Sunday, October 7, 2018

The junk science Republicans used to undermine Ford and help save Kavanaugh

The junk science Republicans used to undermine Ford and help save Kavanaugh

Avi Selk

Christine Blasey Ford closes her eyes as she is sworn in before testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill on Sept. 27. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)© JIM BOURG/Reuters Christine Blasey Ford closes her eyes as she is sworn in before testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill on Sept. 27. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

The politically convenient, scientifically baseless theory that sexual assault so traumatized Christine Blasey Ford she mixed up her attacker is now something like common wisdom for many Republicans.

President Trump explicitly endorsed the theory Saturday, shortly after Brett M. Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed as a Supreme Court judge, telling reporters he was “100 percent” sure Ford accused Kavanaugh in error.

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In days leading up to the confirmation vote, the same notion was implicit in the rationale of every senator who attempted to defend Kavanaugh without wholly dismissing Ford’s accusations — her vivid testimony that he pinned her to a bed and tried to rape her when they were teens in the 1980s:

  • “I believe that she is a survivor of a sexual assault and that this trauma has upended her life,” said Susan Collins (R-Maine), who gave Kavanaugh his crucial 50th vote.
  • “Something happened to Dr. Ford; I don’t believe the facts show it was Brett Kavanaugh," said Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), the only Democrat to support the nominee.
  • “That would get me off the hook of having to make a hard decision,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of Kavanaugh’s most loyal defenders. “I don’t know if this is a case of mistaken identity.”

It’s easy to forget that less than three weeks ago, when the mistaken-identity theory was first formulated, it was so widely ridiculed that a pundit who advanced it on Twitter subsequently apologized and offered to resign from his job. But for many cognitive researchers who study how memories actually form during traumatic events, the theory never stopped sounding ridiculous.

“The person lying on top of you — who she’d previously met — you’re not going to forget that,” said Richard Huganir, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “There’s a total consensus in the field of memory ... If anything, fear and trauma enhances the encoding of the memory at a molecular level."

As he and several other researchers told The Washington Post, being attacked floods the brain with chemicals, including norepinephrine, which helps people remember whatever they are focused on. (Ford, a psychologist herself, even mentioned it in her testimony.)

It’s essentially the same phenomenon that makes people forever remember what they were doing when planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, or when they learned John F. Kennedy was shot. It’s such a basic tenet of psychology and cognitive science that some researchers watched the mistaken-identity theory spread through the Senate this month with a sense of stunned dismay.

“I watched all the hearings that took place last week and was just floored at the number of people who offered that as an explanation,” said Ira Hyman, a cognitive psychologist who specializes in traumatic memories at Western Washington University.

“This story [of mistaken identity] that’s being offered here is a way of both trying to validate sexual assault and not deny it — which is a lovely change — but at the same time create a narrative that Kavanaugh couldn’t have been the person who did it," he said. "That’s just not consistent with memory research on misidentification.”

Sexual assault victims do sometimes misidentify their attackers, he noted, has but those are almost always attacks by strangers — when the victim’s hyperactive memory has no familiar face to etch into the brain.

Lila Davachi, a cognitive neuroscientist at Columbia University, analogized the traumatic memory formation process to cranking up the contrast on a photo — central details get heightened, while those in the background get washed out.

“If someone has a gun on you you’ll remember the gun. There’s a snapshot of critical features,” she said. “In this case it was a party with friends and she knew him. It is ridiculous to say she wouldn’t remember who it was."

Asked last week if she could have mistaken her attacker, Ford testified that she is “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh. She vividly recalled other details of the night — the single beer she drank at the party, music in the bedroom she was pushed into, boys laughing as she was pinned to a bed — while having no memory of how she arrived or got home.

Trump has mocked her story because of these gaps, but it’s perfectly consistent with the science of traumatic memory formation.

Mara Mather, a professor at the University of Southern California, has performed laboratory studies in which volunteers are given electric shocks or subjected to loud noises while they look at a set of symbols — to find out which ones they remember while their brains are flooded with the same chemicals released during trauma.

“ I guess the Republicans have been debating why does she forget getting home, but that sounds very plausible," she said. “It focuses the brain on whatever stands out at that moment. The things that are not standing out are even more ignored.”

Like other researchers, she could not recall a single case of a sexual assault victim misremembering a known attacker — save for rare instances in which people, often children, were coached into falsely accusing friends and family members.

“According to her account, she never forgot about this,” Mather noted. “She tried to.”

Also like other researchers, she said Kavanaugh’s memory was more likely to be suspect than Ford’s, if he was as heavy a drinker in high school as many people who knew him have alleged.

“I could see a very plausible scenario where they are both telling the truth as they know it, and he is forgetting something that happened when he was drunk,” Mather said.

In fact, Collins later explained that she believed Ford and Kavanaugh were doing just that — telling the truth — as she weighed their mutually exclusive testimonies.

“I found Dr. Ford’s testimony to be heart wrenching, painful, compelling and I believe she believes what she testified to,” the senator told CNN on Sunday morning. “Here you have two people who are each 100 percent certain of what they were saying.”

The difference between senators and scientists is that Collins, like many in her party, resolved the dilemma by assuming a fault in the victim’s memory.

“I do believe that she was assaulted,” Collins told CNN. "I don’t know by whom, and I’m not certain when, but I do not believe that he was the assailant.”

How well such logic holds up with the lay population could be put to the test as Democrats seek to punish Kavanaugh’s backers in the midterm elections and beyond. After Collins left the CNN set, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) sat down to say she found the Republican’s equivocation “even more insulting.”

Above is from:  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-junk-science-republicans-used-to-undermine-ford-and-help-save-kavanaugh/ar-BBO38Oq?ocid=spartandhp

Boone County creates Food Security plan to fight hunger


The Boone County Health Department, along with many other local organizations are working to fight hunger in the community.

Hunger doesn’t discriminate you can be young or old. Now, hunger is making its impact on Boone County.

“Many families are struggling to make ends meet and both parents are working full time jobs,” Boone County Health Department Public Health Administrator, Amanda Mehl said.

This increase in hunger is causing a large number of children and families in the community to go without food. In Boone County, over 22 percent of children are suffering from food insecurity, which means they don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

Meanwhile, 31 percent of families in Boone County are relying on snap benefits, otherwise known as food stamps.

“These issues that we are dealing with, didn’t happen over night. They’ve fostered, they’ve festered and they’ve exploded now to these staggering statistics,” Empower Boone President of the Board, Eric Miller said.

Which is why the Boone County Hunger Coalition, which is made up of local community organizations and non-profits is moving forward with it’s very own food security plan to reduce the number of hungry neighbors in the community.

“People with different backgrounds are going to be able to help us to address the issue in a more systematic way because we know that our system as a whole is failing if we have families that have these kinds of needs,” Mehl said.

The four goals of the coalition have been broken down into coordination, community outreach, education and accessibility. The group is hoping more awareness will bring in legislators and cash flow to be able to expand the services of its current facilities.

“That’s one of our biggest issues at Empower Boone is accessibility. Being up in Capron we have no transportation that is available to us,” Miller said.

However, the coalition says it’s confident this action plan will bring more awareness to the hunger issue allowing it to provide more access to fresh produce and food to those in need.

“Our job is to help our neighbors and our job is to make sure that they have what they need so that they can sustain and have a healthy life for themselves,” University of Illinois Extension Program Coordinator, Judy Hodge said.

The Boone County coalition will be working full force on its new food security action plan over the next three to five years in order to fight hunger.

Above is from:  https://wrex.com/category/2018/10/05/boone-county-creates-food-security-plan-to-fight-hunger/

Plote expansion plan raises concerns


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My View: Quarry expansion plan raises concerns about trust

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By Sherry Branson , District 3, Boone County Board

Posted Oct 5, 2018 at 6:20 PM Updated Oct 5, 2018 at 6:20 PM

Plote Construction would like to add an asphalt plant, recycling plant, concrete plant, and an industrial park to their quarry on Irene Road. I am usually pleased to see growth in our community; however, that is not the case with Plote. This company bullied their way into Boone County, by suing Boone County over our ordinance.

Former States Attorney Jim Hursh settled the case by entering into a settlement agreement with Plote. This process allowed the quarry to start its business without holding a public hearing. In other words, it allowed Plote to force its business into an area surrounded by subdivisions without giving the neighbors a chance to object.

That agreement served as a special use permit for five years and, when it expired, they were to apply for a special use permit. Not only did Plote not adhere to the conditions of the settlement agreement, Plote failed to apply for the special use permit, until they got caught.

Plote operated its business illegally for three years! Former State’s Attorney Michelle Courier caught the error when she received a letter informing her of Plote’s intent to operate with extended hours. Courier wrote them back, informing them that they had no permit, and that operating with extended hours violated their settlement agreement.

When Plote applied for the special use permit, a public hearing was held. At that hearing, the neighbors proved that Plote was non-compliant with the terms of their settlement agreement. Not wanting to put them out of business, the Boone County Board issued them a shorter 15 month “to allow the board to monitor them for compliance.” A month or two later, Plote “applied early” to renew the permit and, somehow, they were given a five-year permit.

Within 60 days of getting that permit, county officials witnessed multiple days of quarrying operations taking place outside of the allowable hours. At that point, Michelle Courier took Plote to court for violating the terms of their special use permit.

While the case was being heard, Bob Wallberg, our former County Board chairman, called Judge Rob Tobin and tried to influence the case! Judge Tobin ended the call, and disclosed the matter to the attorneys involved.

Judge Tobin also recused himself from the case and the case was reassigned to Judge Nicolosi. When Dave Zumbrum, Plote’s project engineer, was questioned under oath, he told, Judge Nicolosi that they had “one overzealous employee” who was coming to work early to fill and weigh trucks and that the employee had been disciplined.

Judge Nicolosi found them to be “in indirect civil contempt for violating an injunctive order.” Plote appealed his ruling to the Appellate Court, and the Appellate Court upheld Judge Nicolosi’s ruling. As the case continued through the court system, a new state’s attorney was elected, and eventually the case was resolved with a settlement agreement.

Now Plote is attempting to annex (or pre-annex) into Belvidere and to expand. Why? Apparently, Plote wants us to trust them to follow the rules and to be responsible with an asphalt plant. I believe that “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior” and I do not trust them.

Would you? Their hearing is scheduled with the Belvidere Planning and Zoning Commission at 6 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall, 401 Whitney Blvd. Belvidere. Please join me in voicing your concerns. Sincerely,

Sherry Branson represents District 3 on the Boone County Board.

Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/opinion/20181005/my-view-quarry-expansion-plan-raises-concerns-about-trust

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   Bonita L Gerdes published a post on Boone County Community Forum SEE: https://www.facebook.com/bccforum/inbox/959936650882394/?notif_id=1539445979453599&notif_t=page_wall&mailbox_id=338323016377097&selected_item_id=959936650882394

Boone County residents near the Irene Rd Quarry have a problem and need help/support. The owner of the quarry is attempting to annex into the city of Belvidere and for a few reasons:

They wish to obtain a THIRTY YEAR permit from the City to avoid having to reapply every 5 years to the County. When they reapply every 5 years there is an opportunity for residents to voice opinions on the lack of the quarry meeting their conditions in the permit. They want 30 years free of having to listen to the residents that are within 1 mile of the quarry.

They want to extend to an asphalt plant, recycling plant and concrete plant on the existing property. The hours of operation are requested to change to 5am to 10pm. Local residents, at least 100 homes are within 1/2 mile or less of the quarry and the blasts and smells much less the truck traffic will terribly affect all of them.

The quarry has violated conditions in the past so the outlook is quite poor. Their record with Boone County is poor at best.

At a recent Planning and Zoning Committee meeting in Belvidere one of the quarry managers was asked about another of their quarries in Huntley Il. The question was if there were complaints from the home owners around that quarry and the answer was NO. In looking at the map of that quarry I counted 12 homes within 1 mile of the quarry. Not like 100 or more here. In addition, 10 of the homes were farther from the edge of the quarry than the subdivision in Boone County. So again, not an untruth but a calculated reply.

Also, the quarry manager for the Irene Rd Quarry was asked how heavy truck traffic is now and how extending their hours of operation would increase traffic. Specifically he was asked how many trucks enter and leave the proprty daily. HE DID NOT KNOW. Think about that...he is the manager.

I personally know how tough it is to turn from Graham Rd onto Irene Rd and I travel there in mid day light. Imagine if before dawn and after dark you had to calculate turning on Graham, either direction, and avoid the trucks coming over the hill from the quarry.

I live approximately 1.5 miles directly east of the quarry and when there are blasts can clearly hear them and feel the earth shake. With the quarry expanding operations this will only be more frequent.

Please look closely at the request and the record of problems/complaints for this quarry. Allowing them to annex into Belvidere will only give them more leeway to breach their contract.

Voice your opinion at the 11/19 meeting at City Hall.