (2008)
James W. Douglass
President John F. Kennedy's assassination is relevant to organized stalking because of his murder's apparent connection to the U.S. intelligence community – as documented in this book. Regardless of the exact operational nature of various domestic U.S. counterintelligence activities, the use of widespread gang stalking could only happen with the acquiescence of federal intelligence agencies. The apparent complicity of those agencies in JFK's assassination is evidence of the deep corruption of American democracy by those associated with the spying industry.
In a radio interview in June 2013 retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern stated that he believed that President Barack Obama is afraid of the CIA, and that such fear influences the president's policy decisions:
"Now does he have any reason to fear the CIA? Well he sure as heck does. For those of your listeners who have not read James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable, you need to read that, because it's coming up on 50 years. The mystery has not been solved in the mainstream press. After reading James Douglass, who took advantage of all the previous studies, plus all the more recent information released by Congress, I'm convinced that John Kennedy was assassinated largely by Allan Dulles whom he cashiered as the head of the CIA after the Bay of Pigs, and a coterie of joint chiefs of staff, FBI, even some Secret Service folks who thought that JFK was being soft on Communism by back channel communications with Krushchev, that he was playing games with Fidel Castro…to repair the relationship, and worst of all he was giving Southeast Asia to the Communists. Now is there evidence for this? There sure as heck is. John Kennedy signed two executive orders just a month or so before he was killed. One of them said we're pulling out 1000 troops out of South Vietnam by the end of the year, the year being 1963. The other said we're going to pull out the bulk of the troops by 1965, we're finished in Vietnam. That's a matter of record."
Reviews of JFK and the Unspeakable:
"A remarkable story that changed the way I view the world."
— James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers
"In JFK and the Unspeakable Jim Douglass has distilled all the best available research into a very well-documented and convincing portrait of President Kennedy's transforming turn to peace, at the cost of his life. Personally, it has made a very big impact on me. After reading it in Dallas, I was moved for the first time to visit Dealey Plaza. I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions about why he died and why — after fifty years — it still matters." – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Spies For Hire (2008)
Tim Shorrock
From a Publishers Weekly review:
According to investigative journalist Shorrock, the CIA and other intelligence agencies now have more contractors working for them than they do spies of their own. Often former staff hired back at double or triple their former government salaries, these private contractors do everything from fighting in Afghanistan to interrogating prisoners, aiming spy satellites and supervising secret agents. Shorrock gives a comprehensive—at times eye-glazing—rundown of the players in the industry, and his book is valuable for its detailed panorama of 21st-century intelligence work. He uncovers serious abuses—contractor CACI International figured prominently in the Abu Ghraib outrages—and nagging concerns about corrupt ties between intelligence officials and private corporations, industry lobbying for a national surveillance state, the withering of the intelligence agencies' in-house capacities and the displacement of an ethos of public service by a profit motive.
The Watchers (2010)
From a description on the Cato Institute's website:
"In his book, The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State, Shane Harris of National Journal draws on his deep reservoir of contacts with some of the most significant national security players to tell how the dream of protective government omniscience evolved from a fancy of right-wing technocrats to a cornerstone of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies."
Top Secret America (2011)
Dana Priest & William M. Arkin
"The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."
More than a dozen Washington Post journalists – led by Priest and Arkin – spent two years investigating this subject. Here is the set of articles they produced – including images and video.
The investigation was also the basis of this Frontline Documentary:
Top Secret America – 9/11 to the Boston Bombings (April 30, 2013)
Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy (2012)
A comment by Chris Hayes from a Rolling Stone interview about this book:
"We're relentlessly punitive at the bottom and unimaginably forgiving at the top. We put more people in prison per capita than any other nation in the world. Our labor market operates under conditions of "at-will" employment, largely, which means if you come in one day and call your boss "dude," and he doesn't like it, you're fired. And at the top, corporate compensation has become totally detached from performance. Nowhere should there be a more meritocratic reward structure than with CEOs: Do a crappy job, there should be accountability; do a good job, get rewarded. Instead, the game is totally rigged."
Kill Anything That Moves (2013)
First, an explanation of the relevance of this book to the subject of this website:
No whistle-blower or news outlet has ever made a serious effort to expose exactly how the current version of Cointelpro ("gang stalking") is being administered. As explained elsewhere in this website, it seems clear that "Surveillance Role Players" employed by defense contractors probably play a primary role, and that former U.S. military counterintelligence agents would be an obvious source of personnel for those positions. With the expansion of domestic spying, the huge number of contractors with security clearances, the militarization of police departments, the sharing of intelligence through data fusion centers (developed by defense contractors), and other such developments, counterintelligence stalking is properly viewed as a crime by the "military-industrial complex." Consequently, it is very much worth taking a look at some of the other crimes perpetrated by that tribe.
Perhaps the best way to educate yourself about exactly how the military-industrial complex behaves when it is not being closely watched by an aggressive independent press is to read Kill Anything That Moves, by Nick Turse (published in 2013). The book describes some of the numerous war crimes committed by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Since America's military – and police forces – are portrayed almost exclusively in an idealized fashion by the corporate news media, it can be shocking to read an uncensored account of the reality.
Some Americans are familiar with the infamous My Lai Massacre; far less well-known is that what happened at My Lai was not an aberration. Turse's book is filled with shocking details – for those who can stomach reading them. Americans should know, for example, about "double veterans" – a term that was used by some GIs to refer to U.S. soldiers who had murdered women after raping them (page 170). Americans should also know that some U.S. soldiers shot babies at close range (pages 3, 141), and that some high-ranking officers believed that Vietnamese women were lucky to get raped by American GIs (page 169).
In addition to perpetrating the war crimes, the U.S. military also engaged in an extensive criminal conspiracy to cover them up. For example, there was a clique of U.S. Army officers which was sometimes referred to as the "West Point Protective Association." Its members held 22 of the Army's 24 principal commander and staff officer positions in 1968. "Not surprisingly, quite a few West Point graduates implicated in war crimes saw the allegations against them conveniently disappear" (page 220).
Turse also quotes Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers (the Defense Department's secret study of the Vietnam War), on the integrity of the military and its civilian leadership in the White House. Ellsberg wrote that it was "a system that lies automatically, at every level from the bottom to top – from sergeant to commander in chief – to conceal murder."
Very few soldiers or officers were seriously punished for the numerous atrocities – even in the exceptional cases which were investigated. The criminal complicity of high-level officials whom Americans trusted to manage their national security operations is made clear in the book:
"…the stunning scale of civilian suffering in Vietnam is far beyond anything that can be explained as merely the work of some "bad apples," however numerous. Murder, torture, rape, abuse, forced displacement, home burnings, specious arrests, imprisonment without due process – such occurrences were virtually a daily fact of life throughout the years of the American presence in Vietnam. And….they were no aberration. Rather, they were the inevitable outcome of deliberate policies, dictated at the highest levels of the military."
One reason many Americans mistakenly trusted their political and military leaders during the Vietnam War was that the corporate news media largely failed to inform them about what was really happening:
August 1969 also saw the publication of Normand Poirier's chilling Esquire article "An American Atrocity," which used military legal documents to reconstruct the 1966 rampage of U.S. Marines through the hamlet of Xuan Ngoc – including the gang-rape of eighteen-year-old Bui Thi Huong and the slaughter of her family. (The magazine sent proofs of the story to every major newspaper in the country, hoping to generate attention, but none showed the slightest interest.)
Even the story of the My Lai Massacre was rejected by the corporate news media. Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour presented the story to the Arizona Republic, Life, Look, Newsweek, and Harper's, and they all rejected it. Freelance journalist Seymour Hersh investigated the incident and eventually got the story published by a small left-leaning news agency called Dispatch News Service. The story then got picked up by the national press, and Hersh received a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. The challenge of getting the story published has obvious implications for attempts to expose current U.S. government crimes, such as organized stalking. One of the most important news stories of the Vietnam War – the deliberate slaughter of over 500 unarmed civilians in a single village – was viewed by the cowardly news editors at major publications as being a story which should be kept hidden from the American public so as not to embarrass anyone in the political class.
Although the American public was mostly unware of the scope of serious crimes, U.S. officials did not have that excuse. Top officials in Washington were repeatedly notified by the Red Cross, for example, that they were violating the 1949 Geneva conventions by allowing South Vietnamese authorities to torture prisoners handed over by the U.S. (page 175). Take note also of how those torturers learned their methods:
For over a decade, going back to 1950, the Central Intelligence Agency had worked on perfecting a range of torture techniques that included electric shock and ruthless psychological abuse. The research culminated in a secret 1963 CIA-produced handbook known as the "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual, and from 1962 to 1974 the CIA worked through the U.S. Agency for International Development (better known as USAID) to teach its interrogation techniques to security agents around the world, including many Vietnamese.
My point here is not to bash all U.S. military personnel, but rather to call attention to two historical facts: (1) when America's spy agencies, military units, police departments, and security contractors are allowed to operate with virtually unlimited power and secrecy (in the name of "national security" or "public safety"), serious crimes are perpetrated against civilians by the criminal sociopaths and psychopaths in those organizations, and (2) those crimes go mostly unreported in the corporate news media. Organized stalking is an example of those two phenomena.
Kill Anything That Moves received excellent reviews. The assessment by journalist Chris Hedges is a good example:
Nick Turse's "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam" is not only one of the most important books ever written about the Vietnam conflict but provides readers with an unflinching account of the nature of modern industrial warfare. It captures, as few books on war do, the utter depravity of industrial violence—what the sociologist James William Gibson calls "technowar." It exposes the sickness of the hyper-masculine military culture, the intoxicating rush and addiction of violence, and the massive government spin machine that lies daily to a gullible public and uses tactics of intimidation, threats and smear campaigns to silence dissenters.
Rise of the Warrior Cop (2013)
Even people who do not closely follow the issues of corruption and abuse of power in America's law enforcement agencies are increasingly aware of the disturbing trend toward more militarized local police forces.
Between 1970 and 1975 the number of SWAT teams grew from 1 to almost 500. Between 1995 and 2005 the number of drug warrant SWAT raids doubled. Even small town police departments have been acquiring military hardware. News reports of excessive – often deadly – use of force have become common.
In this book Radley Balko traces the history of such changes, which are largely attributable to the drug war.
"This book is highly recommended for the historic value of the information; it is clear, concise, and well argued. Whether you are a lifetime, card carrying member of the ACLU or the newest law and order politician The Rise of the Warrior Cop provides a clear timeline and important information making it a must read…"
– New York Journal of Books
A Government of Wolves (2013)
John Whitehead
From the Heritage Foundation's website:
In A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, John Whitehead, President of The Rutherford Institute, argues that the American people are in grave danger of losing their basic freedoms. The Constitution – and in particular the Bill of Rights – is being undermined on virtually every front. America's openness and freedom that were once the hallmarks of our society are now in peril.
Whitehead charts the transition from a society governed by "We the People" to a state governed more and more by the strong arm of the law. Once a society that valued individual liberty and privacy, in recent years, our culture has quietly accepted surveillance cameras, police and drug-sniffing dogs in our children's schools, national databases that track our finances and activities, sneak-and-peek searches of our homes without our knowledge or consent, and anti-terrorism laws that turn average Americans into suspects. In A Government of Wolves, Whitehead posits that our nation is at a critical juncture in addressing the growing power of the state versus the retention of personal freedoms.
The Terror Factory (2013)
It has become an open secret that the FBI creates its own terrorists by concocting and funding fake terrorism plots and entrapping hapless stooges in sting operations.
The Terror Factory received excellent reviews, but if you don't have time to read a whole book on the subject, you can get a good idea of how the game works from these articles:
The New York Times April 2012
Rolling Stone September 2012
The Guardian July 2014
CHAMELEO (2015)
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have a long, well-documented history of secretly perpetrating crimes against Americans – and lying to the public. Counterintelligence programs, operations, methods, and motives are typically shrouded in secrecy – even from the perspective of the politicians, judges, and journalists upon whom we rely for oversight of our numerous spy agencies. (Former agents sometimes function in the private security sector with even less scrutiny, and use the same illegal stalking methods.) Accounts of counterintelligence operations must be viewed in this historical context.
Another source of perspective and insight which is helpful for understanding a profession whose practices include assassination, disinformation, spying, subversion, human experimentation, stalking, blackmail, torture, and the like, is literature. To understand, in the absence of first-hand experience – as a perpetrator or victim – such activities, it is helpful to at least have been exposed to some of the dark, and sometimes bizarre crimes which appear in literature; it can give you a more open mind about such matters. Robert Guffey, I think, is a perfect example of this; he is a writing instructor at California State University–Long Beach, and the author of several published books and articles.
Guffey's book opens with an apt quote for an account of counterintelligence crimes. Its source is the 1955 novel, The Body Snatchers:
"I warn you that what you're starting to read is full of loose ends and unanswered questions. It will not be neatly tied up at the end, everything resolved and satisfactorily explained. Not by me it won't, anyway. Because I can't say I really know exactly what happened, or why, or just how it began, how it ended, or if it has ended; and I've been right in the thick of it. Now if you don't like that kind of story, I'm sorry, and you better not read it. All I can do is tell what I know."
CHAMELEO is one of the few books published in the U.S., after the COINTELPRO era, regarding counterintelligence "disruption" operations (sometimes called "gang stalking") perpetrated by the U.S. government. One of the few such books which preceded it was a fictional account (although it was, based upon the author's interviews, autobiographical); National Book Award winner Gloria Naylor chronicled her personal experience with organized stalking in the book 1996 (published in 2005), which is also listed on this webpage.
Robert Guffey's book is essentially an expanded version of his excellent magazine article, "Strange Tales of Homeland Security," about U.S. counterintelligence stalking, which was published in the magazine Fortean Times, in September 2013.
Guffey's article and book describe how U.S. intelligence agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) – one of America's 17 federal intelligence agencies – stalked and terrorized a man in southern California (perhaps the stalking continues even now), who was a casual acquaintance of a Marine who had stolen some military equipment and information. As with other cases of organized stalking, the process seems to have been a combination of illegal surveillance, extrajudicial punishment, and psychological operations ("psyops") experimentation by a rogue U.S. intelligence agency.
Regular readers of this website will know that Robert Guffey's contributions to the understanding and awareness of "organized stalking" go far beyond this book. He has discussed the issue on national radio programs (see the October 4, 2015 news post on this website, for example), podcasts, and at book signings, as well as in posts on his blog. Considered in detail, his efforts cannot be dismissed as book sales promotion; clearly he has a passion for exposing this form of state-sanctioned criminality.
One important thing to understand about CHAMELEO is this: Books on controversial national security subjects – even when the authors have a high profile – are often shunned by publishers. If they are even published, they are frequently ignored by media outlets. Historical examples of this phenomenon are many. A contemporary book which illustrates this issue is The Devil's Chessboard (2015). That book convincingly documented how, historically, U.S. intelligence agencies sometimes operate completely outside of laws and oversight from all three branches of America's government. Although it reached #20 on the New York Times Bestseller list (November 8, 2015) for hardcover non-fiction, the book met with a conspicuous silence from most mainstream news media corporations. Truthdig editor Robert Scheer said this about what the author, David Talbot (founding editor of the progressive website, Salon), said about the media response to his book:
"Talbot says several mainstream media publications have refused to review his book."
Another high-profile example of government harassment and corporate self-censorship in the U.S. is that of a former senior executive at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Thomas Drake. Although his case did not involve counterintelligence disruption operations, it did show the challenge – for whistle-blowers and others – of trying to get government attention or corporate media attention when exposing corruption in federal spy agencies. Drake was unable to find an honest and courageous official at the NSA who would act upon his disclosures, and later, he was unable to find a publisher willing to reveal his experiences in a book. Here is an excerpt from a fascinating interview of Drake on PBS:
"So why the hell do you then go to The Baltimore Sun?"
"Because it was the final option. …The final option was to go to the press under the First Amendment as an American citizen, because I had grave concerns about the future of the republic, and I knew that we had been off the rails, literally, in terms of law, constitutional law, for some time…"
Unfortunately, Drake found that most members of America's publishing industry were no more receptive to his testimony than the careerists at the NSA. This was Drake's May 2014 tweet about that:
On September 20, 2015, Guffey was a guest on the national radio program, Coast to Coast AM, where – in addition to discussing his book, the author advised victims of "gang stalking" to read this website's suggested tactics for resisting and exposing illegal surveillance and harassment. Guffey's comment immediately generated numerous visits to this website.
Guffey's book has also been reviewed by some alternative media sources. For example, a book critic in Seattle, said the following:
"…those that question authority and wonder just how far the US government has strayed from its stated ideals will welcome this strange little book, which is just well documented enough to convince me that it's entirely true."
I encourage anyone concerned about the lawlessness and secrecy of U.S. government intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and their private security corporation equivalents, to purchase this book. At a minimum, you will be supporting one of the rare authors (and publishers) who dare to shine a light upon the psychological terrorism involved in America's illegal counterintelligence "disruption" operations.
The publisher's webpage, where you can order a copy of CHAMELEO
The Chapo Guide to Revolution (2018)
Chapo Trap House is a group of political satirists that began as a comedy podcast in March 2016.
Authors: Felix Biederman, Matt Christman, Brendan James, Will Menaker, and Virgil Texas
Criminality in America's intelligence agencies, policing agencies, and private security firms is a byproduct of the nation's corrupt political structure. The Chapo Trap House crew provides a smart, funny, socialist critique of power in the US.
Glenn Greenwald:
"The raucous Dirtbag hilarity of the Chapo crew sometimes masks the fact that they reliably provide some of the most incisive, sophisticated and thought-provoking political analysis found on any platform. Their book is as intellectually serious and analytically original as it is irreverent and funny, and it deserves substantial discussion and all of the gushing and angry reactions it will inevitably provoke."
David Cross:
"This is next level. This is an advancement of political/social satire and debate. Garrote sharp, acerbic, smart, inventive and truly laugh out loud funny, The Chapo Guide to Revolution feels like it was written by the offspring of the shotgun marriage of The Onion, Howard Zinn, Dorothy Parker, Bill Hicks, Noam Chomsky, and Jonathan Swift. If they all got together and fucked and had one baby, I mean. I LOVED this book."
Self-Published Books on Gang Stalking
*** I am not recommending the following books. I mention these simply to make readers aware that there are a number of (self-published) books on organized stalking. From what I have seen, these books tend to be – at best – poorly written. As with most websites about gang stalking, most self-published books on the subject are clearly pieces of deliberate disinformation created – or at least sanctioned – by the U.S. government.
Here are a few of the books commonly cited:
Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace
by Noa Davenport (1999)
Cause Stalking by David Lawson (2007)
Closing the Gap: Gang Stalking by GmB Bailey (2010)
The Hidden Evil by Mark M. Rich (2013)
Orange Bruises by Maud Oortwijn (2014)
If you can help expose illegal spying and harassment of Americans by intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and private security contractors, please do so. America needs more patriots like Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Jeremy Hammond, Barrett Brown, Russell Tice, William Binney, Ray McGovern, Thomas Drake, Frank Serpico, Thomas Tamm, Hugh Thompson, Jr., William C. Davidon, John Raines, Bonnie Raines, Keith Forsyth, Judi Feingold, and Bob Williamson.
FightGangStalking.com
COINTELPRO News (2016 – 2018)
COINTELPRO News (2015)
** What is "Gang Stalking?" **
The American Police State
Disinformation Groups —— FFCHS, OSI, etc.
** Tactics for Fighting Back **


Dries Van Noten's striking skirt has been crafted from sumptuous silk in a head-turning shade of fuschia. A whisper of sheer pink chiffon cascades from the high-waist past the hemline for an ultra-feminine finish. Team yours with an equally opulent blouse and statement sandals for immutable date-night style.


Link to a review of Judith Wallerstein's The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. Discusses the long term effects of divorce on the adult children such as the fear of commitment thang, the lack of a college education thang, etc. etc. Funny how Divorced parents easily put an entire family of 7 children from an immigrant's home through college, but won't put their own children through college. Now social services, journalism, politics, legal profession have all been hijacked by these folks. Possibly, just possibly could the lack of reporting of divorce rates in California be connected? That's reason for a Class Action suit against the Government for faulty governance based on neglecting to record the facts. Funny how overloaded the Psych profession is with Mexicans while this happens.
The Spoiled Child thing, when you think about it, is really hilarious.
Children of Divorce are much more likely to spend their childhoods in poverty. Check out the writings of Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Children of Divorce don't even have parents for huge chunks of their childhood because their parents are obsessed with their own problems. And then there's finally the great moment when one or both of the parents remarries. Step-Families take 7 years for adjustments. Good-bye childhood. Uranus is the planet which rules Divorce, Step-Families, Weird and Shocking behaviors. And Uranus is related to 7 year pseudo cycles in Astrology because it changes signs every 7 years.
Statistical Abstract for Marriages and Divorces in the United States from the U.S. Census Bureau. Most recent year included on this chart is 2008.
Article which explains that up to 25 percent of new Mothers suffer from Post-Partum Depression and up to about 7 percent of new Fathers suffer from it as well. A study has found that Depressed Fathers are much more likely to spank their 1-year old babies. This is a behavior that a one year old isn't going to understand at all. I assume that a Mother won't understand what is going on either. Violent physical behavior in men was considered "normal" while I was growing up and I really appreciate this kind of research. But … sure wish they could hook in some questions on parental harmony/discord/divorce and the children.
Am not going to link to it but there was also an article about how spoiled children are more intelligent. Maybe I'll quit griping about Children of Divorce are always accused of being spoiled. I know we are more intelligent, for sure, dude.


Dorothea Krook-Gilead (Hebrew: דורותיאה קרוק-גלעד b. 11 February 1920 d. 13 November 1989) was an Israeli literary scholar, translator, and professor of English literature at the University of Cambridge, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Tel Aviv University.
Krook was born in Riga, Latvia and moved to South Africa at the age of eight. She earned a degree in English literature at the University of Cape Town. In 1946 she was awarded a scholarship to Newnham College, at the University of Cambridge, where she earned her Ph.D. and spent 14 years as a research fellow and assistant lecturer. Among her students there was the poet Sylvia Plath, who wrote that Krook was her ideal of a successful career woman and wonderful human being. While at Newnham, Krook published her first major critical work, Three Traditions of Moral Thought.
In 1960, she emigrated to Israel and began teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of English Literature.
Krook married the poet Zerubavel Gilad in 1968 and became a member of Kibbutz Ein Harod. She translated many of his poems into English.
Krook died on November 13, 1989.
In 1973, Krook was awarded the Israel Prize in the humanities.
In 1974, she became a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
^ "A celebration, this is". www.sylviaplath.info. Retrieved 2018-01-08.
^ "Dorothea Krook (Gilead)". Encyclopaedia Judaica.
^ "Israel Prize Official Site - Recipients in 1973 (in Hebrew)". Archived from the original on 2010-01-18.
This page is based on the Wikipedia article Dorothea Krook-Gilead; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.


text:
Different Varieties And Features Of Persian Long Hair Cats
January 26, 2023 January 25, 2023 by Christopher Windsor
All Persian cats (officially known as Persian type with long hair) have the same basic physical shape with flat faces, short noses, and small ears. Their bodies are wide-chested with sturdy legs and large paws. Persian long hair cats have a soft and thick fur coat with a distinctive ruff around the neck and a full, low-slung tail. These cats come in many different colors and patterns.
In some countries, such as the United States, color variations are considered varieties of the same breed, but in Britain, each different color appears as a different breed. Persian cats are among the best-known pedigree cats. Long-haired variations of wild species may have occurred spontaneously in colder regions in the heart of Asia and then have been gradually established with subsequent inter-breeding. The ancestors of today's Persians were probably thick, long-haired and gray cats, brought to Europe from Persia (Iran) in the 17th century and white silky-haired Angora cats from Turkey. Today there are more than 60 different varieties of the Persian type long hair cats.
Black Persian Cat
Black Persian cats are believed to be one of the first variety of Persian breeds officially recognized since the 17th century. Today, however, they are not quite common. The show standard insists on a black coat of solid and dense coal-black, without signs of rustiness, shading, marks or white hairs. The kitten often shows some gray or rusting color and if this continues beyond 6 to 8 months, it is not considered acceptable. To keep its shiny black coat, the cat must be kept in a cool and dry place, free from direct light.
A damp atmosphere and bright sunlight seem to fade black. Like many Persians, black is affectionate and dignified. They have a reputation to be more playful than white Persian cats.
White Persian Cats
White Persian owes its purity of coat color to the native angora cat from turkey. However quite different from the modern breeds of Angora. Turkish cats were prized for their silky coats and white varieties were the most sought after of all. They provided the incentive to breed a pure white Persian type by crossing Angora and Persian cats in the 19th century. A show standard white self should be dazzling white and without marks or shadings. Kittens may have colored hairs on the top of the head, but they must disappear before they reach 9 months. Whites are meticulous self-groomers, but maintaining impeccable fur is a great challenge for owners.
The fur may yellow, especially around the face, legs, and tail. However, white grooming powder is available in pet stores and online markets, which cleans and helps protect against stains. The reward for an extra effort is a glacial white coat completely emphasizing a magical eye color.
Different varieties of white Persian cats have been established according to eye color. Because the original blue-eyed variety was prone to deafness, it was cross-bred with blue and black Persian cats. The resulting cats were generally stronger in shape and build. Some had copper-colored eyes, others had one orange or copper color eye and one blue eye. The odd-eyed white cats may become deaf in the ear on the side of the blue eye. Whatever the eye color, both eyes must be of equal intensity for a successful showing.
White Persian cats are not only glamorous and decorative but also happy to be so. Their calm nature makes them ideal indoor cats, although they can also be playful.
In the late 1800s, the Blue Persian cats became extremely popular as pets for the rich and were raised especially to be sold at high prices. They became particular favorites of European royalty. Queen Victoria of England acquired two blue Persian cats, Princess Victoria of Schleswig Holstein was an enthusiastic breeder and King Edward VII presented medals for the top prize-winners of the day.
One of the reasons for the popularity of blue Persian cats may have been because it was thought to be the closest color to the original Persian brought to Europe by merchants in the 17th century. The genetic mutation of the breed we know today may have emerged on the Mediterranean island of Malta, which is why it is sometimes called the Maltese-blue. The bluish-gray color is a dilution of black. The blue comes from a lavender glow that adds shine to the pale fur. This is very evident with the show cat, which is ideally a medium to pale blue, with no shadings, marks or white hairs.
A dark, slate gray coat is considered very undesirable. Due to its long and distinguished history of careful breeding, Persian blue is often used as the standard Persian type with which other Persian breeds are compared. For this reason, it is sometimes included in breeding programs to improve the type of other varieties.
The blue Persian cat is reputed to be a very affectionate and gentle cat who enjoys human company.
There is an element of the Siamese in chocolate Persian, which may account for a certain sauciness in its nature. The Siamese chocolate point was mated with blue Persian cats to create part of the formula for the Persian color point. Chocolate was an offshoot and gradually, through generations of breeding, it became a variety recognized in its own right. The ideal show cat has a medium to dark, warm and evenly toned coat without shadings, white marks or hairs. The warmth of the tone instead of a deep and dark bitter chocolate is very important.
Kittens sometimes show gray hair, although this often disappears at 6 to 9 months. The eyes should be the rich orange-copper color with no signs of a reversion to pale gold or green.
Only a few decades ago, the Persian red cat was one of the rarest feline varieties. This was largely because of the need to select parents which had fine mackerel-striped coats like kittens, combined with long fur and color intensity. The fiery red fur is much richer than that of common ginger tom. For a show cat, it must be even, in tone, without white hairs. Slight shading on the forehead and legs is acceptable. The sex-linked gene that creates red cannot mask the tabby marks that are characteristic of all red Persian kittens in certain lights. It is rare for a red to be free of these marks until the ground color has intensified with maturity.
Persian cream is a dilute red, with probable input of white angoras that cross-bred with Persian cats in the 19th century. Then, as now, the Blue Persians were not only the most popular variety but the best examples of the type. So breeders of other colors used blue studs in their programs. Blues are dilutes of black Persian cats and, therefore, dilute genes were released into many breeding programs, which ultimately resulted in a full range of dilute colors.
Early creams had larger ears and longer noses than their modern descendants and their eyes were almond-shaped. Today's cream is the result of more than a century of very selective breeding that was initially done in the United States.
Persian lilac or lavender Kashmir was, like chocolate, an offshoot from the breeding program for color print long-hairs. It is a dilute form of blue with a siamese element. This may be the reason why these cats often show independence of spirit, are very capable to amuse themselves but quickly bond with their owners.
The perfect pedigree has a thick and silky coat that is warm in tone and even in color, without white marks or hairs. The eyes are copper or deep orange with lilac rims, and the nose leather and the pads of the paws are also lilacs. Once the lilac color has been produced, the lilac to lilac matings will only produce lilac kittens.
Tortoiseshell
The classic tortoiseshell color is an amazing combination of black, red and pale red. The exact color configuration is greatly influenced by the mixture of color genes carried by the female parent. If the female gene has 2 red XX chromosomes, the offspring will be red. However, if one of the female's chromosomes carries the red gene and one does not, then the offspring will be a mixture of red and another color or colors, this is called tortoiseshell. Of the complex genetic composition necessary to create a mix of tortoiseshell colors, all variations are generally female.
The tortoiseshells are also known as Torties, they come in dilute variations, such as chocolate tortie, blue-cream, and lilac-cream.
The object in the breeding of any tortoiseshell pedigree is to achieve a perfect balance in the color mix. When black and chocolate intermingle with red, the result can be a brilliant display of fireworks from a coat. Fans of these varieties expect the colors to be well defined, and better yet, that the kittens have a dazzling red glow in the center of the face. Some kittens show gray hair in black fur, which usually grows after 6 to 9 months.
It is said that tortoiseshell with red in their make-up inherit the supposed fiery temperament of the Red Persian, although their fans say they are just full of character. They also tend to be especially attentive mothers. tortoiseshell queens mated with black and red for the best opportunity to produce hawksbill kittens in their litter.
The eyes of all tortoiseshells are large, full and deep copper or orange.
In the early days of pedigree breeding, any long-haired cat with a white spot was seen with horror. However, there were so few animals without a white spot on the belly or neck, that to fill the classes at the shows, the bi-colors are allowed to compete. These solid-colored cats with white underside, muzzles, chests, legs, and feet were placed along with the tortoiseshell and whites, in any other variety category. Finally, breeders began to consider them seriously as a variety in their own right. The ideal standard is for white patches to be balanced and even, with an elegant and clearly defined inverted V shape that extends over the nose.
If tabby Persian cats were arranged in the exaggerated style of bouffants applied to other varieties, the impact of their rich marks would diminish. Although a full coat is still important, tabby owners have to take a more relaxed approach to the groom.
Characteristic tabby marks include triple lines that extend along the spine, a butterfly shape on the shoulders and an oyster on the sides. The legs and tail should have dark rings evenly spaced, and the underbelly is spotted. Spotted, mackerel and ticked tabby patterns are also shown, apart from in the UK, where the only recognized variations are blotched. The mainstream tabby colors are brown, red and silver although other varieties, such as cream, lilac, and cameo, are rich, reddish in color with dense black markings.
In 1882, a silver angora type cat of fine bones without markings mated with a non-pedigree male of similar color. Her kitten became the mother of the first Chinchilla title holder, whose body was exhibited in the Natural History Museum in London.
The inner layer of the chinchilla is pure white. The coat on the back, the flanks, the head, the ears, and the tail is covered in black. The tipping should be evenly distributed to give the characteristic silver glow. The legs may be slightly shaded with the tipping, but the chin, ear, stomach, and chest should be pure white. Tabby marks or brown or creamy tings are not desirable. There has been a great controversy about the required size of a chinchilla, the breed is sometimes described as a fairy, but this has nothing to do with size. The chinchillas are generally of medium size and quite solidly built.
The golden-colored Persian cat may have occurred as an offshoot of chinchilla breeding in the 1920s. However, the modern breed was established after an explosion of US imports of chinchillas in Britain in the 1970s, combined with an import from New Zealand import from American bloodlines. On the back, sides, head, and tail, the undercoat should be sufficiently tipped with a seal brown or black to give a golden appearance.
An apricot undercoat turns golden, while the chin, ear, stomach, and chest are pale apricot. The general tipping effect may be darker than on the body. The legs may be shaded, but the back from the paw to the heel should be a solid seal brown or black. Kittens often show tabby or gray marks at the base of the undercoat.
Shaded Silver
Shaded silver is largely the product of chinchilla matings with self-colored long hairs in an attempt to improve size and type. The general effect of a shaded silver is to be much darker than a chinchilla. The undercoat is pure white, with black tippings, that shades from the back to the flanks, with lighter tipping on the face and legs. The upper part of the tail is also tipped, but the chin, the chest, the stomach, the inside of the legs and the lower part of the tail are pure white. The tip extends to a third of the full length of the hair.
The hair on the footpad may be shaded to black and there is no barring on the legs. The lips are outlined in black. No tabby marks or brown or cream tinges are allowed on a show cat. In the United States, breeders mated with the best Persians available and then joined to recover the characteristics of the Chinchilla breed. Shaded silver was the inevitable consequence, and throughout the history of the Silver Persians in the United States, both chinchilla and shaded silver kittens have been produced in the same litter.
Smoke color Persian cats are the result of the cross-breeding of chinchilla, blue and black. Traditional smoke colors are black and blue, but the introduction of the sex-linked red gene, followed by the chocolate gene, led to represent the full range of long hair colors. Black smoke was the first to be introduced. Bluesmokes were initially kept as pets instead of show cats because they were considered poor-quality blue Persian cats.
All smoke cats are cats of striking contrasts. The undercoat should be as white as possible, with the tips shaded to the appropriate color. The darkest points are more defined in the back, head and feet, and the light spots on the frill, the flanks and the tufts of the ears.
The cameo was considered a delicious accident for many years, but in the late 1950s, the breed was formally registered in the United States. The formula for creating cameos turned out to be extraordinarily straight forward, with kittens of consistent colors that appear in the first hybridization.
In addition to the red and cream cameos, there are variations of blue cream and tortoiseshells.
There are two levels of color that adhere to the fur. In the shell cameo, the colors are restricted to the tips of the fur to give a soft shine like the mother of pearl. The shaded cameo has stronger tipping and usually occurs at the first crosses between a chinchilla and a red or cream cat. In all cameos, the undercoat should ideally be as white as possible with the tips shaded in red or tortoiseshell in the red series and shading to cream or cream blue in the series.
The deepest intensity of the color is defined more in the mask, along the spine from the head to the tip of the tail and on the legs and feet. The points of light are produced on the frill, the flanks, the bottom, and the ears.
Cameo breeding produces cats with black tips, instead of red, cream or tortoiseshell. These cats are a relatively recent development and have their place as pewter.
They are very similar in appearance to shaded silver but with orange or copper color. Pewters are recognized in the United Kingdom only with black tips. The coat is exceptionally long, almost to the point of obscuring the structure of the cobby, with a full neck that ends in a frill on the front legs.
The entire catalog of long-haired Persian cats up to this point has been based on a solid-colored cat modified by the introduction of the tabby pattern, sex-linked color, silver or white patches. The pioneers of colorpoint (Himalayan) breeding fused the Persian longhair with the Himalayan pattern of the Siamese cat. The result was a Persian cat with long hair and a restricted siamese fur pattern. The mask, legs, feet, and tail are evenly colored and there is a good contrast between the points and the color of the body.
The shading of the light body, if present, should be confined to the shoulders flanks and should complement the points. The mask covers the entire face. It should not extend over the head, although the mask of a mature male cat is more extensive than that of a mature female. Kittens are born white and fluffy, the point colors begin to appear in less than a week.
Categories Cats
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Did Kaepernick's activist girlfriend inspire his support of Black Lives Matter?
Blogger Terez Owens posted about the couple recently.
Fox News also looked into the couple and found evidence that seems to show that his "conversion to social activism" happened only after he began dating his girlfriend, DJ Nessa Diab.
According to reports, before he began dating Diab, Kaepernick's social media didn't show much about him except that he enjoyed playing football and hanging out with friends, but since he began dating Diab, his social media focus has shifted to black nationalist and Black Lives Matter related posts.
"31 of his last 42 posts have strong social justice connotations, often featuring quotes from radical Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X, Black Panthers founder Huey Newton and cop killer Assata Shakur," says Fox News.
Diab's social media account has plenty of photos and posts related to her job as a DJ but it also shows her stance as a black rights activist and Islam defender.
Kaepernick and Diab have donated $60,000 worth of backpacks to children in Harlem and the South Bronx just in time for the new school year to start.
Kaepernick included a video message for the kids since he is away at training camp.
The post Did Kaepernick's activist girlfriend inspire his support of Black Lives Matter? appeared first on theGrio.


I've begun spinning the merino superwash. Merino is such a delight to spin, it's soft and handles easily, even when dyed. I do tease it a bit (pull it gently until it slips in it's roving form) to make sure it will come out of the roving easily as I spin. I'm striving for a baby weight, we will see how consistant I am with a near pound of this roving. I will be spinning on it everyday so the consistancy should be there, I have trouble when I let it sit a while before going back to it, :P. It should make a lovely shawl. I will post a picture when this skein is done, probably this week end. I love having a week of vacation :).
That is a beautiful color! I really like spinning merino also.


Winter is coming to an end (or so the calendar says!) After 4 long months of intense cold and darkness, pulling out of our hibernetic state can be hard. That's why the beginning of spring calls for easy, vegetable-centric dishes to help us out of that winter funk. I?ve got just the recipe to get you on your way to sunnier days!
Tender roasted Little potatoes coated in a bright, zesty vegan orange Dijon dressing flecked with hemp seeds and citrus zest. This easy side dish is ideal for busy weeknights because it requires just 10 minutes of active cooking time. Serve these Vegan Orange Dijon Little Potatoes as a hot side or serve it chilled for an unexpected twist on potato salad!
For this recipe I chose the Onion & Chive Oven Ready Little potatoes. The sweet and tangy blend of onion & chive and light aromatic spices makes them an ideal vessel for the flavourful orange Dijon dressing.
Did you know that Creamer potatoes are very nutritious" They?re loaded with vitamins and minerals and contain no fat, sodium, or cholesterol. And they?re naturally gluten free too. It might come as a surprise that Creamer potatoes actually contain more potassium than bananas!


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Pickswise News
NFL Back
NFL Daily Fantasy Advice, wild card Saturday DFS Picks
Fri 8th January 2021
Andrew Ortenberg See Bio
Andrew Ortenberg Andrew.Ortenberg@pickswise.com
I'm an editor here at Pickswise who was raised in a household full of sports fanatics. Since I unfortunately never had LeBron James' jumping ability I wasn't able to make it to the NBA, and chose writing about sports as the next best thing. An avid sports bettor myself, I'm excited to get to write about the industry as it gets set to take off across the country. Buckle up.
By Andrew Ortenberg Andrew.Ortenberg@pickswise.com
The NFL playoffs are here, and with the expanded format we've got three wild card games on each day this weekend. We've been bringing you the best plays each and every week this season, including some guys who are flying under the radar that might be low-owned with tournament winning potential. We'll also be letting you know about a couple of popular players you should avoid at all costs.
Without further ado here are our Saturday wild card picks, using pricing from DraftKings and FanDuel. We'll of course have picks for Sunday as well, so check back later for those.
QB – Josh Allen – DraftKings $7500, FanDuel $9000
I usually advocate being a contrarian in daily fantasy, but I don't think you can fade Allen here given the rest of the quarterback options. Tom Brady is the second most expensive passer, and he's playing in a game with a total in the low 40s against a tough defense. Russell Wilson has really struggled against the Rams this year, and none of Philip Rivers, John Wolford, or Alex Smith are particularly appealing fantasy options.
Allen played at an MVP caliber level down the stretch, and he enters the playoffs on fire. In just *one half* against a solid Dolphins secondary last week, he passed for 224 yards and three touchdowns, so obviously his upside is off the charts. He had at least 35 fantasy points in each of his final two full regular season games.
RB – Cam Akers – DraftKings $5100, FanDuel $6100
Jonathan Taylor makes a lot of sense here as well but that one is a bit obvious, and I think Akers makes a lot of sense from a value perspective. He got 21 carries last week, so clearly his ankle isn't bothering him too much. He's had at least 15 carries in each of his past four games, and you very rarely can get that much volume at this low of a price.
He also had four catches for 52 yards in Week 17, and if he can stay involved in the passing game here then he'll have a very high floor as well. Assuming Jared Goff isn't ready to go that means Wolford will be making his second career start here, and Sean McVay will want to lean heavily on the run if at all possible.
WR – T.Y. Hilton – DraftKings $5000, FanDuel $6200
I think Hilton is being underpriced here as well. In Week 17 he still had 13.7 PPR points in what was a down game for him recently. Right before that he'd put up at least 60 yards in five straight games. Hilton came on strong down the stretch after a slow start, and had five touchdowns in his final six games. The Colts are underdogs of almost a touchdown, which means they project to be passing a lot in this spot.
I'm not scared by this Buffalo defense, as it was Allen and the offense carrying the team this season. This game has by far the highest total of the three games on this slate, so it makes sense to have your quarterbacks and receivers from this one.
TE – Logan Thomas – DraftKings $4900, FanDuel $6400
The tight end cupboard is just too bare here to not play Thomas. The converted quarterback has been a great story for Washington this year, and he's become a bigger part of the offense with each passing week. Over his past three games, Thomas has a ridiculous 34 targets, and he managed to put up 12.7 PPR points last week even in a game where Washington's offense did absolutely nothing. Tampa Bay's defense has been relatively strong overall, but they're just middle of the pack against tight ends.
Guys to avoid – Tom Brady, Chris Carson, D.K. Metcalf
Like I mentioned Brady is the second-most expensive quarterback, and I don't see any way you could play him here. He finished the season hot, but his last four games came against lifeless Falcons, Lions, and Vikings defenses. He struggled all year long when under pressure, and he should see a lot of it here from Chase Young and co.
I also can't roster Carson. He's the second-priciest running back behind only Taylor, but he hasn't topped 11 PPR points in three straight games. In Week 17, he got only 11 carries. The Rams are very stout against the run, so I don't see him breaking out. I'm not paying up for Metcalf either, given how he has struggled against Jalen Ramsey in both meetings with Los Angeles this season.
Want more NFL advice all season long? Visit our 'NFL picks' page for breakdowns and picks of every game each week.
What is NFL DFS
NFL DFS is an NFL Daily Fantasy Sports contest.
So what is a Daily Fantasy Sports contest you may ask?
The main difference between a Daily Fantasy Sports contest and a more traditional fantasy football contest, as the name suggests, is the length in time in which it is played over. NFL DFS contests are accelerated, fast-paced contests typically played over either a day or an NFL game week, rather than the season-long contests you may be accustomed to.
You'll enter a contest, and draft a team, within a set budget, with each player's price set depending on their week's matchup and recent performances. Point scoring is fairly traditional with touchdowns, yards, and receptions to the fore.
How to Win DFS NFL
As with sports betting, there are many different strategies and ways that can improve your chances of winning. Here's a couple of strategies to try out in your next NFL DFS contest and improve your chances of winning.
Correlated Plays
Most people will start their contest by picking a QB they like and build a team around the position. Chances are if he has a great game, one of his targets will do too. By picking two correlated players, for example, Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill, you can score off both players on the same play if they hit for a big touchdown. Its a higher risk high reward option because it can go either way, but by correlating your picks, the chances are, if one hits, they'll both hit.
Understand the Scoring Systems
It may sound obvious, but some contests will score differently. The most notable difference being PPR contests – Points Per Reception – In this instance, you'll want to look player target stats, with a player catching 10 passes for 100 yards being way more valuable than a player that catches two passes for the same yards.
In certain teams, schemes, and matchups this can add considerable value to a slot receiver, for example. Julian Edelman has been a prime example over the last decade, who, while he won't always go off with 100+ yard games, he'll always be picking up additional points per reception.
Pay attention to the weekly team and player news
Unfortunately, injuries are part of the NFL, and it's important to keep tabs with the week's team and player news, particularly if a big name is lost to injury. The dollar values of players are very rarely updated after injuries so the next man up can we worth his weight in gold.
While it varies by position, the running back spot can be particularly fruitful in this instance and you can find yourself a bargain pick, freeing up space for those top players at other positions.
How to Analyze NFL week to week for DFS
Matchups are everything in NFL DFS contests and fortunately, there is a wealth of information available for you to use to find the best ones.
Team stats are always a great starting point. Some teams will defend the pass better than the run and vice versa, make the most of these to find players in matchups with plenty of upsides.
You also want to look at the team they play for, there's little point picking up a receiver in a team that patently likes to run the ball more than they like to throw it.
Use the sportsbook lines to your advantage. The sportsbook lines have an incredible level of accuracy in predicting how a game will go and whether you'll see a shootout or a low scoring game. While it's no exact science, and yes, the sportsbooks can get it wrong, it's a good way of gauging which games could see the most points and focusing on some players from that matchup.
How to Find Value in NFL DFS
Value in a DFS contest is quite simply how many points a player can get vs how many dollars he costs to draft. One great way of determining value is to utilize the various player stat projection tools out there, including our very own NFL computer picks, and compare it to the player's draft price.
Our NFL computer picks use a wealth of statistical data to simulate scenarios and provide the best player and team projections that can be used for your NFL DFS contest and sports betting.
You can simply take players' projected stat lines and divide it by his price to determine a projected DFS value.
For example, if a QB is projected 300 yards passing, 2 passing touchdowns, 20 rushing yards, and a rushing touchdown this would equate to 31 DFS points. If the QB costs $10,000 you can divide his price by his projected points, in this case, $322 per point, and get a metric you can use to compare players to determine their value.
Pickswise is the home of free NFL Predictions and NFL Odds. Check out the latest NFL Prop Bets and NFL Parlays as well as expert NFL Underdog Picks and NFL Computer Picks.
Last updated: Fri 8th January 2021
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I'm encouraged any time government functions. We're a very philanthropic society. We always want people to have safety nets. Medicaid is meant to be a temporary measure to provide benefits for people who are in difficult circumstances. It's not meant to be going on forever.
— Scott Brown, when Politico reporter Kyle Cheney asked him whether he supports New Hampshire's Medicaid expansion.
So if he's elected to the Senate he'll propose a really large increase in the minimum wage. Expect Walmart and McDonald's to make sizable donations to Jeanne Shaheen's reelection campaign committee. Luckily for us Dems, they're people and can do that.