Monthly Archives: November 2016

Liberal Studies – Interdisciplinary Studies – Clayton …

Posted: November 30, 2016 at 6:44 pm

For more information, call the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies: (678) 466-4883

The Liberal Studies program allows students to create an individualized curriculum composed of courses and experiences which meet their individual career needs. This approach is different from many traditional, discipline-based baccalaureate programs which are designed in part to prepare students for advanced work in a specific academic discipline -- a major in history or biology, for example. This flexibility enables students to develop academic plans that meet the ever-changing requirements of the world of work, but it also requires careful planning. Students should clarify their career or learning goals as they begin designing the components of their program. The bachelors degree in Liberal Studies can also be an appropriate preparation for students planning to attend graduate school in certain disciplines and professions. Students may earn either a baccalaureate degree by completing a planned program of 120 semester credit hours or an associate's degree with a major in Liberal Studies upon the completion of Areas A-F of the Core Curriculum.

While this degree program is open to all qualified students, it has been designed principally to meet the higher education needs of the following two specific groups of students:

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The program allows students the opportunity to bring together -- or integrate -- courses from a wide variety of academic areas or disciplines to support their individual career goals. In addition to the courses available at Clayton State, students may elect to take courses on the campuses of the Atlanta Regional Consortium like Emory, Georgia State, or Agnes Scott, or they can take advantage of distance learning courses offered by those institutions or others. The program also integrates on-campus with community-based, experiential methods of learning. Workforce skills today require new competencies such as effective collaboration and teamwork which may not be available through classroom instruction alone; these skills must be learned, developed, and advanced in real work environments. For these reasons, internship placements which support this component are arranged for all students in the program.

Since this program was developed to allow students to design individualized curriculum plans, the first step in the application process is the identification and clarification of career goals. These goals will shape the outcomes of individual programs -- what students need to know and be able to do in order to be successful in the occupational or professional area chosen. This step is primarily the responsibility of students seeking admission to the program and will require considerable investigation and reflection prior to completion of the application process. Only if students have clear goals statements can faculty advisors effectively assist them in designing programs which are appropriate and which maximize the resources available.

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Admission to the Program: Before enrolling in BALS 3901 (Liberal Studies Internship/Practicum), students must have:

Individualized Curriculum: Students work closely with an assigned Liberal Studies advisor to develop a curriculum plan which takes advantage of the wide range of learning resources available. Courses may be drawn from any discipline, but all courses must apply toward the baccalaureate degrees at Clayton State. Courses from a career associate degree program (AAS) generally do not count toward baccalaureate degrees. Completing a degree in Liberal Studies requires completion of 120 semester hours as follows:

Completing a degree in Integrative studies requires completion of 120 semester hours as follows:

Academic Standing: A grade of C or better is required in the BALS 3901 course. Students must maintain a 2.0 overall grade point average to remain in good standing as defined by University System policy. In addition, no more than 6 semester hours of D grades can be counted in the courses that are chosen to fulfill the upper division requirements of the program.

Residency Requirement: The normal University residency requirement of 30 hours applies, with the following exceptions: (1) all BALS 3901 courses must be taken in residence at Clayton State University; and (2) 9 hours of coursework taken from schools participating in the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education (ARCHE) may be counted as in residence, provided the courses are approved in advance as part of the students Liberal Studies program of study. Note: Of the 30 hours required for residency, 21 semester hours must be 3000-4000 level courses credited toward your degree.

Liberal Studies Internship: The Liberal Studies Practicum/Internship (BALS 3901) is the principal "experiential learning" component of the program, though students may also earn additional credit via other internships or cooperative education. This seminar will normally be taken during the first term of the senior year, and the placement site will be in a professional work environment related to the interests/career goals of the individual student. Placement may be with for-profit, not-for-profit, or governmental entities as appropriate. Collaborating businesses/agencies must agree to create and supervise meaningful experiences that will allow students to observe and participate in real world projects and activities that bear directly on the challenges of the contemporary workplace. Students are permitted to complete a practicum or internship in the company where they are already employed. Students are encouraged to seek experiential opportunities outside the USA.

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The Liberal Studies program provides the opportunity for a student to work with an advisor to design a curriculum that meets the students career and educational needs. This flexibility enables students to develop academic programs that meet the ever-changing requirements of the world of work. A bachelors degree in Liberal Studies can also be designed to prepare students for graduate school in certain disciplines and professions.

Before beginning upper-division study in Liberal Studies, applicants must have:

Core Curriculum (Areas A - E) 42 hours

All Liberal Studies Core Curriculum requirements are shown in the suggested degree program.

Lower Division Core Requirements (Core Curriculum Area F) 18 hours

Humanities 3-9 hours

Any of the following 1000- or 2000-level courses: AFAM, WST, ART, CMS, COMM, THEA, ENGL, FREN, MUSC, PHIL, and SPAN

Social Sciences 3-9 hours

Any of the following 1000- or 2000-level courses: AFAM, WST, ECON, EDUC, HIST, POLS, PSYC, SOCI

Natural Sciences and Mathematics 0-6 hours

Any 1000- or 2000-level MATH courses numbered 1113 or higher not already applied to Areas A or D and/or any 1000- or 2000-level ASTR, BIOL, CHEM, or PHYS, or other science courses not already applied to Area D.

Area Major Courses 0-12 hours

Courses from Area F of any major that have not been used to satisfy other Core Curriculum category requirements.

Upper Division Required Courses 3 hours

BALS 3901, Liberal Studies Practicum/Internship 3 hours

Students may take up to 9 hours of BALS 3901, but students may only register for 1 semester of BALS 3901 per semester. Additional terms of BALS 3901 will be applied in the upper division.

Upper Division Area Major Courses 57 hours

The Liberal Studies Major requires students to complete a CSU minor program in Arts & Sciences (African-American Studies, History, English (Literature), English (Writing), Womens Studies, Communication & Media Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, Political Science, Chemistry, etc.).

Fulfilling the requirements for a minor in an area of expertise enables students to move toward achieving career and academic goals. Additional courses may be drawn from any field, but must be in the students advised program of study. No more than 18 lower division hours may be applied to this category.

Total Degree Requirements 120 hours

In order to be admitted to the upper division level of the Integrative Studies program, students must have and institutional grade point average of at least 2.0 and must maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA to progress to graduation.

For general Clayton State University admission information

visit http://admissions.clayton.edu/

or email Clayton State University info

or call (678) 466-4115

BALS Curriculum Worksheet Fall 2015

BALS Graduation Application 2015

BALS Graduation Application 2011

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Liberal Studies - Interdisciplinary Studies - Clayton ...

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Brooklyn Street | Neighborhood Alliance

Posted: at 6:42 pm

Intentional Communities/Co-housing

Some people consider an intentional/co-housing neighborhood a return to the best of small-town America.

Futurists suggest that intentional communities and co-housing options are a response to the 21st century's social, economic, and environmental challenges.

We say it's an ideal balance of privacy and community a safe, sustainable, and rewarding way to live! Imagine a neighborhood where...

We value acceptance, inclusion, and self-determination. We believe everyone deserves to be a life-long contributing member of a diverse community, and to have the opportunity to develop life-long, meaningful relationships. We know that all members of our community have something to learn from one another, and that everyone should have "a voice at the table". We enjoy life sharing!

Our community is developing into an old-fashioned neighborhood, created with strong values, and a little ingenuity. It brings together the value of private homes with the benefits of safety, community support, and more sustainable living. This means:

Co-housing first emerged in Denmark more than thirty years ago, and the first co-housing in the United States was completed in 1991. In 2010, there were over 100 well-established co-housing neighborhoods in the United States, and approximately 100 more in development. Most of these are neighborhoods with a specific intention, and most are intergenerational.

The Brooklyn Street Neighborhood Alliance is unique in that it combines the vision and mission of a cohousing community and also welcomes and supports diversity, including people with special needs and their families and friends. It is also unusual in that it is a retrofit of an old and established neighborhood, rather than a new development - and it is reflective of our commitment to the revitalization of North Adams. We want to be part of a thriving, sustainable community we know it can happen, one neighborhood at a time!

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Brooklyn Street | Neighborhood Alliance

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ACADIA | 2016 Conference

Posted: at 6:42 pm

The ACADIA 2016 Conference will foster design work and research from the worlds of practice and academia that lie at the intersection between procedural design, designed environments and autonomous machines. More specifically, this conference will seek to explore recent work within the current trend in computational design to develop and apply quasi-cognitive machines; the integration of software, information, fabrication and sensing to generate mechanisms for interfacing with the physical realm. The conference will invite the submission of papers and projects that explore and interrogate these questions through interdisciplinary endeavors involving fields such as material science, biology, art, computer graphics, civil engineering, and human-computer interaction.

AIA member attendees will receive 1.5 LU or LU/HSW CEUs per paper session and 1 LU per keynote presentation

FABRICATED, a panel discussion, will mark the close of the 2016 ACADIA workshops and the launch of the conference. The panel will be comprised of workshop leaders Brandon Clifford, Matt Jezyk, Dave Pigram and Lauren Vasey, and moderated by workshop co-chairs and Taubman College assistant professors Wes McGee and Catie Newell. After a brief reflection on the workshops that have just completed, the conversation will focus on the current and future works of the panelist as it relates to the 2016 ACADIA theme Posthuman Frontiers. At the conclusion of the workshops, the Taubman College FABLab will be open for tours.

e: 2016@acadia.org

ACADIA would also like to acknowledge the generosity of Autodesk in their support of additional scholarships and awards including the Autodesk ACADIA Student Conference Travel Scholarships, and the Autodesk ACADIA Research Excellence Awards to support outstanding peer-reviewed papers and projects.

Elizabeth Diller

Elizabeth Diller is a founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), an interdisciplinary design studio that works at the intersection of architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts. With Ricardo Scofidio, Diller was the first in the field of architecture to receive the genius award from the MacArthur Foundation, which stated their work explores how space functions in our culture and illustrates that architecture, when understood as the physical manifestation of social relationships, is everywhere, not just in buildings.

DS+R established its identity through independent, theoretical, and self-generated projects before coming to international prominence with two of the most important planning initiatives in New York: the High Line, and the redesign of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts campus. In addition to the recently openend Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University, and The Broad museum in downtown Los Angeles, Diller is Principal-in-Charge of The Shed, a new center for artistic invention, and the renovation and expansion of MoMA, both in New York. Diller graduated from the Cooper Union School of Architecture in 1979, and taught at the school from 1981-1990. She is a Professor of Architecture at Princeton University.

Diller is a recipient of the Smithsonian Institutions National Design Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Design, and the Brunner Prize from the American Academy of the Arts and Letters. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 2013, Diller was awarded the Barnard Medal of Distinction, and DS+R was presented a Centennial Medal of Honor from the American Academy in Rome. Diller was selected by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Iris Van Herpen

Normal rules dont apply...

Iris van Herpen stands for a reciprocity between craftsmanship and innovation in technique and materials. She creates a modern view on Haute Couture that combines fine handwork techniques with digital technology .Van Herpen forces fashion to the extreme contradiction between beauty and regeneration. It is her unique way to reevaluate reality and so to express and underline individuality.

The essence of van Herpen is expressing the character and emotions of a woman and to extend the shape of the feminine body in detail. She mixes craftsmanship- using old and forgotten techniques- with innovation and materials inspired by the world to come.

For me fashion is an expression of art that is very close related to me and to my body. I see it as my expression of identity combined with desire, moods and cultural setting.

In all my work I try to make clear that fashion is an artistic expression, showing and wearing art, and not just a functional and devoid of content or commercial tool. With my work I intend to show that fashion can certainly have an added value to the world, that it can be timeless and that its consumption can be less important then its beginning. Wearing clothing creates an exciting and imperative form of self-expression. 'Form follows function' is not a slogan with which I concur. On the contrary, I find that forms complement and change the body and thus the emotion. Movement, so essential to and in the body, is just as important in my work. By bringing form, structure and materials together in a new manner, I try to suggest and realize optimal tension and movement.

Iris designs require every time a unique treatment of material or even the creation of completely new materials. For this reason, Van Herpen prefers interdisciplinary research and often collaborates with other artists or scientists.

Philip Beesley

Philip Beesley is a practicing visual artist, architect, and Professor in Architecture at theUniversity of Waterlooand Professor of Digital Design and Architecture & Urbanism at theEuropean Graduate School. Beesley's work is widely cited in contemporary art and architecture, focused in the rapidly expanding technology and culture of responsive and interactive systems.

Beesley was educated in visual art at Queen's University, in technology at Humber College, and in architecture at the University of Toronto. He serves as the Director for the Living Architecture Systems Group, and as Director forRiverside Architectural Press. His Toronto- based practice, Philip Beesley Architect Inc., operates in partnership with the Europe-based practice Pucher Seifert and the Waterloo-based Adaptive Systems Group, and in numerous collaborations including longstanding exchanges with couture designer Iris van Herpen and futurist Rachel Armstrong. PBAI/PS combine the disciplines of professional architecture, science, engineering, and visual art. The studio's methods incorporate industrial design, digital prototyping, instrument making, and mechatronics engineering. Beesley has authored and edited sixteen books and proceedings, and has appeared on the cover of Artificial Life (MIT), LEONARDO and AD journals. Features include national CBC news, Vogue, WIRED, and a series of TED talks. His work was selected to represent Canada at the 2010 Venice Biennale for Architecture, and has received distinctions including the Prix de Rome, VIDA 11.0, FEIDAD, Azure AZ, and Architizer A+. Beesley's work is supported by partnerships and by SSHRC, NSERC and Canadian arts and technology funding.

Theodore Spyropoulos

Theodore Spyropoulos is an architect and educator. He is the Director of the Architectural Associations world renowned Design Research Lab (AADRL) in London. He has been a visiting Research Fellow at M.I.T.s Center for Advanced Visual Studies and co-founded the New Media and Information Research initiative at the AA. He has taught in the graduate school of UPENN, Royal College of Art Innovation Design Engineering Department and the University of Innsbruck.

In 2002 with his brother Stephen Spyropoulos he co-founded the experimental architecture and design practice Minimaforms. Using design as a mode of enquiry, the studio explores projects that enable new forms of communication. Embracing a generative and behavioral approach the studio develops open systems that construct participatory and interactive frameworks that engage the everyday. Their work has received international attention which have included nominations for the International Chernikhov Prize in architecture, named one of the top ten international public art installations by the Telegraph for their work Memory Cloud and most recently they were awarded best idea / creative work in the 5th Chinese International Beijing Biennale. Recent projects include two thematic pier landmarks and the illumination concept for a Renzo Pianos master planned 760 acre National Park in Athens, a large scale land art work in Norway, a vehicle in collaboration with artist Krzysztof Wodiczko, a behavior based robotic installation for the FRAC Centre and immersive ephemeral environment for the city of Detroit.

The work of Minimaforms has been acquired by the FRAC Centre, the Signum Foundation and the Archigram Archive, and has exhibited at MOMA, Barbican Centre, Onassis Cultural Centre, Detroit Institute of Arts and the ICA. Recent projects include two thematic pier landmarks and the illumination concept for a Renzo Pianos master planned 760-acre National Park in Athens, a large-scale land art intervention in Norway, and a proposal for self-organizing model named Emotive City. They have been featured in international media including BBC, BBC radio, Robert Elms Show, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Guardian, Blueprint, and Icon Magazine. They were named Creative Reviews One to Watch.

Previously Theodore has worked as a project architect for the offices of Peter Eisenman and Zaha Hadid. In 2013 the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture awarded him The ACADIA award of excellence for his educational work directing the AADRL. His published books include Adaptive Ecologies: Correlated Systems of Living (2013), Enabling (2010) and forthcoming Behavior (2016).

http://www.minimaforms.com

Mario Carpo

Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural Theory and History, the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL London.

After studying architecture and history in Italy, Dr Carpo was an Assistant Professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and in 1993 received tenure in France, where he was first assigned to the cole d'Architecture de Saint-Etienne, then to the cole d'Architecture de Paris-La Villette. He was the Head of the Study Centre at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montral from 2002 to 2006, and Vincent Scully Visiting Professor of Architectural History at the Yale School of Architecture from 2010 to 2014.

Mr. Carpo's research and publications focus on the relationship among architectural theory, cultural history, and the history of media and information technology. His award-winning Architecture in the Age of Printing (MIT Press, 2001) has been translated into several languages. His most recent books are The Alphabet and the Algorithm (MIT Press, 2011; also translated into other languages); and The Digital Turn in Architecture, 1992-2012 (Wiley, 2012).Mr. Carpo's recent essays and articles have been published in Log, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Grey Room, L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui, Arquitectura Viva, AD/Architectural Design, Perspecta, Harvard Design Magazine, Cornell Journal of Architecture, Abitare, Lotus International, Domus, Artforum, and Arch+.

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WW3 On Your Doorstep | Veterans Today

Posted: at 6:41 pm

By Katherine Frisk on September 10, 2016

Russian Troops On US Northern Border

by Katherine Frisk

Are Americans prepared for this and are they fully aware of where their leadership is taking them? Or do they still believe that like the last century the whole world can go up in smoke and they will not only be unaffected but will make yet another huge profit into the bargain at everyone elses expense with their own population and infrastructure still intact?

NATO has by degrees since the fall of the Soviet Union, increased Nuclear and ground troops along Russias borders. HERE is one of the many reports that have come out in the last two years.

Ukraine was the victim of a coup led by George Soros, Chevron, Monsanto and Victoria Nuland. The Maiden demonstrations were a color revolution backed by NGOs and Open Society Foundations, the purpose of which was to put NATO in Crimea and along the border of Ukraine within miles of Moscow. The US spent over $5 billion to overthrow the Ukrainian government and president.

NATO clearly aided and abetted in war crimes in Donbass via its creating the conditions for them to happen

Half of Ukraine is Russian speaking and lives in the east.

This resulted in Crimea having an internationally recognized referendum where the people, mostly Russian, voted to return to the Russian Federation which they have been part of since the time of Catherine the Great which was only annexed to Ukraine during the Soviet Union Era.

European politicians and peace keepers have since visited Crimea and have affirmed that the referendum was a democratic decision by the people and was above-board and not rigged.

At the same time a civil war has erupted between western Ukraine and eastern Ukraine. Kiev has continuously grad rocket shelled the east because Donetsk and Lugantsk do not recognize the current government which even the US intelligence agency Stratfor, has called the most blatant coup in history.

Over 1 million refugees fled Ukraine, not to Kiev or to Europe, but to Russia. Besides being doctors, lawyers, engineers and factory owners many of them were successful farmers from the renown fertile black earth region.

These farmers were relocated to eastern Russia, given land and subsidies for farming. As a result in spite of sanctions imposed since 2014, Russia has turned the situation around from being a food importer to a food exporter in the space of two years. GMO, genetically modified food is banned in Russia as well as poisonous herbicides.

In recent weeks we have seen the whole Russian team banned from the Paralympic games, sanctions extended against Russia and the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine for another six months and strangely enough, Typhoon Lionrock hit the Russian Far East after the powerful cyclone brought heavy rains on August 29-31, the east being an area where Russia is now heavily investing in a resurgence of the agricultural industry.

And on that score, you might want to give Italy, the Phillipines And Oklahoma get an Earthquake some thought.

During WW1 and WW2Jacob Schiff of the Federal Reserve funded Japan in their wars against Russia and China as well as Lenin and Trotsky. Bush, Ford, Rockefeller, Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P.Morgan, Harriman and a number of others funded Hitler and his blitzkrieg into eastern Europe and finally Stalingrad.

The United States of America was not openly attacking Russia and claimed to be in support of the Allies. They only entered the war when Stalingrad fell and the Russians did their own blitzkrieg to Berlin.

Americans wanted to get to Berlin first. Since WW2 US policy in Germany has been to keep the Russians out, the Germans down and the Americans in. Germany has the largest US military base outside of the US.

Which brings us to this: Germany Prepares For Domestic Troop Deployments As Catastrophic Terrorist Attack Deemed Conceivable, Even Probable

Terrorists or. a planned buildup under the guise of terrorism for a German, US, NATO attack on Russia? In April 2016 Obama Requested EU Support for Possible War Against Russia.

This time in WW3, unlike in WW1 and WW2, the United States is openly aggressive towards Russia as opposed to their proxy armies during the two previous world wars where they could claim plausible deniability as they are now doing with their support of Daesh in Syria and Iraq.

However, unlike the two previous world wars where the USA was protected by the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans from any attack on its own territory, should WW3 break out, this time the situation will be entirely different.

Red Square Military Parade Moscow

Russia has Boosted Arctic Military Presence with Ten Airfields, Alaska is only 86 kilometers away from Russia at the narrowest point and the US western sea board is within striking distance. Consider this article: How Russian And China Could Strike The US Airforces Achilles Heel.

While often overlooked in favor of advanced anti-ship and surface-to-air missile systems when examining Russian and Chinese anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, such long-range air intercept weaponscoupled with the right fightercould cut the sinews that allow the United States to conduct sustained air operations in both the Asia-Pacific and the European theatres.

Essentially, Russians and/or Chinese forces could pair long-range air-to-air missiles with aircraft like the Mikoyan MiG-31 Foxhound, Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA and the Chengdu J-20 to attack American AWACS, JTARS and aerial refueling tankers like the Boeing KC-135 or forthcoming KC-46 Pegasus.

Especially over the vast reaches of the Pacific where airfields are few and far between, lumbering aerial refueling tankers could be an Achilles Heel that Beijing could chose to exploit. There are three long-range air-to-air missile programs that bear watchingthe Russian Vympel R-37M RVV-BD, the Novator KS-172 (aka K-100) and the Chinese PL-15.

Missile Crisis 2016

In Putins recent Bloomberg interview he broke protocol and instead asked the journalist John Micklethwait a question:

Vladimir Putin: Well, I would like to finish my answer to the previous question. You have been working as a journalist for a long time. You are quite knowledgeable and you understand all the threats that may arise from a tense international environment, dont you? Especially if there is tension between major nuclear powers of the world. We all understand this.

Of course, you are the one asking me questions. It is you who is the interviewer, not I. However, let me ask you a question: do you want another Cuban Missile Crisis? Or dont you?

John Micklethwait: No, nobody does.

Vladimir Putin: Of course, nobody does.

John Kennedy Bobby Kennedy

This time there is no John Kennedy in the White House and no prospect of one in the near future, no matter what the American people think. But that is another can of worms and a dog and pony show rigged and designed as entertainment for the little people.

Unlike the referendum in Crimea. Or the Donbass in eastern Ukraine where people are prepared to fight and die in defiance of a corrupt government that was installed by a US engineered coup. In the same way that Russians were prepared to fight and die in WW2 where almost 30 million perished. Their homes were bombed, their families annihilated and their women raped.

That is the thing you see they are prepared to die. Are you? Or is this not part of your Hollywood reality, Batman Shooting, Boston Bombing and Sandy Hook faked disasters with crisis actors? Where does Rambo and George Clooney fit into the equation?

In a recent interview with the press Putin said :

We know year by year whats going to happen, and they know that we know. Its only you that they tell tall tales to, and you buy it, and spread it to the citizens of your countries. You people in turn do not feel a sense of the impending danger this is what worries me. How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? While they pretend that nothing is going on. I dont know how to get through to you anymore.

So again I ask:

Are Americans prepared for this and are they fully aware of where their leadership is taking them? Or do they still believe that like the last century the whole world can go up in smoke and they will not only be unaffected but will make yet another huge profit into the bargain at everyone elses expense with their own population and infrastructure still intact?

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WW3 On Your Doorstep | Veterans Today

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What are endeogens entheogens? – 5-MeO- DMT

Posted: at 6:41 pm

And why are they so important?

An introduction by James Oroc, 1/11/11

This web-site is dedicated to the only two known endogenous entheogens, Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and 5-Methoxy-Dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT).

These two compounds are of unique interest to humanity for a number of extraordinary reasons probably the best-known being the simple fact that they are the most powerful of the known natural psychedelics. Found in the leaves, roots, and bark of a wide variety of trees, plants, and grasses, (and in the case of 5-MeO-DMT, also in the venom of the Bufo Alvarius or Sonaran Desert Toad), both DMT and 5-MeO-DMT have been utilized by Amazonian shamans for at least three thousand years in a wide-variety of sacred methods including snuffs and the now-legendary jungle brew most widely known as ayahuasca.

DMT and 5-MeO-DMT both have the reputation of being so powerful that when snuffed, drank, or in these modern times, smoked, they can produce a myriad of near magical effects, including the classical shamanic death-and-rebirth, and the ultimate mystical realization of Union-with-God. Psychedelic compounds this powerful are now often classified as entheogens a term which means 'God-generated-within' - in an attempt to recognize the often spiritual or even mystical nature of the experience they produce.

DMT can create extraordinary visual tapestries that seem to be able to mine the entire mythos of the Collective Unconsciousness, while 5-MeO-DMT allows for an out-of-body experience that can result in a singular resonance with The Void, which like so many mystics before, many users often identify as The Source of All Things. Both compounds are capable of producing intense intuitions about the sacred unity of all life, and even the transpersonal experience itself, where one actually feels the connectivity of all things and experiences a state most commonly described as Oneness. Both compounds have been known to produce genuine religious conversions, even converting hardened atheists to a more spiritual interpretation of Life. Because of its similarity to the near-death experience, 5-MeO-DMT has proven useful for easing the suffering of people dying of terminal illnesses, and also has a reputation of being able to break addictive patterns.

Within the psychedelic community itself these two compounds now have an almost mythical status thanks to both the advocacy of Terence McKenna and the scholarship of Alexander Shulgin, and more recently, the publication of simple extraction recipes on the Internet, coupled with the enthusiasm of today's crop of psychedelic authors such as Rick Strassman, Daniel Pinchbeck, Martin Ball, and myself. Due to the intense and often fantastical visions that DMT creates it has been particularly influential with visual artists such as painters and video artists. The art, music, and video forms being produced by this neo-tribe of artists influenced by DMT and other psychedelic compounds is known as Visionary Art or Visionary Culture, and is at the heart of a now global web of psychedelic influenced electronic music, performance, and art festivals with illustrious names like Burning Man, BOOM! (Portugal), Symbiosis, Lightning-In-A-Bottle, the Rainbow Serpent Festival (Australia), Moksha, and Alchemeyez.

But as extraordinary as the effects of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT may be, as fascinating their history with humanity, or as influential their role may be in our spirituality or art, the most extraordinary fact about DMT and 5-MeO-DMT is the fact that they are both endogenous, and are in fact the only endogenous entheogens we know of. Endogenous means that a compound is found and produced within the human body itself; Serotonin is another endogenous tryptamine natural to our bodies and brains, just as DMT and 5-MeO-DMT have been discovered to be. But what makes both DMT and 5-MeO-DMT so unique is that they are the only endogenous entheogens compounds that can invoke a mystical experience and are in fact two of the most powerful entheogens we have ever discovered.

One would think that the discovery in the early 1970s of the two compounds most known to be capable of invoking a mystical experience naturally within the human physiology would have been the cause the cause of tremendous scientific and social excitement, since such a discovery could obviously have potentially extraordinary implications upon the age-old search for the source of Human Spirituality; these two compounds may well be the link to that Source itself. But thanks to the draconian world-wide laws imposed against virtually all psychedelic compounds at around the same time (1971) there has been a virtual ban on research on the endogenous tryptamines (or any other psychedelics) in the United States since then. DMT and 5-MeO-DMT are now both highly illegal Schedule 1 drugs in most countries, the possession of which could result in lengthy jail time even though we all possess both DMT and 5-MeO-DMT that is produced naturally from some where within our own bodies.

This website was created to collate and share what is known and what has been speculated about DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, in the hope that our Society can realize how important these two extraordinary compounds may be to both understanding ourselves, and our relationship with the spiritual dimension within Life itself. It is intended as a web-companion to my book also titled Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad: A Journey from Burning Man to the Akashic Field. (2009). I realized upon completion of that book in 2009 that after 6 years of research into the endogenous tryptamines I had a lot of information that I had gathered (and especially on DMT) that did not fit within the parameters of that book itself. And now, thanks to the publication of Tryptamine Palace to a global audience, even more information continues to pour in, and my own theories and intuitions continue to develop as I have been fortunate to travel and speak about my book and my experiences around the world.

I have thus created this related website and blog in an attempt to share my own ever evolving view of both the mighty Tryptamine Universe and the emerging global Visionary Culture that it is inspiring. It is also my hope that this web site will help to separate some of the facts from the rampant speculation that is unfortunately most common. I hope the information you find within this endeavor both resonates within you, and is of some value in your own journey life, for regardless of your position on the Drug Laws or your personal experience with psychedelics, if you simply consider the facts, personal accounts, and tremendous art that you will find within this website, it is hard to argue that there are many things more capable of putting some Mystery back in the world then the remarkable endogenous entheogens, DMT and 5-MeO-DMT.

In 1956, Humphry Osmond derived the term 'psychedelic' from the Greek words (psyche, "soul") and (delein, "to manifest"), translating the new word to mean "mind-manifesting". He created this new word in an attempt to differentiate the experiences of certain compounds that he believed were being insufficiently classified by the psychiatric community as 'hallucinogens'. Many of today's researchers, writers, and psychonauts, now prefer the term 'entheogen' over the term 'psychedelic' as way of further differentiating the unique and sacred properties of certain fascinating compounds that can induce a lasting sense of spirituality, or even the mystical experience of union-with-god itself.

Creating a new term is obviously easier than assuring its definition, an anomaly that Humphry Osmond undoubtedly realized when the word 'psychedelic' left the confines of the psychiatric community and over the following decade took on a life of it's own. The definition of what compounds should be classified as 'entheogens' remains at large up to the discretion of the user, since it can be applied to compounds that are capable of inducing out-of-body mystical experiences, such as DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, more broadly as compounds that promote a heightened sense of awareness or 'love' such as MDMA, or even compounds that are used in a spiritual context or ceremony, such as cannabis. The majority of the compounds classified as 'entheogens' belong to the tryptamine family or are closely related to it, and include DMT (di-methyl- tryptamine), 5-MeO-DMT, DIPT, psilocybin, and LSD.

While an entheogen can be entirely created (such as LSD or 2CB) or synthesized (DMT and 5-MeO-DMT) in a laboratory, and are sometimes packaged as 'research chemicals' (AMT, DIPT, etc), many entheogens also occur naturally and have been utilized by human beings for centuries in numerous inventive ways. (Rain-deer urine leaps to mind). The natural tryptamine-containing entheogens can be eaten directly, or as a tea ('magic mushrooms' - 4-HO-DMT), administered as snuffs of powdered barks (such as y-kee, y-to, and yopo, in Colombia, epna in Brazil and Venezuela, and paric and nyakwna in Brazil; 5-MeO-DMT, 5-HO-DMT, and DMT in varying degrees), as plant admixtures (brews like ayahuasca; DMT/and sometimes 5-MeO-DMT), or even by smoking dried Bufo alvarius toad venom (5-MeO-DMT).

The consumption of entheogens has been at the core of humanitys search for the sacred since the earliest days of our societies, and examples are abundant. Some 3,500 years ago the ancient Hindus worshipped a lost entheogen called Soma as if it was a God and created their greatest legacy (the Vedas) in tribute to it. Mescaline-containing Trichocereus cacti were used by the Chavin culture of Peru as long as 3000 years ago and continue to be used by the northern Peruvian shamans today. Psychoactive kykeon was drunk for the two thousand-year period of the Eleusinan Mysteries, which were considered to be the pinnacle of Greek civilization. Tryptamine snuffs have been used in South America and the Caribbean for at least 2000 years, although their origins, along with the origins of ayahuasca as well, now appear to be lost in the mists of time. Peyote has been used by the Mexican Native Americans for the past 400 years, and the Amanita muscaria in Siberia for the past 300 years. A wide variety of many additional visionary plants - Psilocybe mushrooms, morning glory seeds, Salvia divinorum, Cannabis, tobacco, Datura, and so on have been used ceremonially by other traditional peoples the world over.

~ James Oroc, Tryptamine Palace (2009)

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What are endeogens entheogens? - 5-MeO- DMT

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Homepage of Martin W Ball

Posted: at 6:41 pm

Greetings fellow travelers and welcome!

I'm honored that your journey has brought you here and I pay respect to the Divine Being that you are. You are welcome to all that I have to offer.

Here you will find information about my work and creations from my various projects in life: awakening, entheogens, music, books, podcasts, art, and more. My goal is to help others through creativity, knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration. What motivates me is the love of Truth and the quest to live in Reality as a Fully Awakened Human Being, centered in the knowledge of our Unitary Being. I am here to serve as a mirror; clear, reflective, and free from distortion and illusion, offering to help other versions of the Self find clarity and self-knowledge within.

As an independent artist, musician, author and publisher, I depend on the support of others to continue my work. If you find that what I have to offer speaks to you, then I encourage you to consider purchasing a book, CD, or art product. I am also always happy to field questions about entheogens and personal experience and encourage you to explore my podcast, "The Entheogenic Evolution."

My latest release, which is now available, (June, 2014) is Being Infinite: An Entheogenic Odyssey into the Limitless Eternal - A Memoir from Ayahuasca to Zen, which chronicles my personal awakening and transformation through exploration of the Self via 5-MeO-DMT, Ayahuasca, Salvia divinorum, and other entheogenic medicines. It is available in paperback and digital ebook formats.

Being Infinite, 2014. 330 pages. $19.95, plus shipping (international order, please use Amazon)

Being Infinite, paperback

And to get you in the mood for the book, here's a short promo video. Full-screen HD version recommended

May your journey bring you to the only place there is to go: into who you really are.

Martin

For more information about my nondual understanding

of the nature of being and role of entheogens in

cultivating personal awareness, visit my site:

http://www.entheological-paradigm.net

Visit me on Facebook:

Check out my books and writings on scrib.com:

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Trance (muziek) – Wikipedia

Posted: at 6:40 pm

Trance (Engelse uitspraak: trns) is een ondersoort van dance waarin de nadruk op de melodie en de euforische sfeer ligt. Een tranceplaat begint vaak met een eentonige beat, en na verloop van tijd komt er steeds meer percussie en melodie bij. In het midden van de plaat is vaak een break, die toewerkt naar een climax. Het aantal beats per minuut ligt vaak tussen de 125 en 150. De melodie wordt net als bij andere dancesoorten vaak herhaald, maar het stuk dat herhaald wordt is meestal langer (meestal 32 of 64 beats) dan bij andere dancesoorten. In een tranceplaat zou de luisteraar het gevoel krijgen alsof hij 'in trance' is, vandaar de naam.

Trance was vooral populair in de tweede helft van de jaren 90 en de eerste helft van de jaren 2000.

Trance ontstond begin jaren 90 nadat dj's steeds vaker house met synthesizer- en newagemuziek waren gaan combineren. De eerste tranceplaat dateert van 1989 en is "Time's Up (Remix)" van Age of Chance. In datzelfde jaar maakte Age of Love het gelijknamige nummer dat pas 1990 werd uitgebracht. In 1990 waren nummers als "Higher in the Sky" van Mackenzie en "We came in peace" van Dance 2 Trance relevant. De remix van "Age of Love" door Jam & Spoon (1992) zette de trance in een stroomversnelling. Aanvankelijk werd trance nog duidelijk benvloed door rave en techno, waaruit uiteindelijk de hardtrance is ontstaan. Later kwamen meer toegankelijke en populaire tranceplaten uit. Een daarvan die bij het grote publiek doorbrak, was Power of American Natives van Dance 2 Trance, die in 1993 op nummer 2 stond in de Nederlandse top 40. Maar rond deze tijd werd trance nog niet gezien als een aparte stroming binnen de dance. Vooral de Frankfurter scene oefende een grote invloed uit, met trendsettende labels als Eye Q, MFS, Planet Love en Le Petit Prince. Bekende Duitse producers van die tijd waren DJ Dag, Jam El Mar, Mark Spoon, Sven Vth, Talla 2XLC en Cosmic Baby. Ook in het Verenigd Koninkrijk stonden enkele producers op zoals Salt Tank en Art of Trance.

Rond 1994 kwamen er vanuit house en techno een aantal nieuwe stromingen, waaronder trance, maar deze stroming werd in Nederland bij het grote publiek overschaduwd door Mellow en (happy) Hardcore. Na de happy hardcore-hype midden jaren 90 in Nederland, Belgi en Duitsland trok ook de langzamere trance de belangstelling van het grote publiek door hits als Robert Miles - Children, BBE - Seven Days & One Week, en Energy 52 - Caf Del Mar. Maar trance werd pas echt enorm populair toen het genre in 1999 een gezicht kreeg in de vorm van bekende dj's als Tisto, Paul van Dyk, Armin van Buuren en Ferry Corsten. Ook werden er steeds vaker festivals met tienduizenden bezoekers georganiseerd die trance op het programma hadden staan. 1999 wordt door liefhebbers ook wel "the year of trance" genoemd.

Na 2000 verspreidde de muziekstroming zich snel. Het genre breidde zich vanuit Nederland, Duitsland, Belgi en Groot-Brittanni uit naar de rest van Europa. Met name in Scandinavi sloeg het genre erg aan. In de loop van de jaren 2000 kreeg de trance voet aan grond in Oost-Europa en Zuid-Europa. In de toonaangevende dj-top-100 van het Engelse DJ Magazine domineerden in deze jaren ook trance-dj's de top 10. Naarmate het eerste decennium van deze eeuw eindigde en de dancescene verder globaliseerde, namen een aantal oude en nieuwe populaire stromingen binnen de dance het roer langzaam over. Dit neemt niet weg dat trance nog steeds een van de grootste stromingen binnen de elektronische muziek is, met een zeer toegewijde en wereldwijde aanhang.

De huidige trance bevat nog wel de basiselementen die het had begin jaren 90, maar heeft wel een ontwikkeling doorgemaakt. De trance van nu is toegankelijker, eenvoudiger, bevat meer vocalen en de platen zijn meer op elkaar gaan lijken. Zoals bij elk genre dat populair wordt onder het grote publiek, is er vanuit de vooruitstrevende geluiden in de beginperiode een standaard ontstaan. De toonaangevende dj's als Tisto, Armin van Buuren en Paul van Dyk bepalen gezamenlijk de trend, waar vrijwel alle nieuwe artiesten zich aan conformeren. Een aantal tranceproducenten van het eerste uur (zoals Sven Vth en Oliver Lieb) keerden zich af van de commercile trance en sloegen hun eigen weg in.

In deze periode was de dance sterk in ontwikkeling en was trance nog geen apart subgenre. Deze platen kunnen als voorlopers van de trance gezien worden.

In deze periode werd trance geleidelijk een apart genre. De volgende platen zijn onvervalste trance klassiekers:

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Trance (muziek) - Wikipedia

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TMS (production team) – Wikipedia

Posted: at 6:40 pm

2016Edit

Jessarae Island Records

Emeli Sand "Long Live the Angels" - Virgin Records

Sigma 3 Beat Records

Craig David "Following My Intuition" - Insanity & Sony

Carly Rae Jepsen "Emotion: Side B" - Interscope

Birdy "Beautiful Lies" - Atlantic

Fleur East "Love, Sax and Flashbacks" - Syco

Cyrus Villanueva "Cyrus" Sony Music

One Direction "Made in the A.M." Syco

Little Mix "Get Weird" Syco Records

Sigma "Life" 3 Beat Records

G-Eazy "When It's Dark Out" RCA Records

Jem & the Holograms feat Aubrey Peeples "Jem & the Holograms Soundtrack" Republic Records

Kwabs "Love + War" Atlantic Records

Leona Lewis "I Am" Island Records & Def Jam

Jess Glynne "I Cry When I Laugh" Atlantic Records

Sinead Harnett Virgin EMI Records

Years & Years "Communion" Polydor Records

Olly Murs "Never Been Better" Epic Records

Ella Henderson "Chapter One" Syco

Professor Green "Growing Up In Public" Virgin Records

Kwabs "Love + War" Atlantic Records

Sigma "Life" 3 Beat Records

The Vamps "Meet the Vamps" Virgin EMI Records

Madison Beer School Boy Records & Island Records

Rebecca Ferguson "Freedom" RCA Records

Little Mix "Salute" Syco Records

James Arthur "James Arthur" Syco Records

Cher "Closer to the Truth" Warner Bros. Records

Jessie J "Alive" Lava Records & Republic Records

Devlin "A Moving Picture" Island Records

Dot Rotten "Voices in My Head" Mercury Records

Dot Rotten "Voices in My Head" Mercury Records

Olly Murs "Right Place Right Time" Epic Records

Little Mix "DNA" Syco Records

JLS "Evolution" RCA Records

Misha B Relentless Records

Professor Green Virgin Records

TMS Universal Island Records

Dot Rotten Mercury Records

Dappy "Bad Intentions" Takeover Entertainment & All Around the World

Emeli Sand "Our Version of Events" Virgin Records

Dot Rotten "Voices in My Head" Mercury Records

Tinchy Stryder "Full Tank" Takeover Entertainment & Universal Island Records

Professor Green "At Your Inconvenience" Virgin Records

Dappy "Bad Intentions" Takeover Entertainment & All Around the World

Clement Marfo & the Frontline Warner Bros. Records

Wretch 32 "Black & White" Ministry of Sound

TMS Major Label

Dot Rotten Takeover Entertainment & Mercury Records

Maxsta

Tinchy Stryder "Third Strike" Takeover Entertainment & Universal Island Records

Devlin "Bud, Sweat and Beers" Island Records

ROX "Memoirs" Rough Trade

Tinchy Stryder "Catch 22" Takeover Entertainment & Universal Island Records

Lily Allen "Alright, Still (digital release)"' Regal Recordings

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TMS (production team) - Wikipedia

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Tension myositis syndrome – Wikipedia

Posted: at 6:40 pm

Tension myositis syndrome (TMS), also known as tension myoneural syndrome, is a name given by John E. Sarno to a condition he describes as characterized by psychogenic musculoskeletal and nerve symptoms, most notably back pain.[1][2][3] Sarno, a Professor of Clinical Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University School of Medicine and Attending Physician at The Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center, has described TMS in four books,[4][5][6][7] and has stated that the condition may be involved in other pain disorders as well.[2] The treatment protocol for TMS includes education, writing about emotional issues, resumption of a normal lifestyle and, for some patients, support meetings and/or psychotherapy.[1][8] In 2007, David Schechter (a medical doctor and former student and research assistant of Sarno's) published a peer-reviewed study of TMS treatment showing a 54% success rate for chronic back pain. In terms of statistical significance and success rate, the study outperformed similar studies of other psychological interventions for chronic back pain.[1]

The TMS diagnosis and treatment protocol are not accepted by the mainstream medical community.[9][10] However, TMS and Sarno's treatment methods have received national attention, including a segment on ABC's 20/20;[10] an episode of Larry King Live;[11] an interview with Medscape;[2] and articles in Newsweek,[12]The Seattle Times,[13] and The New York Times.[9] Prominent medical doctors who support TMS treatment include Andrew Weil[14][15] and Mehmet Oz.[16] Notable patients treated for tension myositis syndrome include Senator Tom Harkin, John Stossel,[3]Howard Stern,[17] and Anne Bancroft.[9]

Back pain is frequently mentioned as a TMS symptom,[1][8][18][19] but Sarno defines TMS symptoms much more broadly than that:

Below is a list of criteria for diagnosing TMS, according to Schechter and Sarno:

Schechter and Sarno state that if a patient is unable to visit a medical doctor who is trained in TMS, then the patient should see a traditional medical doctor to rule out serious disorders, such as fractures, tumors and infections.[13][20]

The treatment protocol for TMS includes education, writing about emotional issues and resumption of a normal lifestyle. For patients who do not recover quickly, the protocol also includes support groups and/or psychotherapy.[1][8]

Sarno's protocol for treatment of TMS is used by the Harvard RSI Action Group, a student volunteer organization, as part of their preventative education and support program for people with repetitive strain injury, also referred to as "RSI".[21]

Education may take the form of office visits, lectures and written and audio materials. The content of the education includes the psychological and physiological aspects of TMS.[1][8] According to Schechter, the education allows the patients to "learn that their physical condition is actually benign and that any disability they have is a function of pain-related fear and deconditioning, not the actual risk of further 're-injury.'"[1]

Sarno states that each patient should set aside time daily to think and write about issues that could have led to the patient's repressed emotions. He recommends the following two writing tasks:

Schechter developed a 30-day daily journal called "The MindBody Workbook" to assist the patient in recording emotionally significant events and making correlations between those events and their physical symptoms. According to Sarno and Schechter, daily repetition of the psychological process over time defeats the repression through conscious awareness.[22]

To return to a normal lifestyle, patients are told to take the following actions:

Sarno uses support meetings for patients who do not make a prompt recovery. Sarno states that the support meetings (a) allow the patients to explore emotional issues that may be causing their symptoms and (b) review concepts covered during the earlier education.[8]

Sarno says that about 20% of his patients need psychotherapy. He states that he uses "short-term, dynamic, analytically oriented psychotherapy."[8] Schechter says that he uses psychotherapy for about 30% of his patients, and that six to ten sessions are needed per patient.[1]

Alan Gordon, LCSW has created a TMS recovery program on the TMS Wiki, which includes various articles, exercises, and segments from sessions exemplifying therapeutic concepts.

While psychogenic pain and pain disorder are accepted diagnoses in the medical community, the TMS modality is more controversial.

A non-peer-reviewed 2005 study by Schechter at the Seligman Medical Institute (SMI), co-authored with institute director Arthur Smith, found that treatment of TMS achieved a 57% success rate among patients with chronic back pain.[23]

A peer-reviewed[24] 2007 study with Schechter, Smith and Stanley Azen, Professor and Co-Director of Biostatistics in the Department of Preventative Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, found a 54% success rate for treatment of TMS (P<.00001). The treatment consisted of office visits, at-home educational materials, writing about emotional issues and psychotherapy. The average pain duration for the study's patients was 9 years. Patients with less than 6 months of back pain were excluded to "control for the confounder that most back pain episodes typically resolve on their own in a few weeks."[1]

Schechter, Smith and Azen also compared their results to the results of three studies of other psychological treatments for chronic back pain. The three non-TMS studies were selected because of (a) their quality, as judged by the Cochrane Collaboration, and (b) the similarity of their pain measurements to those used in the TMS study. Of the three non-TMS studies, only one (the Turner study) showed a statistically significant improvement. Compared to the 2007 TMS study, the Turner study had a lower success rate (26%-35%, depending on the type of psychological treatment) and a lower level of statistical significance (P<.05).[1]

Schechter, et al. state that one advantage of TMS treatment is that it avoids the risks associated with surgery and medication, but they caution that the risks of TMS treatment are somewhat unknown due to the relatively low number of patients studied so far.[1]

According to Sarno, TMS is a condition in which unconscious emotional issues (primarily rage) initiate a process that causes physical pain and other symptoms. His theory suggests that the unconscious mind uses the autonomic nervous system to decreases blood flow to muscles, nerves or tendons, resulting in oxygen deprivation, experienced as pain in the affected tissues.[2][8][25] Sarno theorizes that because patients often report that back pain seems to move around, up and down the spine, or from side to side, that this implies the pain may not be caused by a physical deformity or injury.[7]

Sarno states that the underlying cause of the pain is the mind's defense mechanism against unconscious mental stress and emotions such as anger, anxiety and narcissistic rage. The conscious mind is distracted by the physical pain, as the psychological repression process keeps the anger/rage contained in the unconscious and thereby prevented from entering conscious awareness.[19][26] Sarno believes that when patients recognize that the symptoms are only a distraction, the symptoms then serve no purpose, and they go away. TMS can be considered a psychosomatic condition and has been referred to as a "distraction pain syndrome".[20]

Sarno is a vocal critic of conventional medicine with regard to diagnosis and treatment of back pain, which is often treated by rest, physical therapy, exercise and/or surgery.[5]

Notable patients who have been treated for TMS include the following:

The TMS diagnosis and treatment protocol are not accepted by the mainstream medical community.[9][10] Sarno himself stated in a 2004 interview with Medscape Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine that "99.999% of the medical profession does not accept this diagnosis."[2] Although the vast majority of medical doctors do not accept TMS, there are prominent doctors who do. Andrew Weil, a notable medical doctor and alternative medicine proponent, endorses TMS treatment for back pain.[14][15]Mehmet Oz, a television personality and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University, includes TMS treatment in his four recommendations for treating back pain.[16] Richard E. Sall, a medical doctor who authored a book on worker's compensation, includes TMS in a list of conditions he considers possible causes of back pain resulting in missed work days that increase the costs of worker's compensation programs.[29]

Critics in mainstream medicine state that neither the theory of TMS nor the effectiveness of the treatment has been proven in a properly controlled clinical trial,[6] citing the placebo effect and regression to the mean as possible explanations for its success. Patients typically see their doctor when the pain is at its worst and pain chart scores statistically improve over time even if left untreated; most people recover from an episode of back pain within weeks without any medical intervention at all.[30] The TMS theory has also been criticized as too simplistic to account for the complexity of pain syndromes.[10] James Rainville, a medical doctor at New England Baptist Hospital, said that while TMS treatment works for some patients, Sarno mistakenly uses the TMS diagnosis for other patients who have real physical problems.[31]

Sarno responds that he has had success with many patients who have exhausted every other means of treatment, which he says is proof that regression to the mean is not the cause.[10]

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TMS Resources – VA Learning University

Posted: at 6:40 pm

Skillsoft course catalogs and other information can now be accessed on the 24x7 Learning Tab of this website.

Important Information from Skillsoft:

Dear Valued Skillsoft Customer,

We wanted to make you aware of new behavior users may be experiencing since the latest Oracle Java JRE updates. After upgrading to JRE versions 1.7.0_55 or 1.8.0_05, users may be seeing the following additional warning message when launching some Java applets:

This message is due to a change that Oracle made to the Java security model. The user must click Allow, or the applet will be unable to communicate. Additionally, the user may click the Do not show this again for this app and web site checkbox in order to suppress the message on future applet launches.

The caller-allowable-codebase attribute was introduced in an earlier version of JRE 1.7.0 and it allows an applet to specify what domains are allowed to communicate with it. Because our applets may be installed in either Skillsoft-hosted environments or customer/partner-hosted environments, we are unable to specify an explicit list of domains that are allowed to launch our applets. Therefore, we specify the wildcard (*) so that the Player is allowed to communicate with any domain it is launched from. Until JRE 1.7.0_51, this worked fine. However, as of JRE 1.7.0_55 and JRE 1.8.0_05, Java will now prompt the user if an applet attempts to allow wildcard (*) as the value for the caller-allowable-codebase attribute.

Despite our best efforts to test with a pre-release version JRE 1.7.0_60, this new behavior was not discovered until the production versions of the JRE was released. This behavior was also not present in the initial release of JRE 1.8, but was introduced with the latest 1.8.0_05 release.

Skillsoft is investigating ways that we might suppress this additional prompt, but in the meantime, users will be required to click Allow in order for the applet to launch successfully.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may be causing to your users or your organization.

Regards,

Skillsoft Support

Update to Skillsoft Courses (May 2013)

In May 2013, an update to all web-based Skillsoft courses in the TMS was deployed. A short post-course evaluation will now be required for each Skillsoft course in order to receive your certificate of completion. These evaluations will gather user feedback to shape future training.

If you did not complete the evaluation immediately following completion of the content, it will be available through your TMS To-Do list to complete later. You can find these evaluations either by changing your To-Do List view to Show: Surveys or by looking for the evaluation by title. Once you complete the short survey, the TMS will be updated with your certificate of completion.

You will need to restart any Skillsoft course that was not completed before May 20.

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TMS Resources - VA Learning University

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