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Saturday, March 10, 2018
Thursday, March 8, 2018
15 Remarkable Women We Overlooked in Our Obituaries
By AMISHA PADNANI and JESSICA BENNETT MARCH 8, 2018
Obituary writing is more about life than death: the last word, a testament to a human contribution.Yet who gets remembered — and how — inherently involves judgment. To look back at the obituary archives can, therefore, be a stark lesson in how society valued various achievements and achievers.
Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries: of heads of state, opera singers, the inventor of Stove Top stuffing and the namer of the Slinky. The vast majority chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones; even in the last two years, just over one in five of our subjects were female.
Charlotte Brontë wrote "Jane Eyre"; Emily Warren Roebling oversaw construction of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband fell ill; Madhubala transfixed Bollywood; Ida B. Wells campaigned against lynching. Yet all of their deaths went unremarked in our pages, until now.
Below you'll find obituaries for these and others who left indelible marks but were nonetheless overlooked. We'll be adding to this collection each week, as Overlooked becomes a regular feature in the obituaries section, and expanding our lens beyond women.
You can use this form to nominate candidates for future "Overlooked" obits. Read an essay from our obituaries editor about how he approaches subjects and learn more about how the project came to be.
Ida B. Wells, one of the nation's most influential investigative reporters, in 1920. Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
1862-1931
Ida B. Wells
Took on racism in the Deep South
with powerful reporting on lynchings.
with powerful reporting on lynchings.
By CAITLIN DICKERSON MARCH 8, 2018
It was not all that unusual when, in 1892, a mob dragged Thomas Moss out of a Memphis jail in his pajamas and shot him to death over a feud that began with a game of marbles. But his lynching changed history because of its effect on one of the nation's most influential journalists, who was also the godmother of his first child: Ida B. Wells.
"It is with no pleasure that I have dipped my hands in the corruption here exposed," Wells wrote in 1892 in the introduction to "Southern Horrors," one of her seminal works about lynching, "Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so."
"It is with no pleasure that I have dipped my hands in the corruption here exposed," Wells wrote in 1892 in the introduction to "Southern Horrors," one of her seminal works about lynching, "Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so."
Qiu Jin, in an undated image, defied prevailing gender and class norms by unbinding her feet, cross-dressing and leaving her young family to pursue an education abroad. Paul Fearn/Alamy
c. 1875-1907
Qiu Jin
A feminist poet and revolutionary who became
a martyr known as China's 'Joan of Arc.'
a martyr known as China's 'Joan of Arc.'
By AMY QIN MARCH 8, 2018
With her passion for wine, swords and bomb making, Qiu Jin was unlike most women born in late 19th-century China. As a girl, she wrote poetry and studied Chinese martial heroines like Hua Mulan (yes, that Mulan) fantasizing about one day seeing her own name in the history books.
But her ambitions ran up against China's deeply rooted patriarchal society, which held that a woman's place remained in the home. Undeterred, Qiu rose to become an early and fierce advocate for the liberation of Chinese women, defying prevailing Confucian gender and class norms by unbinding her feet, cross-dressing and leaving her young family to pursue an education abroad.
But her ambitions ran up against China's deeply rooted patriarchal society, which held that a woman's place remained in the home. Undeterred, Qiu rose to become an early and fierce advocate for the liberation of Chinese women, defying prevailing Confucian gender and class norms by unbinding her feet, cross-dressing and leaving her young family to pursue an education abroad.
An illustration of Mary Ewing Outerbridge as it appeared in the book "Big Apple Almanac."
1852-1886
Mary Ewing Outerbridge
Established what may have been
America's first tennis court in the 1870s.
America's first tennis court in the 1870s.
By AMISHA PADNANI MARCH 8, 2018
Mary Ewing Outerbridge didn't have an easy time bringing tennis to America in 1874.
First she had to get past customs agents. And they were suspicious. What was this large net? Clearly it wasn't for fishing, they said. And what were these stringed things with long handles?
First she had to get past customs agents. And they were suspicious. What was this large net? Clearly it wasn't for fishing, they said. And what were these stringed things with long handles?
Diane Arbus at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970, holding a copy of "Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962." Stephen A. Frank
1923-1971
Diane Arbus
A photographer whose portraits have
compelled or repelled generations of viewers.
compelled or repelled generations of viewers.
By JAMES ESTRIN MARCH 8, 2018
Diane Arbus was a daughter of privilege who spent much of her adult life documenting those on the periphery of society. Since she killed herself in 1971, her unblinking portraits have made her a seminal figure in modern-day photography and an influence on three generations of photographers, though she is perhaps just as famous for her unconventional lifestyle and her suicide.
Her work continues to spark fierce debate among photographers and intellectuals. Are her portraits — of circus performers, transvestites, mentally disabled people and others — empathetic acknowledgments of a shared humanity, or are they exploitative depictions that seize upon their subjects' oddities to shock her audience? After her death, many critics who fancy themselves armchair psychiatrists have tried to analyze her impulses, searching for the role these encounters played in Arbus's psyche.
Her work continues to spark fierce debate among photographers and intellectuals. Are her portraits — of circus performers, transvestites, mentally disabled people and others — empathetic acknowledgments of a shared humanity, or are they exploitative depictions that seize upon their subjects' oddities to shock her audience? After her death, many critics who fancy themselves armchair psychiatrists have tried to analyze her impulses, searching for the role these encounters played in Arbus's psyche.
Marsha P. Johnson in Greenwich Village in 1988. After graduating from high school in Elizabeth, N.J., she moved to New York with $15 and a bag of clothes. Randy Wicker
1945-1992
Marsha P. Johnson
A transgender pioneer and activist who was
a fixture of Greenwich Village street life.
a fixture of Greenwich Village street life.
By SEWELL CHAN MARCH 8, 2018
Marsha P. Johnson was an activist, a prostitute, a drag performer and, for nearly three decades, a fixture of street life in Greenwich Village. She was a central figure in a gay liberation movement energized by the 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn. She was a model for Andy Warhol. She battled severe mental illness. She was usually destitute and, for much of her life, effectively homeless.
When she died at 46, under murky circumstances, in summer 1992, Johnson was mourned by her many friends, but her death did not attract much notice in the mainstream press.
When she died at 46, under murky circumstances, in summer 1992, Johnson was mourned by her many friends, but her death did not attract much notice in the mainstream press.
Sylvia Plath in an undated photo. As she grappled with the rejection of editors and her husband, the poet Ted Hughes, Plath spent her last months writing the poems that would secure her literary reputation. Bettmann
1932-1963
Sylvia Plath
A postwar poet unafraid to confront her own despair.
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS MARCH 8, 2018
She made sure to spare the children, leaving milk and bread for the two toddlers to find when they woke up. She stuffed the cracks of the doors and windows with cloths and tea towels. Then she turned on the gas.
On the morning of Feb. 11, 1963, a Monday, a nurse found the poet Sylvia Plath in her flat on Fitzroy Road in London, an address where W.B. Yeats had once lived. She was "lying on the floor of the kitchen with her head resting on the oven," according to a local paper, the St. Pancras Chronicle.
On the morning of Feb. 11, 1963, a Monday, a nurse found the poet Sylvia Plath in her flat on Fitzroy Road in London, an address where W.B. Yeats had once lived. She was "lying on the floor of the kitchen with her head resting on the oven," according to a local paper, the St. Pancras Chronicle.
Henrietta Lacks in a family photo. HeLa, the cell line named for her, has been at the core of treatments for ailments like hemophilia, herpes, influenza and leukemia. Lacks Family/The Henrietta Lacks Foundation, via Associated Press
1920-1951
Henrietta Lacks
Cancer cells were taken from her body without
permission. They led to a medical revolution.
permission. They led to a medical revolution.
By ADEEL HASSAN MARCH 8, 2018
She never traveled farther than Baltimore from her family home in southern Virginia, but her cells have traveled around the earth and far above it, too.
She was buried in an unmarked grave, but the trillions of those cells — generated from a tiny patch taken from her body — are labeled in university labs and biotechnology companies across the world, where they continue to spawn and to play the critical role in a 67-year parade of medical advances.
She was buried in an unmarked grave, but the trillions of those cells — generated from a tiny patch taken from her body — are labeled in university labs and biotechnology companies across the world, where they continue to spawn and to play the critical role in a 67-year parade of medical advances.
Madhubala's natural, understated acting style brought her equal success in serious social dramas as well as in lighthearted comedies and period pieces. James Burke/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
1933-1969
Madhubala
A Bollywood legend whose tragic
life mirrored Marilyn Monroe's.
life mirrored Marilyn Monroe's.
By AISHA KHAN MARCH 8, 2018
It was probably the first ghost story in Indian cinema. A bewildered young man in a mansion chasing glimpses of an ethereal, veiled beauty. The movie, "Mahal," was a huge success, making the lead actress, Madhubala, who was barely 16, a superstar overnight.
Nearly seven decades later, strains of the film's signature song, "Aayega aane wala" (He will come), are instantly recognizable to most Indians, evoking the suspenseful tale of lost love and reincarnation.
Nearly seven decades later, strains of the film's signature song, "Aayega aane wala" (He will come), are instantly recognizable to most Indians, evoking the suspenseful tale of lost love and reincarnation.
Oil portrait of Emily Warren Roebling by Charles-Émile-Auguste Carolus-Duran, 1896. Roebling was once described as a woman of "strong character" with an "almost masculine intellect." Brooklyn Museum
1843-1903
Emily Warren Roebling
Oversaw the construction of the Brooklyn
Bridge after her engineer husband fell ill.
Bridge after her engineer husband fell ill.
By JESSICA BENNETT MARCH 8, 2018
It was not customary for a woman to accompany a man to a construction site in the late 19th century. Petticoats tended to get in the way of physical work.
But when Washington A. Roebling, the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, fell ill, it was his wife, Emily Warren Roebling, who stepped in — managing, liaising and politicking between city officials, workers, and her husband's bedside to see the world's first steel-wire suspension bridge to completion. She would become the first person to cross the bridge, too — carrying a rooster with her, as the story has it, for good luck.
But when Washington A. Roebling, the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, fell ill, it was his wife, Emily Warren Roebling, who stepped in — managing, liaising and politicking between city officials, workers, and her husband's bedside to see the world's first steel-wire suspension bridge to completion. She would become the first person to cross the bridge, too — carrying a rooster with her, as the story has it, for good luck.
Nella Larsen's fiction is read today in American literature and black studies courses. Carl Van Vechten and Van Vechten Trust
1891-1964
Nella Larsen
A Harlem Renaissance-era writer whose heritage
informed her modernist take on the topic of race.
informed her modernist take on the topic of race.
By BONNIE WERTHEIM MARCH 8, 2018
When Nella Larsen died, in 1964, she left little behind: a ground-floor apartment, two published novels, some short stories, a few letters. She was childless, divorced and estranged from her half sister, who, in some accounts, upon learning she was to inherit $35,000 of Larsen's savings, denied knowing the writer existed.
It was a fitting end for a woman whose entire life had been a story of swift erasure.
It was a fitting end for a woman whose entire life had been a story of swift erasure.
Ada Lovelace's work was rediscovered in the mid-20th century, inspiring the Defense Department to name a programming language after her.
1815-1852
Ada Lovelace
A gifted mathematician who is now
recognized as the first computer programmer.
recognized as the first computer programmer.
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER MARCH 8, 2018
A century before the dawn of the computer age, Ada Lovelace imagined the modern-day, general-purpose computer. It could be programmed to follow instructions, she wrote in 1843. It could not just calculate but also create, as it "weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves."
The computer she was writing about, the British inventor Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, was never built. But her writings about computing have earned Lovelace — who died of uterine cancer in 1852 at age 36 — recognition as the first computer programmer.
The computer she was writing about, the British inventor Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, was never built. But her writings about computing have earned Lovelace — who died of uterine cancer in 1852 at age 36 — recognition as the first computer programmer.
Margaret Abbott's portrait was done in 1903 by the well-known artist Charles Dana Gibson, three years after her victory in France. She never knew that she had won the Olympic championship. USGA Museum
1878-1955
Margaret Abbott
The first American woman to win an Olympic championship.
By MARGALIT FOX MARCH 8, 2018
The first American woman to win an Olympic championship died without ever knowing what she had achieved.
That woman, Margaret Abbott, won the ladies' golf competition, as the event was genteelly known, at the 1900 Games in Paris. She received a gilded porcelain bowl, a smattering of coverage in the newspapers and then nothing.
That woman, Margaret Abbott, won the ladies' golf competition, as the event was genteelly known, at the 1900 Games in Paris. She received a gilded porcelain bowl, a smattering of coverage in the newspapers and then nothing.
Behind Overlooked
- How one editor's personal thoughts on diversity led to Overlooked. Also, a look at how obituaries are chosen and why most are still about white men. Learn more about The New York Times Gender Initiative here.
- Editors
- Amisha Padnani
- Jessica Bennett
- Kaly Soto
- Kathleen A. Flynn
- Destinée-Charisse Royal
- Maya Salam
- Ed Shanahan
- Susanna Timmons
- Amy Virshup
- Photo Editors
- Sandra Stevenson
- Beth Flynn
- Nakyung Han
- Art Direction
- Antonio De Luca
- Agnes Lee
- Research
- Albert Sun
- Doris Burke
- Jeff Roth
- Online Production
- Umi Syam
- Meghan Louttit
- Print Production
- Fred Bierman
- Andrew Sondern
- Special Thanks
- William McDonald
- William O'Donnell
- James Nieves
- Susan Wessling
- Video footage: Madhubala in "Mahal," produced by Bombay Talkies studio in 1949. Alice Guy Blaché shooting a scene for a film in 1906 distributed by Gaumont Pathé Archives. Annemarie Schwarzenbach in "Une Suisse Rebelle, Annemarie Schwarzenbach 1908-1942," produced by Troubadour Films. Madhubala's obitutary is in this collection. Obituaries are planned for Schwarzenbach and Blaché.
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We Remain Stuck At The Age When We Received The Least Of Love - Conscious Reminder
I often come across people who are 20, 30, 40 years old, but that's just on the outside. Deep inside they seem to be stuck in early childhood and still expect the love they didn't get. And they stay there until they learn to love themselves.
Different ages have different needs, meaning that the attention and love we expect from our parents change with each year that passes. We simply have different needs and requirements.Early childhood is the period where trust is being built, so, love at this age represents compassionate concern of the mother about the child's needs.
If the mother was unreliable, she dismissed the child, etc., her behavior can make the child worry and feel afraid for her or his well-being.
In adulthood, it is difficult to make contact with these people. In relationships they often test and question their partners because of their trust issues. When it comes to intimate relationships, they may feel helpless and vulnerable.
A little later, between the second and third year of life, the child learns to be independent and develop self-control. If parents hindered development in any way, for example, they were impatiently and persistently doing what a child could easily do by him/herself, or, expecting the child to do things he or she was unable to do alone – then the feeling of shame appears.
And if parents are constantly overprotective of the child, which leaves them blind to their kid's real needs, then the child starts to doubt his or her abilities, the ability to control their surroundings and him/herself.
Even as adults, these people, instead of being confident, they think that others look at them with judgement and disapproval. Obsessive-compulsive symptoms or paranoid fears caused by trauma can also occur in such people.
To love a child aged 3-6 is to encourage his/her independent actions and support his/her initiatives, as well as the approval of their curiosity and creativity. If the parents don't allow the child to act alone, in response to their needs, they punish him/her too much, feelings of guilt develop.
And then in adulthood, such "big kids" don't have enough focus on their goals and determination to set realistic aims and achieve them. In addition, a constant sense of guilt can cause passivity, impotence or frigidity, as well as psychopathic behavior.
During school age values are formed. If you have doubted the capacity of your child or his/her status among peers, it may discourage him/her from further learning, it may also create a feeling of inferiority, which will later kill his security in his ability to function effectively and exists in the world.
If children experience school achievement and work as the sole criterion for judging their values, as adults, they can become "workforce" in the established hierarchical society.
I suggest that you give your inner child a hand and help him/her grow. To do this, find a picture of yourself as a child or just imagine a child living in you. How old is he/she? What does he/she look like? What is he/she thinking? Who's next to him/her? What's the matter with him/her? ..
Talk to your inner child …
Take paper and two pencils of different colors: one in your right hand, the other in the left. If you are right-handed, write with your right hand on behalf of your adult self, and use your left hand on behalf of your inner child. If you are left-handed, do the opposite.
In your conversation, you and your inner child are alone. Who will make contact first? When will you start communicating? The answers you'll get might be unexpected.
Now that you found your inner child and started talking to him/her, it is time to establish a relationship with him/her. Communicate with the kid in there as much as you like. Ask him/her what he misses. Give him/her what he/she is looking for. Call him/her by his/her name, tell him/her kind, loving words, give him/her your love. Ask him something.
Be the parent you once needed.
∼If you like our article, give Conscious Reminder a thumbs up, and help us spread LOVE & LIGHT!∼
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White Christians are now a minority of the U.S. population, survey says
NEW YORK — The share of Americans who identify as white and Christian has dropped below 50 percent, a transformation fueled by immigration and by growing numbers of people who reject organized religion altogether, according to a new survey released Wednesday.Christians overall remain a large majority in the U.S., at nearly 70 percent of Americans. However, white Christians, once predominant in the country's religious life, now comprise only 43 percent of the population, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, a polling organization based in Washington. Four decades ago, about eight in 10 Americans were white Christians.
The change has occurred across the spectrum of Christian traditions in the U.S., including sharp drops in membership in predominantly white mainline Protestant denominations such as Presbyterians and Lutherans; an increasing Latino presence in the Roman Catholic Church as some non-Hispanic white Catholics leave; and shrinking ranks of white evangelicals, who until recently had been viewed as immune to decline.
The trends identified in the survey are fueling anxiety about the place of Christians in society, especially among evangelicals, alarmed by support for gay marriage and by the increasing share of Americans — about one-quarter — who don't identify with a faith group. President Donald Trump, who repeatedly promised to protect the religious liberty of Christians, drew 80 percent of votes by white evangelicals, a constituency that remains among his strongest supporters.
About 17 percent of Americans now identify as white evangelical, compared to 23 percent a decade ago, according to the survey. Membership in the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant group, dropped to 15.2 million last year, its lowest number since 1990, according to an analysis by Chuck Kelley, president of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
The trends identified in the survey are fueling anxiety about the place of Christians in society, especially among evangelicals, alarmed by support for gay marriage and by the increasing share of Americans — about one-quarter — who don't identify with a faith group.
The PRRI survey of more than 100,000 people was conducted from January 2016 to January of this year and has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.4 percentage points. Previous surveys had found that the Protestant majority that shaped the nation's history had dropped below 50 percent sometime around 2008. The PRRI poll released Wednesday included a more in-depth focus on race and religion. Jones said growth among Latino Christians, and stability in the numbers of African-American Christians, had partly obscured the decline among white Christians.
The survey also found that more than a third of all Republicans say they are white evangelicals, and nearly three-quarter identify as white Christians. By comparison, white Christians have become a minority in the Democratic Party, shrinking from 50 percent a decade ago, to 29 percent now. Forty percent of Democrats say they have no religious affiliation.
Among American Catholics, 55 percent now identify as white, compared to 87 percent 25 years ago, amid the growing presence of Latino Catholics, according to the report. Over the last decade, the share of white Catholics in the U.S. population dropped from 16 percent to 11 percent. Over the same period, white mainline Protestants declined from 18 percent to 13 percent of all Americans.
Left: The share of Americans who identify as white and Christian has dropped below 50 percent, a transformation fueled by immigration and by growing numbers of people who reject organized religion altogether, according to a new survey released Wednesday. Photo by REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz.
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Monday, March 5, 2018
Let Guillermo Del Toro finally make ‘At the Mountains of Madness’
Culture
After winning big at the Oscars, Del Toro should get to revive his most ambitious project.
The most cherished attempt to bring Lovecraft to the big screen is a movie that was never even made: Guillermo Del Toro's long-developed, eventually-abandoned take on "At the Mountains of Madness", one of Lovecraft's most iconic stories. In the story, an expedition to Antarctica finds an ancient, undisturbed city filled with alien life forms, suggesting a stranger precedent to humanity. The expedition goes… not well, as you might imagine. People die, and are driven insane. Horrific monsters emerge from the abyss, ready to conquer life on Earth. Is there a happy ending? Of course not!
The frozen landscape, the alien biology, the daunting architecture — all of this was fertile territory for Del Toro's strengths as a director who can convincingly give fantastical concepts the dramatic heft they deserved. In 2006, he wrote a script, and proposed it to Warner Bros. as an R-rated horror movie with a giant budget, which received moral and financial support from Tom Cruise and James Cameron. His ideas were incredibly detailed and ambitious, prompting salivation from Lovecraft readers who knew from movies like Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy how Del Toro had the right sensibility to bring Lovecraft's daunting concepts to life.
Del Toro, too, has always been open to the possibility that the movie could come back, given his years-long passion for making this work. The Oscars are silly, but their utility is giving creators the momentum they need to bring their more niche ideas to live. Pumping $150 million into this story, brought to life by one of the best directors around — come on, that's a much better use of cash than King Arthur: The Last Sword.
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Sunday, March 4, 2018
The Powerful Global Spy Alliance You Never Knew Existed
It is one of the world's most powerful alliances. And yet most people have probably never heard of it, because its existence is a closely guarded government secret.The "SIGINT Seniors" is a spy agency coalition that meets annually to collaborate on global security issues. It has two divisions, each focusing on different parts of the world: SIGINT Seniors Europe and SIGINT Seniors Pacific. Both are led by the U.S. National Security Agency, and together they include representatives from at least 17 other countries. Members of the group are from spy agencies that eavesdrop on communications – a practice known as "signals intelligence," or SIGINT.
Details about the meetings of the SIGINT Seniors are disclosed in a batch of classified documents from the NSA's internal newsletter SIDToday, provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden and published today by The Intercept. The documents shine light on the secret history of the coalition, the issues that the participating agencies have focused on in recent years, and the systems that allow allied countries to share sensitive surveillance data with each other.
The SIGINT Seniors Europe was formed in 1982, amid the Cold War. Back then, the alliance had nine members, whose primary focus was on uncovering information about the Soviet Union's military. Following the attacks on the U.S. in September 2001, the group grew to 14 and began focusing its efforts on counterterrorism.
The core participants of the Seniors Europe are the surveillance agencies from the so-called Five Eyes: the NSA and its counterparts from the U.K., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. As of April 2013, the other members were intelligence agencies from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden.
The alliance – which the NSA sometimes refers to as the "14 Eyes" – has collaborated to monitor communications during major European events, such as the Olympics in 2004 (hosted in Greece), the Winter Olympics in 2006 (hosted in Italy), and the soccer World Cup in summer 2006 (hosted in Germany). Between 2006 and 2007, as part of a counterterrorism operation, the agencies began working on "exploitation of the Internet," which was described by the NSA as a "huge step forward" for the group, because some members of the alliance had previously been "reluctant to acknowledge there was such a thing as the Internet."
A Canadian Navy sailor on board a helicopter patrols the waters off the coast of Somalia as they escort a World Food Program ship on Sept. 17, 2008, providing an anti-pirate escort for the ship taking food aid to Somalia.
Photo: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images
The documents indicate that the Seniors Europe hold an annual conference, each time in a different location. In 2013, for instance, the group gathered in Sweden; in 2011, it met in the U.K; in 2010, in Germany; and in 2009, in Canada. In 2013, the NSA expressed an interest in creating a permanent facility that would host representatives from the Seniors Europe in a joint collaborative space. The NSA discussed the idea with its U.K. counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The British were "all in" on the proposal, according to the NSA. However, from some unnamed members of the SIGINT Seniors, there was "persistent pushback" on the plan.
The NSA thought the facility would be best hosted in the U.K., as this would "be optimal in terms of having the most flexibility in tuning the operation to benefit the Five Eyes." The agency also suggested the idea of France potentially hosting the unit, but outlined its reservations about setting up the spy hub in continental Europe. "Some European nations may be leery about hosting a facility in their nation," the NSA noted, partly due to "associated concerns for European human rights laws." (Both NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, declined to answer questions for this story. GCHQ issued a statement asserting that it adheres to "a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate.")
The Pacific division of the SIGINT Seniors is younger than the European branch. The NSA formed it in 2005, with the aim of "establishing a collaborative effort to fight terrorism in the Asia-Pacific region." In March 2007, the NSA said that it was in the process of "raising ideas for expanding [SIGINT Seniors Pacific's] intelligence focus beyond counterterrorism."
The NSA was passing the Indians selected top-secret material, and India began leaking some of the intelligence.The founder members of the Pacific alliance were the spy agencies from the Five Eyes, as well as South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. By 2013, France and India had joined the Pacific group. The NSA was particularly keen on having India on board as part of a broader U.S. government effort to improve relations with the country, and "felt strongly that India's participation in multilateral intelligence sharing would help mature its Indian SIGINT agencies as well as provide regional [counterterrorism] expertise." In March 2008, then-NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander led a delegation of officials – including representatives from Singapore and New Zealand – to New Delhi, where he asked India's spy agencies if they would like to join forces. Three months later, the Indians accepted.
The Pacific group used a system called CRUSHED ICE to share information. According to an NSA document dated from November 2007, CRUSHED ICE is a secure network that enables sharing of secret intelligence, collected from intercepted communications, about counterterrorism. "The system allows for collaboration by way of voice, binary-file/email exchanges, analysis and reporting, graphics and mapping, communities of interest, collection management, and other applications as needed," the November 2007 document stated.
For the countries invited to participate in the SIGINT Seniors, there are obvious benefits. They can learn new surveillance techniques from the world's most powerful spy agencies and at the same time, obtain information about their own countries or regions that they otherwise may have been unable to access. But not all nations who have been invited to join the alliance have jumped on board. According to an NSA document from March 2007, Japan refused to sign up to the Pacific group, expressing concerns that "unintended disclosure of its participation would be too high a risk."
A downside of SIGINT Seniors is the risk that a partner will mishandle sensitive information. This happened on at least one occasion with India. By the time terrorists had struck Mumbai in a series of attacks in November 2008, the country had been admitted to the Pacific group. The NSA was passing the Indians selected top-secret material, such as interrogation reports and recordings of intercepted phone calls. In the weeks following the Mumbai incident, India began leaking some of the intelligence — "at times it seemed a daily occurrence," the NSA's country desk officer complained. The NSA limited the provisioning of top-secret information to India after repeated warnings and meetings left it dissatisfied. Still, the NSA, which had deployed analysts to India, remained hopeful Indian intelligence agencies would "mature … into the partners NSA needs in South Asia."
The SIGINT Seniors likely remains active today and has probably grown its capabilities in recent years. According to the 2013 "black budget" – a portion of the U.S. federal budget dedicated to secret intelligence-gathering work – the NSA was that year working to bolster both the European and Pacific branches of the SIGINT Seniors, and planned to "expand the level of cooperation on [counterterrorism] and explore other potential areas of collaboration."
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Documents published with this article:
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Top photo: Australian Defense Facilities Pine Gap, Feb. 19, 2016.
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Study reveals the similarity between psychedelic states and dreaming
February 16, 2018
The altered states of consciousness produced by psychedelic drugs are very similar to dreams, according to new research published in Frontiers in Neuroscience.
"I am puzzled about the range of different experiences a human being can have throughout his or her lifetime. Here I mean qualitatively different experiences, this is not eating two different ice-cream flavours, but being in very different states such as awake, dreaming, deep sleep, coma, deep meditation, and under the influence of different psychoactive drugs," said study author Enzo Tagliazucchi of the Brain and Spine Institute in Paris.
"My hypothesis is that there is a reduced number of these states, much lower than what many neuroscientists think, so that some states we label as different are in fact very close in terms of 'what they feel like' and in terms of the underlying brain physiology — you simply don't recognise this fact because you reach those places coming from different routes.
"Since many authors have assigned a 'dreamlike quality' to the psychedelic experience, I thought this was a good place to start, and I decided to perform a formal comparison of how these two brain states 'feel like'."
The researchers collected descriptions of drug experiences from the website Erowid.org, which contains about 20,000 first-person articles outlining the effects of more than 100 psychoactive substances. Using a language processing technique known as latent semantic analysis, these drug reports were compared to dream reports obtained from the website DreamJournal.net.
Tagliazucchi and his colleague, Camila Sanz of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, found that psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybe mushrooms produced experiences that were the most similar to experiences reported during dreaming.
On the other hand, sedatives, stimulants, antipsychotics, and antidepressants lead to experiences that were the least similar to those reported during dreaming.
"The average law-abiding citizen in the industrialised Western society does not know what the psychedelic experience feels like," Tagliazucchi told PsyPost. "Most people are aware that a molecule called 'LSD' had a profound impact in the society, culture and politics of USA and the world at large during the '60s. And even if they have read detailed descriptions of what happens after ingesting LSD, in spite of these theoretical knowledge, the first-hand experience is unknown to most of society.
"LSD and other similar psychedelics have been illegal since the late 60s, so this experience is basically outside the law. I would like people to realise that they know much about the psychedelic state, in fact more than what they believe they do, because most people dream frequently. People have been scared of 'bad LSD trips' by the media for decades, but those bad trips could amount to an experience similar to an intense nightmare – and in both cases no permanent psychological trauma is caused."
"In general, there is strong evidence that LSD is a very safe drug both from the psychological and physical perspective, and many scientists and medical doctors worldwide are proposing a change in the current legislation," Tagliazucchi said. "Perhaps if we acknowledge that psychedelics lead to an experience similar to dreaming, this transition can be accelerated. Since the government is not going to outlaw dreaming, then maybe the ban on psychedelics has to be-reconsidered."
The study, like all research, has limitations.
"Other drugs were similar to dreams, including dissociative anesthetics such as ketamine, PCP ('angel dust') and the toxic deliriant plants of the Solanacea family (Datura, Brugmansia)," Tagliazucchi explained. "There are many reasons for this and I think the conclusion is that no psychoactive substance yields an experience exactly like that of dreams.
"However, I do believe that lucid dreams are extremely close to the experience elicited by LSD and other psychedelics. Lucidity is key to the psychedelic experience: users do not lose track of undergoing an altered state of consciousness. However, this can happen with deliriant plants such as those I mentioned above."
"Also, there are difficulties in using self-reported narratives coming from a large database of reports," Tagliazucchi added. "People may fail to properly identify the drug they have ingested or its identity might be elusive even to themselves. Since there is no 'placebo', expectation effects can happen, e.g. imagine I have read in the past that LSD results in a dreamlike experience, so then I write a report about my LSD experience and I exaggerate this dreamlike character.
"These limitations can be overcome using more careful experimental designs. The advantage of using data from webpages such as Erowid is the sheer amount of information that can be downloaded – thousands of reports of hundreds of substances. This information is impossible to obtain in a controlled laboratory setting."
"This study is the first but others will come in the future in which we will examine different conscious states (what I call 'comparative phenomenology')," Tagliazucchi concluded. "I am interested, for instance, in whether psychotic episodes in patients resemble the experiences elicited by certain drugs and what that can tells us about the underlying neurochemical causes of those episodes. We have many hypothesis and data and at this point this is open doors for us – we need to get to work and perform the studies. I hope I can come back to you soon with exciting and novel results."
The study was titled: "The Experience Elicited by Hallucinogens Presents the Highest Similarity to Dreaming within a Large Database of Psychoactive Substance Reports".
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