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5 great military soundtracks to study or just relax to – We Are The Mighty

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MIGHTY MOVIES

Miguel Ortiz

The military isnt all action and adventure. There are plenty of dull tasks required of service members that can send even the most motivated of troops to sleep. Whether its writing an after action report, studying for your promotion board, or trying to figure out the convoluted requirements to get your leave approved, here are some of the best military soundtracks to listen to and keep you on track. Note that this isnt a list of the most epic military soundtracks, hence the omission of legendary film soundtracks like Das Boot, Black Hawk Down, and Crimson Tide.

1. Band of Brothers

If youre like me, youve lost count of how many times youve watched Band of Brothers. From watching reruns on TV to popping in the DVD/BluRay for a mini marathon, Michael Kamens arrangements have graced the ears of thousands of viewers. The combination of beautiful orchestral melodies combined with the almost haunting choral work makes this soundtrack an excellent choice for some calming background music. That said, youd be forgiven if you kept the Main Titles, Suite One, and Suite Two on repeat. After all, they are the most used songs from the legendary mini-series. Its spiritual successor, The Pacific, also has a noteworthy soundtrack. However, its a bit too intense with its dramatic swells and drum beats to make the list for studying and relaxing music.

2. Saving Private Ryan

It makes sense that the forerunner of the previous entry be on this list too. Band of Brothers took a lot of production cues from Saving Private Ryan including its score. Produced by the legendary John Williams, the same man that brought us the music for iconic films like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, E.T., and Jaws, the soundtrack from Saving Private Ryan does not disappoint. The opening song, Hymn to the Fallen, is iconic in its own right and is often used for Veterans Day and Memorial Day events and videos. Additionally, the soundtrack itself is over an hour long, so you can get plenty of work done while it plays. If you enjoy this soundtrack, I also recommend giving the original Medal of Honor video game soundtrack a listen. The game was conceived by Spielberg after he completed Saving Private Ryan and Michael Giacchino, the games composer, was heavily inspired by Williams and went on to compose for eight more WWII-based video games.

3. Gladiator

Come on, this one counts as a military movie. After all, Maximus Decimus Meridius was a Roman general commanding an army in battle at the films opening. At any rate, composers Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard built a truly inspirational soundtrack for the film. You dont even need to have seen Gladiator to appreciate its music as a studying or working accompaniment. Additionally, the album won the 2001 Golden Globe for Best Original Score Motion Picture.

4. The Thin Red Line

Yes, its another Zimmer entry. Anyway, the 1998 film is a bit of a departure from other war films of its time like Saving Private Ryan or Platoon. At any rate, its soundtrack was nominated for Original Dramatic Score at the 71st Academy Awards. Although it didnt win, its impact on movie music is long-felt. The films main theme, Journey to the Line, has been used in the trailers for Man of Steel, 12 Years a Slave, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. It was also used in the trailer for Pearl Harbor, the soundtrack of which was also composed by Zimmer and features heavy influence from The Thin Red Line. Pearl Harbor didnt make this list due to its more melancholic tones.

5. Dunkirk (Honorable Mention)

Hear me out. This one is absolutely not a good choice to study or relax to. Its time ticking theme and anxiety-inducing builds are not the kind of sounds you want to hear if you need to slow your heart beat. However, if youre on a time crunch, this might be just what you need to get yourself in the zone. Picture this: Its 0400 and youve been up since 0300the previous day. Youre running on pure caffeine and adrenaline and both are running dangerously low. Your task, whether its a slide deck, a new SOP, or a stack of evals, is due first thing in the morning. Some people thrive under the pressure, and if thats you, why not add some epic background music to your sprint to the finish line? The satisfaction garnered from completing your last minute task just before its deadline will be sweetened by having the films End Titles play you through to your victory.

Ben Weaver

Fighting fires is hungry work. And since firefighters spend long hours, even days, at the fire station, it naturally falls to some schlub rookie to lace up an apron and put food on the table. Thats normally how it goes.

But Meals Ready To Eat doesnt profile normal.

In South Philadelphia, theres a fire station where things go down a bit differently. Thats because the members of Phillys Fire Engine 60, Ladder 19 are lucky enough to count a gourmet chef among their ranks. In fact, he outranks most of them. Hes Lieutenant Bill Joerger, hes a former Marine and this kitchen is his by right of mastery.

The two sides of Lt. Bill Joerger (Go90 Meals Ready To Eat screenshot)

and both are delicious. (Meals Ready To Eat screenshot)

It is a little weird for a ranking officer to spend hours rustling the chow. Its a little strange that he goes to such lengths to source ingredients for his culinary art. Its a bit outlandish when those meals are complex enough to necessitate a demo plate.

But Bill Joerger doesnt care about any of that. When not actively saving lives, he cares about honing his cooking skills, eating well, and creating in the midst of a chaotic work environment some small sacred space where everyone can relax and just be people together.

Meals Ready to Eat host August Dannehl spent a day with Joerger at the firehouse, experiencing the often violent stop-and-start nature of a firefighters day and, in the down moments, sous-cheffing for the Lieutenant. The story of how Joerger found his way from the Marine Corps to a cookbook and then to the firehouse kitchen is a lesson in utilizing ones passion to impose some order in the midst of lifes disarray.

Fatherly

Remember how awesome The Empire Strikes Back was? You can stream that particularly great Star Wars movie on Disney+ right now. And, as of Nov. 15, 2019, Disney+ just added some context to one classic Boba Fett and Darth Vader beef. In the latest episode of The Mandalorian, we finally understand why Darth Vader said no disintegrations.

Spoilers ahead for The Mandalorian Chapter 2: The Child.

In the second episode of The Mandalorian, our titular bounty hunter continues his make-it-up-as-you-go-along journey to protect a little baby Yoda-looking creature. Throughout his misadventures in this episode (which culminate in getting a giant space rhino egg) the Mando tangoes with a bunch of Jawas who have stripped his spaceship of much-needed parts. In an effort to get his stuff back, the Mando busts out his nifty rifle, which, as it turns out, turns anyone he points it at into a puff of smoke. He vaporizes a few of the on the lizard-like Trandoshans who ambush him at the top of the episode, and later on, a few pesky Jawas.

The Mandalorian gets ready to disintegrate some punks.

(Lucasfilm)

Later, when he has to make peace with the Jawas to barter for some of his parts back, he mentions I disintegrated a few of them. In terms of what weve seen in the Star Wars movies so far, this specific tech hasnt been witnessed, but it has been mentioned. When Vader hires a bunch of bounty hunters to capture the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back, the Dark Lord very pointedly shakes his finger at Boba Fett (a dude who rocks Mandalorian armor) and says no disintegrations.

Boba Fett and IG-88 in The Empire Strikes Back

(Lucasfilm)

So, there you have it. Vader was well-aware that this weapon was probably in Boba Fetts arsenal, and now, just a about six years after the events of Empire Strikes Back, in The Mandalorian, we get to see what that weapon looks like. The most surprising thing? In The Mandalorian, the disintegrations are shockingly mess-free. Less like a blaster, and more like a civilized vacuum for a more elegant bounty hunter.

After every episode of The Mandalorian you watch on Disney+, it invariably suggests you watch The Empire Strikes Back. Kind of makes sense now, right?

This article originally appeared on Fatherly. Follow @FatherlyHQ on Twitter.

Blake Stilwell

John Rambo changes lives. Not just in movies, but in the real world. From the flawed antihero of First Blood to the immortal god of death and destruction in 2008s Rambo, Sylvester Stallones action-hero prototype isnt just the forerunner of modern, big-budget action stars, hes a real-life game-changer. A cinematic visit from John Rambo has historically been an omen of big changes to follow in the real world.

Stallone just announced the production of a new Rambo movie and it couldnt come at a better time. Hes definitely going to take on Mexican drug cartels in the film, which is a good move, but there are many other places that need the help. Call it the Rambo Effect.

For the uninitiated, Vietnam veteran John Rambo goes off to find some personal peace after the war, meeting up with old Army friends and traveling the world, looking for meaning. What he ends up finding is a personal war everywhere he goes. He fights the bad guys in the movies and wins but in the real world, something always happens in the country he visits, often within a year of a films release, changing them for the better.

Anyone whos a big fan of Sylvester Stallones Rambo series knows the sequels are a far cry from the story and intent of the first film. In First Blood, he was a flawed Vietnam veteran who became a rallying cry for a generation of vets who were all but ignored by society. Seriously, this is a really great, thoughtful movie with a good message.

The Vietnam War took a toll on America in a way the country still hasnt fully recovered from. It was the first time Americans learned to distrust the President of the United States and this fostered a general mistrust of the government ever since. First Blood takes America to task about things Vietnam veterans still talk about today: Agent Orange, public indifference toward veterans, public perception of crazy Vietnam veterans, veteran unemployment, post-traumatic stress, and more.

The 80s were a crazy time for everyone.

What people really noticed while watching First Blood is how awesome that Green Beret stuff really was, so by the time First Blood Part II came about, Rambo was a full-on action hero the mold for the Bruce Willises, Arnold Schwarzeneggers, and the Steven Seagals yet to come. The real message was lost amid big-budget explosions and fight sequences.

Crewmen of the amphibious cargo ship USS Durham (LKA-114) take Vietnamese refugees from a small craft, April 1975

(U.S. National Archives)

The second installment of the Rambo series was released almost ten years to the day after the fall of Saigon. In the real-world, reunified Vietnam under Communist rule, chaos ensued. Thousands were herded into reeducation camps, a crippled economy suffered from triple-digit inflation, the state went to war with Cambodia and then China. Thousands of refugees took to fleeing by boat to anywhere else.

Still, some things just dont age well.

The year after First Blood Part II had Rambo return to Vietnam, the Vietnamese government began implementing massive reforms to move away from the strict Communist structure that dominated it for the previous decade. In the intervening years, the economy began to recover as the government moved to a more socialist form.

In 1988s Rambo III, John Rambo sets off to rescue Colonel Trautman after hes taken captive in Soviet-dominated Afghanistan. Of course, Rambo goes right into Afghanistan, destroys every Soviet in his wake and rescues his old friend in a blaze of fiery glory. That same year, the Soviet Union began its final withdrawal from Afghanistan, a war that was a major contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Coming to theaters of war near you.

In 2008s Rambo, the former Green Beret joins a group of missionaries headed to Myanmar. 2008 Myanmar was a brutal totalitarian dictatorship scarred by rampant human rights abuses both on screen and in the real world. In the film, a warlord is brutalizing the Burmese people and the missionaries become victims. A team of mercenaries goes back into Myanmar with Rambo. Rambo kills everyone who isnt a good guy.

Two months after the films release, the actual Myanmar government suddenly held a real constitutional referendum intended to guide the country down the path away from the military junta and into democratic reforms. By 2010, Myanmar held contested, multiparty elections. The military government was fully dissolved in 2011 and, by 2015, there were serious elections held in the country.

Im not saying John Rambo had anything to do with any of this, all Im saying is that John Rambo could be the harbinger of positive change in the world. Which is good, because there are a few place that really need a change.

Even though this is hardly the worlds longest ongoing conflict, it has to be one of the most intense and well-attended. Anyone whos anyone is sending troops to Syria, and soon Germany may even join the party. All joking aside, this is a conflict that has, so far, killed more than a half-million people in seven years by moderate estimates, but no one really knows for sure.

A war this intense should end sooner rather than later. Even though Richard Crenna (the actor who portrayed Col. Trautman) died in 2003, maybe Rambo can be sent to Syria to rescue Trautmans son? Ill leave that for Stallone to decide, but hes got to get Rambo there somehow.

Just one North Korean parade and its all over.

While the intensity of this conflict peaked more than 70 years ago, the ongoing human rights abuses and detainment of North Koreans in prison camps is exactly the kind of thing John Rambo would hate to see.

And if theres anyone who could reach Kim Jong Un on his own, its John Rambo.

Pictured: Rambo sneaking back into Burma.

Even though his first visit to Burma (Myanmar) foretold the coming of democratic reforms, an argument could be made that they didnt exactly reach what anyone would call true quality before the law. In fact, a number of civil conflicts are ongoing in Burma, including the Rohingya slaughter and insurgency read so much about in the news lately, but there are others at least 18 different insurgent groups operate in Burma to this day.

If ever a war needed to end, its the ongoing Saudi-led coalitions war against Houthi-dominated Yemen. If ever any single country needed a John Rambo to finish things off, its this devastating embarrassment. For three years, Saudi Arabia and its 24 coalition partners have been hammering away at little Yemen and the Houthis who took it over, killing tens of thousands of people many civilians and are no closer to winning right now than they were three years ago.

Name a more iconic duo. Ill wait.

The Moro people of the Philippines have pretty much been resisting invaders since the beginning of time. For at least 400 years, the Moro have resisted Spanish, American, Japanese, American, and Philippine dominance over their traditional area of the country.

If theres a world leader that would make an excellent Hollywood villain, its Rodrigo Duterte, current president of the Philippines. Hes not crazy, he thinks hes doing the world a favor, and his methods are shocking. After a few centuries, this conflict should be ready to end and who better to bring that about than Rambo and a giant hunting knife?

Somalia has been in the throes of civil war since the 1980s and it has never even begun anything close to a recovery. After the fall of the Barre dictatorship, no one has held a controlling area of the country, including the United States, the United Nations, and even Ethiopia, who invaded Somalia not too long ago, crushing just one more in a long line of Islamic Insurgents who want to control the Somali people.

More than half a million people from all over the world have died in this conflict and it has displaced more than 1.1 million Somalis. It is time for this conflict to end thats your cue, Rambo.

Shannon Corbeil

Weve passed on all we know. A thousand generations live in you now. But this is your fight, hints Mark Hamills Luke Skywalker.

(Well, Ghost Luke, Im guessing)

This week at D23, LucasFilm released new footage from The Rise of Skywalker, leading fans to speculate what it all means as the Skywalker Saga comes to an end.

I for one got excited for the first time in a long time.

Check out the special look at then lets break it down:

http://www.youtube.com

Of course, the most buzz-worthy scene is Dark Rey wielding a duel-bladed and red lightsaber. I dont want to fansplain to you or anything, but red blades are of course associated with the Sith, who often preferred synthetic crystals energized by the dark side of the force.

Reys blade could mean a number of things. Maybe she nicked it? Maybe she turned to the dark side? Or probably maybe its just a vision. Rey hasnt had a character flaw yet, but who knows? Maybe J.J. Abrams wants to throw us a curve ball.

(PS: Has anyone else noticed how dangerous these fancy lightsabers are? Like, how does Kylo Ren not chop his leg off any time he ignites his crossguard lightsaber?? The Force can only do so much)

I just want to know that he attended his safety brief.

Anyway, back to Rey.

Twitter user Alan Johnson has a different theory about Dark Rey:

twitter.com

Now that would be interesting to me. And Im going full nerd to tell you why.

A brief history on clones in the Star Wars universe: they were bred to fight as soldiers under their Jedi commanders during the time of the Republic (think prequels). Under Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, the clone troopers fought the droid army of the Separatists during the Clone Wars.

But there was a hidden trigger implanted into every clone, and Palpatine (who of course we know was a Sith), issued Order 66, which named the Jedi Knights enemies of the Republic and called for their eradication. The clone militants purged the galaxy of the Jedi and gave Palpatine unchecked control of the Republic, allowing him to become the true antagonist of the original trilogy.

Emperor Palpatine was thrown into a deep shaft by Darth Vader during the Battle of Endor presumably dead and yet promo materials for the Rise of Skywalker have been teasing his return.

Could Palpatine have survived his fall? Id say yes any trained Force-user can levitate so its far-fetched for them to fall to their death. Theoretically he could have also hidden himself for all these years.

If he is alive, and Rey is a clone, that could pose many questions. Is Dark Rey also a clone? Could Palpatine Order 66 her? Are there more versions of her? (I mean, I wouldnt be unhappy with an Orphan Black situation)

As a fan, its fun to consider the possibilities, which makes The Rise of Skywalker even more fun to look forward to.

Fatherly

There are a lot of great moments in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but there is one very specific and hilarious scene in which Peter Parker very confidently misidentifies AC/DCs killer song Back in Black by saying I love Led Zeppelin! And though this seems like a funny throwaway, this is actually the exact moment where Far From Home brings the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe full-circle. You may have thought Avengers: Endgame was the end of this era of Marvel movies, but really, the latest Spidey flick is the real ending. And thats because it wraps up multiple storylines about the only character who can never return to these movies Iron Man.

If you squint through those special Tony Stark high-tech glasses, Spider-Man: Far From Home actually reads as Iron Man 4, and thats because a huge chunk of the movie is about how Peter Parker deals not only with a world without Tony Stark; but more specifically, a world which Iron Man created. Spoiler alert, but the entire conflict of Far From Home revolves around disgruntled former employees of Tony Stark; people who either got yelled at by Jeff Bridges in the very first Iron Man movie in 2008, or in the case of Jake Gyllenhaals Quentin Beck, had their inventions hijacked and turned into holographic therapy for Stark.

Like the next generation of young Marvel fans who are just getting into all this superhero stuff, Peter Parker inherits the mixed legacy of Tony Stark whether he likes it or not. Because this version of Spidey doesnt really have a fatherly-Uncle Ben figure, Iron Man was Peters next-best-thing to a dad. And in Far From Home, all the mistakes Tony made become Spider-Mans problem. Happy Hogan reminds Peter that although Iron Man was great that he was also all over the place, which is a nice way of saying Tony Stark was actually kind of a douchebag and may have given Peter and the rest of the world more than they really want to deal with. Anyone who has had been saddled with messiness after the death of a parent knows how this goes. For Spidey, his personal life is totally compromised in the post-credits scene (in which his secret identity is revealed) all of which is, indirectly, Tony Starks fault. In fact, the seeds for Peter inheriting Tonys problems are sewn in Spideys first official MCU appearance; in Captain America: Civil War. Back then, Tony recruited Peter to help him reign-in Cap, but we now know this movie also was where Tony ignorantly turns Beck into a bad guy.

http://www.youtube.com

Which brings us back to that AC/DC track; Back in Black. This is the song that opens the very first moments of 2008s Iron Man;Tony Stark sits in the back of a humvee speeding through Afghanistan, drinking a cocktail, acting like jerky the millionaire arms-dealer that he is. From that point, Tonys caravan gets attacked, and through the course of the movie, and a lot of snarky one-liners, he eventually becomes a slightly better person and you know, Iron Man. In fact, just like Far From Home, that film famously ended with Tony Stark revealing his identity in a press conference. And now, unwillingly, Peter Parker has become the new Iron Man insofar as his identity has been revealed too, albeit not by choice. Either way, Peters journey is very similar to Tonys at this point, the only difference is Peter didnt get much of a choice in the matter, whereas Tony did.

Despite everything that happened to Tony Stark, Captain America and Black Widow throughout all of their Marvel movie adventures, for the most part, these characters read as adults, and in the case of Tony and Natasha, adults who were not innocent people, like at all. But Peter Parker is the opposite of this. Even after everything, hes been through in five movies, hes basically still at the beginning of his heros journey. Which is why Far From Home is both an ending for the old Marvel movies and the beginning of the new ones.

http://www.youtube.com

Its unclear what new Avengers movies will look like in 2020 and beyond, but because Tony is 100 percent dead and Steve Rogers is 100 percent living in the past in secret, the big recognizable heroes of Iron Man and Captain America wont be around. (Also that rumored Black Widow movie is thought to be a prequel?) In any case, if the new Avengers are Captain Marvel, maybe Hulk, Falcon, and Bucky, then it seems like Spidey might become their defacto leader. After all, once youre secret identity is revealed, youve got nowhere to be other than with other superheroes.

The musical cues and plot similarities of Spider-Man: Far From Home help to complete Tony Starks story one movie after his onscreen death. But, our incumbent Peter Parker isnt Tony Stark. Like at all. He doesnt really know who AC/DC is, even if he likes the music. This Peter is the face of the future of the next big round of Marvel movies, and in some ways, thats reassuring. The MCU began with a tortured man-baby who drank too much and said sexist things. That guy accidentally became a hero, and of course, because of that journey of redemption, we all love Tony Stark. But now, it seems Marvel is going to do stories about different types of heroes, and those people, like Peter Parker, might be a little bit better than the generation before them. Marvel is done with the old guys. Its time to give the kids a shot.

Luckily, as Far From Home proves, the kids are more than all right. Theyre better than us.

This article originally appeared on Fatherly. Follow @FatherlyHQ on Twitter.

Blake Stilwell

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5 great military soundtracks to study or just relax to - We Are The Mighty

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December 19th, 2020 at 11:00 am

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10 Faith-Conscious Films On Disney Plus And 5 Still In The Vault – The Federalist

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One can only speculate what British author C.S. Lewis, who spent his boyhood in rural Ireland a century ago, would think of todays WiFi-enabled home entertainment revolution.

Doubtless, the Christian apologist would be curious to see movie versions of The Chronicles of Narnia his best-selling mythic allegories grounded in virtues and sacraments on Disney Plus. The streaming service has two big-budget Narnia adaptations listed right between modern updates on Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella, with its Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo soundtrack.

Staunchly religious American families have long had a complicated relationship with The Walt Disney Company, as VidAngel founder Neal Harmon shared in a recent interview. After his company developed filtering technology to allow subscribers to sanitize streaming films and shows, Disney and other Hollywood studios promptly sued them. Litigation is ongoing.

Still, when asked what films sparked his creativity as a child, Harmon did not hesitate to name two titles featured on Disney Plus.

Entertainment shaped the way we saw the world, he said, having grown up on an Idaho farm with his three brothers. I remember watchingSwiss Family Robinson, then building treehouses in the trees behind our house. After watchingStar Wars, wed jump in the canals during a big snowstorm and pretend the Empire was coming to attack.

Others are less enthused by the Magic Kingdom and its wares. Due to religious or other values, they ardently avoid all things Disney, concerned aboutconsumerism, undertones of aprogressiveagenda, orcorporate values that conflict with their own.Biblically engaged believers freely admit that the gospel according to Disney has always been animated more by pixie dust and wishing stars than a loving God come to seek and save humanity.

Disney filmography has for decades provided many fascinating, imperfect reflections of American civil religion. On-screen stories of faith are rarely told with doctrinal orthodoxy or austere respect, which is also true of how most of the nation treats religion. Now with hundreds of past films one click away, it provides a window into the evolution of faith on-screen.

Particularly since the dawn of the 20th century, Judeo-Christian archetypes and imagery have stirred the American imagination, as reflected in the following 10 films on Disney Plus. This list concludes with five faith-conscious titles not yet released on the rising streaming service.

1. The Sound of Music (1965)

When top Hollywood director Robert Wise (West Side Story) took on the hit musical by theater team Rogers and Hammerstein, it was destined for greatness. Winner of five Academy Awards, The Sound of Music took liberties with the true story yet portrays religious aspects of the Catholic teachers love story and later flight from the Nazi regime during World War II.

2. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)

Co-produced by Walden Media, the beloved fantasy classic came to life 15 years ago in this lavishly produced $180 million film. Disneys answer to Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, it stars A-list talent including Tilda Swinton, James McAvoy, and Liam Neeson. Although it veers from the source material at times, the Lion overall captures its redemptive essence.

3. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Only two years following the sudden loss of Jim Henson at age 53, his son Brian Henson marshaled the Muppet performers and award-winning Rainbow Connection songwriter Paul Williams for a heartfelt comic adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Highlighting the conversion of Scrooge with laughs and overtly religious lyrics, many regard it as the best version of Dickens novel.

4. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

Following last years devastating fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, many rewatched this animated reimagining of Victor Hugos 1831 novel. Given unprecedented access, Disney artists captured its sacred beauty. Following the release of kid-friendly The Lion King, Hunchback is decidedly more mature, pitting an oppressive judge against outcasts and a kindhearted priest.

5. Full-Court Miracle (2003)

While Disney Channel productions tend to avoid religion, this TV movie is a curious exception. Steeped in Jewish history and ending with the celebration of Hanukkah, it draws on the story of Judah Maccabee and his second-century BC revolt against Roman tyranny, using those events to inspire a current-day sports drama at a grade-school Hebrew academy in Philadelphia.

6. Millions (2004)

Director Danny Boyle (Yesterday) explores a humanistic version of Christian theology in this Fox Searchlight dramedy. Having recently lost his mother, a 7-year-old boy is obsessed with Catholic saints, and thinks it providential when a duffel bag stuffed with cash shows up. Even as Millions inspires through themes of sacrifice, parents should be aware of its PG-13 content.

7. Ruby Bridges (1998)

Recounting an important chapter in the civil rights movement, Ruby Bridges takes some inspiration from Norman Rockwells iconic painting. In 1960, a 6-year-old African-American girl was among the first to attend a newly integrated public school in New Orleans. Bridges and her family rely on their Christian faith to persevere in a film that quotes scripture throughout.

8. Pollyanna (1960)

Produced with great care and investment by Walt Disney himself, Pollyanna distills his vision of God and country in a narrative that draws on his childhood in small-town America. An orphaned girl who helps everyone around her see the bright side of life, Pollyanna influences even a local fire-and-brimstone preacher to shift his message to emphasize love and optimism.

9. The Small One (1978)

Years before he left Disney animation, writer and director Don Bluth (An American Tail) honed his craft on this musical story that imagines events adjacent to the Gospels Nativity accounts. When a peasant boy in first-century Judea gives up his beloved donkey to a carpenter and his pregnant wife, it means more than he couldve imagined.

10. Miracle at Midnight (1998)

Only a few years after Schindlers List, Disney partnered with mega-producer John Davis (The Blacklist) for a family-friendly dramatization of a little-known World War II story starring Sam Waterston (Law & Order). More than 7,000 Jews in Denmark are rescued in a courageous covert mission led by Christians and Jews acting in solidarity.

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

Due to diminishing box-office returns, only three of the seven Chronicles were produced, including this story of the temptations Narnian royalty face when confronting their fears.

2. Selma, Lord, Selma (1999)

This biopic dramatizes the cataclysmic March 1965 events of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, featuring Clifton Powell (Ray) as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

3. A Friendship in Vienna (1988)

During the late 1930s, two schoolgirls living in Vienna one Jewish, one the daughter of a Nazi sympathizer cannot make sense of how a changing society seeks to sunder their friendship.

4. Father Noahs Ark (1933)

While Disney Plus features more than 100 classic animated shorts, hundreds more remain unreleased, including this musical Silly Symphony adaptation based on the Genesis account.

5. A Man Called Peter (1955)

Hollywood leading man Richard Todd (The Sword and the Rose) portrays the journey of Peter Marshall from his boyhood in Scotland to being appointed U.S. Senate chaplain.

One can see moments depicting believers throughout the Disney canon from the Swiss Family Robinson pausing for prayer when they reach shore, to a funeral scene in Up, to Friar Tuck defending the downtrodden in Robin Hood. Such scenes resonate with people of faith, especially as popular entertainment increasingly shuns religious themes portrayed with sincerity.

Correction: The last film summary was updated to correctly identify the lead actor.

Josh Shepherd covers culture, faith, and public policy for several media outlets including The Stream. His articles have appeared in The Daily Signal, The Christian Post, Boundless, Providence Magazine, and Christian Headlines. A graduate of the University of Colorado, he previously worked on staff at The Heritage Foundation and Focus on the Family. Josh and his wife live in the Washington, D.C. area.

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10 Faith-Conscious Films On Disney Plus And 5 Still In The Vault - The Federalist

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May 28th, 2020 at 7:43 am

Is Jordan Peterson the New Ayn Rand? – Merion West

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(Flickr-Gage Skidmore)

I compare Peterson with Ayn Rand becauseas I read this bookher name constantly came to my mind (she is mentioned only once in the book).

The Left has long had intellectual gurus with cult-like followings: from Derrida to Foucault to Sartre to iek. This is a less frequent occurrence on the Right, so there are fewer intellectual gurus to be found there. Perhaps the last such figure was Ayn Rand, and, even thoughshe has been dead for more than three decades, her views remain quite influential for some young people.So, the time is ripe for a new right-wing intellectual guru, and it seems Jordan Peterson is playing that role.

If you are a male college student, you might not mind watching Petersons long lectures on Solzhenitsynor reading his technical articles on the psychology of alcoholism. However, the rest of us would prefer to have a ready-made concise CliffNotes version of his ideas, chiefly to judge whether this Peterson fellow is actually worth all of the fuss that accompanies him. Jim Proser provides such a guide in Savage Messiah: How Dr. Jordan Peterson Is Saving Western Civilization. It is a nice intellectual biography, written in a very engaging style; it is never dumbed-down yet full of anecdotes. It also quotes extensively from Petersons own books, lectures, and interviews.

I compare Peterson with Ayn Rand becauseas I read this bookher name constantly came to my mind (she is mentioned only once in the book). In Atlas Shrugged, the boogeyman is socialism, and the dominant theme of that very long book is individuals rejecting herd-mentality and taking responsibility for their own actions; Atlas is the mythological hero, who embraces this ideal by taking the world on his shoulders. In Prosers portrayal, Peterson is similarly fascinated with Atlas, as this excerpt from one of his lectures demonstrates: This is an old representation, right? Atlas with the world. Well, its a representation that says that thats the proper way to live, right? [It] is to pick up a load thats heavy enough so that if you carry it you have some self-respect.

Points along these lines may sound more like self-help motivational coaching than insightful scholarship. And indeed, throughout Prosers book, one may sympathize with Peterson, but I still wonder what all the hand-wringing surrounding him is all about. Dont misunderstand me, Peterson is a legitimate scholar, but I can think of many, many contemporary intellectuals that have far more interesting things to say.

Now, maybe Petersons singularity is that he struck a chord in the right place at the right time. Political correctness and identity politics have gone too far, and free speech does appear to be under siege at many North American universities. As Proser tells the story, Peterson courageously has taken a stand against of all this. Kudos to him for that. However, I worry that there is something darker lurking underneath Petersons crusade.

Apart from Ayn Rand, the other author that constantly came to mind as I read the book was Nietzsche. Proser paints Peterson as some sort of bermensch, a figure who in his youth lifted weights, a roughneck, a frontier cowboy from the lonely Alberta oilfields he grew up fighting for his place in a wolf pack of tough guys. And, now, Peterson has become this savage intellectual, who exists beyond the mediocrity of the restand thrives by killing the dragons of chaos, fighting hard to reestablish order.

Now, of course, Nietzsche was not guilty of the way his philosophy was abused by the Nazis. But, I do give credence to the thesis that his ideas did sow the seeds of totalitarianism.If you worry so much about being a Superman, then ultimately it is not so hard to conclude that weaklings must simply disappear from the face of the Earth.Likewise, I worry thatunderneath all the talk about responsibility, order, and anti-political correctnessthere may be something more sinister going on with Peterson.

Proser presents Peterson as a champion of the Enlightenment, who prioritizes science over ideology, and calls a spade a spade by reminding liberals that gender differences are real. That may very well be, but I doubt Peterson is really committed to the Enlightenment and its true liberal spirit. Actually, I think Matt McManus hits it on the head when he claims that Peterson is much closer aligned with postmodernism and the counter-Enlightenment than he would be willing to admit. The Enlightenment turned its back on faith and Christianity as a whole; Peterson says he does not believe in God, but he, very confusingly, seems to think religion will always be necessaryand that atheism inevitably leads to many depravities. The Enlightenment was cosmopolitan and had little patience for nationalism; by contrast, the counter-Enlightenment provided the intellectual rationale for modern nationalism, and Peterson is similarlyunhappyabout what he calls globalism. The Enlightenment had little patience for pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo; by contrast, Peterson seems to think that people who painted snakes in antiquity already knew about DNA

But, perhaps the more worrying aspect of Peterson is his obsession with what he calls neo-Marxism and its alleged pernicious infiltration of our civilization. This is the dominant theme of Prosers book. Yes, there are some fools in North American universities, and Peterson does a public service by confronting them. But, to believe that these clueless college students are actually a threat to Western civilization (and that Peterson is a kind of Medieval knight who must slew the terrifying monsters) is hyperbole. If History is any guide, totalitarianism begins with hyperbole about the dangers of particular people, whether it is Jews, the bourgeoisie, or the Kafir. Of course, Communism killed millions of people, but to obsess over it may actually pave the way for new forms of totalitarianism. Those youngsters who are fascinated with Peterson should know that Stalinism and McCarthyism are cut from the same clothand, unfortunately, Petersons obsession with neo-Marxism (whatever that means) is dangerously close to the kind of intellectual cleansing that infamous Senator from Wisconsin senator aspired towards.

Precisely because Peterson has this illiberal bone, nasty people can become very fond of him. The Alt-right is a case in point. Of course, one ought never be charged with a crime on the basis of association (again, one cannot entirely blame Auschwitz on Nietzsche). But in the case of Peterson, it should at least give pause that his ideas are being used to push for someeyebrow-raising agendas. While he still has a chance to escape such guilt by associations, Peterson must try harder to disavow some of the tendentious readings that people make of his words.

Proser has written a nice book, but he also makes for an example of someone who wants to use Peterson for his own agenda of ultraconservatism and American triumphalism. Take, for instance, his views on American imperialism. In the book, there is constant mention of the Soviet Evil Empire but no mention whatsoever of any American Empire. Proser scolds Noam Chomsky for saying that, the United States also wiped out communist uprisings in Latin America with the methods of Heinrich Himmlers extermination squads. Well, like it or not, Chomsky is right this time. The United States illegal involvement in Nicaragua(and other countries south of Rio Grande) was intended to wipe out communist uprisings. Proserin dismissing offhandedly this comparisonignores that the School of the Americas run by the CIA taught Latin American dictatorships how to torture in order to suppress communist movements.

Proser is so far to the right, that he thinks that Obama was, the de facto leader of the left since his election in 2008. Proser even claims that, Jordan [Peterson] recognized the election of Barack Obama and explosion of Occupy Wall Street as clear demonstrations that a radical Marxist storm had surged and was aiming to collapse Western traditions as it had before. I do not know if Peterson actually thought this; however, if he did, then there is something wrong with him. To think that Barack Obama, who bailed out banks and Wall Street belongs in the same category with Occupy Wall Street is nothing more than unhealthy conspiratorial thinking.

One can easily guess Prosers political views by looking at which thinkers he invokes and approves of. When speaking of the Intellectual Dark Web, he mentions respectable names such as Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro. But then, he includes Glenn Beck. Seriously? The same guy who rants about George Soros and toys with conspiracy theories over and over again? Someone who not only toys withbut rather fully embracesall sorts of conspiracy theories is Alex Jones. And Proser does seem to have a soft spot for him, too: Alex Jones would fall to de-platforming as social media monopolies Facebook, Google, and Twitter revealed themselves to be in the progressive camp by using the new standard hate speech is not free speech to throttle conservative, or as Jordan [Peterson] described himself, traditionalist voices.

It is nice to have someone to give young adults advice about discipline, order, and responsibility. It is also nice to have a professor on television telling woke crusaders that the State has no right to force people to use specific pronounsand that not everything is about race. But, if by talking so much about the Gulag, you forget about Guantanamo, we have a problem. No, I do not claim moral equivalency; the Gulag was certainly worse. But, I cannot emphasize enough that obsession with Stalinism can lead to McCarthyismor the Patriot Actand Peterson needs to think harder about how to prevent this.

He still has time to avoid going down the path of Ayn Rand. In her case, one can understand how closely witnessing the horrors of the Russian Revolution led to her extremist views. By contrast, Peterson has had the privilege of living in democratic nations his entire life. Sure, he has reason to strongly object to Communism, but his own unchecked views may be promoting a world that few sensible people would want. I worry thatin the endthis famous quotation by John Rogers may also apply to Petersons work: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year olds life:The Lord of the RingsandAtlas Shrugged.One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Dr. Gabriel Andrade is a university professor. He has previously contributed to Areo Magazine and DePauw Universitys The Prindle Post. His twitter is@gandrade80

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Is Jordan Peterson the New Ayn Rand? - Merion West

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February 15th, 2020 at 2:56 am

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Golden Globes: who will win and who should win the film awards? – The Guardian

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Wintry mob drama Martin Scorseses The Irishman, with Jesse Plemons, Ray Romano, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Photograph: Netflix

The best film category is dominated just like everything else in the cultural conversation around movies by Netflix, which has the majority of the nominees: Martin Scorseses The Irishman, Noah Baumbachs Marriage Story and Fernando Meirelless The Two Popes.

The other two are Sam Mendess 1917 and Todd Phillipss box-office smash Joker. This is a really good list, in my view, with one exception: I am unconvinced that Joker is anything other than an amazingly crass, boorish and shallow movie, stridently but incorrectly congratulating itself on its own supposed supercoolness: there is a decent, but overrated performance from Joaquin Phoenix.

1917 is one from the heart, a one-shot nightmare that succeeds in being tremendous, exhilarating and affecting. Scorseses wintry mob drama is a magnificent film, one of his very best. For me, the film flew by.

Marriage Story is a gorgeous, beguiling film desperately sad, and yet with a persistent heartbeat of romance. The Two Popes is the kind of undemanding middleweight biopic that tends to be rewarded during awards season: an imagined dramatic account of the confrontation between Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) and the cardinal who succeeds him: Francis (Jonathan Pryce). I regretted the absence of Claire Deniss sci-fi High Life and even more the snub to Greta Gerwigs wonderful new version of Little Women.

Will win: Marriage Story.

Should win: The Irishman.

Shoulda been a contender: Little Women.

This category is traditionally where the often-mocked Globes scores, because it makes space for the crowd-pleasers at which most awards bodies turn up their noses.

It is a lively list this year, although I am astonished at the way pundits have rolled over for the fatuous and pointless Jojo Rabbit. It strikes a very queasy series of false notes.

Dexter Fletchers Rocketman is a rousing and entertaining account of the early life of Elton John with a great (singing) performance from Taron Egerton, although it is clearly the authorised version permitted by Sir Elton himself.

My favourite on this list is Quentin Tarantinos dizzying, dazzling Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, a black comedy about late-60s Los Angeles which is brilliantly conceived and designed. Rian Johnsons Christie-esque whodunit, Knives Out, has been much praised, although I have to admit to being the tiniest bit disappointed with the big reveal. Eddie Murphys Dolemite Is My Name is a hilarious Blaxploitation biopic comedy, and thoroughly deserves its nomination.

But where on Earth was Booksmart? That really was an out-and-out comedy, without any pretensions to anything other than getting laughs.

Will win: Knives Out.

Should win: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Shoulda been a contender: Booksmart.

Here is where this years Globes look a little bit under par. It is great to see Adam Driver get his nomination for Marriage Story, while Antonio Banderas establishes a gold-standard with his great performance in Pedro Almdodvars autofictional movie Pain and Glory. But I found Christian Bales mannered and twitchy performance as the hot-tempered racing-car genius in the middling Ford v Ferrari almost insufferable (the same goes for Joaquin Phoenixs Joker). Jonathan Pryce does an honest, good-natured job with the role of Pope Francis in The Two Popes. It is very surprising that Robert De Niro somehow didnt get a nod for his gloomy hitman in The Irishman, Brad Pitt probably deserved something for his troubled spaceman in James Grays Ad Astra.

Will win: Adam Driver.

Should win: Antonio Banderas.

Shoulda been a contender: Robert De Niro.

Cynthia Erivo brought sheer passionate commitment, charisma and verve to the role of the anti-slavery campaigner Harriet Tubman; her closest competitor is Rene Zellweger, who won hearts and minds with her very intelligent and heartfelt portrayal of Judy Garland. It is a good performance, although the film itself puts a sugary soft focus on the wrenching agony of Garlands decline. Saoirse Ronan is characteristically forthright and excellent in the role of Jo in Gerwigs terrific new version of Little Women. Scarlett Johansson is also very good in Marriage Story, with flashes of passion, anguish and rage that are all the more powerful for bursting out of that kind of opaque reserve that she habitually creates.

I am very unconvinced by Charlize Therons mannered and odd impersonation of Fox News star Megyn Kelly in Bombshell; the films confusion over the fact that Kelly is no feminist shows up in her performance. Perhaps the Globes should have looked outside Hollywood and rewarded Yong Mei for her heartwrenching turn as the grieving mother in Wang Xiaoshuais So Long, My Son.

Will win: Rene Zelleweger.

Should win: Cynthia Erivo.

Shoulda been a contender: Yong Mei.

Some really great stuff here from Leonardo DiCaprio as a failing TV cowboy actor, and the singing especially from Egerton in Rocketman. There is a blast of comic energy from Murphy as the 70s Blaxploitation comic Rudy Ray Moore; as for Daniel Craig, he brings plenty of amusement and drollery to his performance as the intellectual private detective in Knives Out (although I sometimes wonder if he really does have comedy bones). It is a bit dismaying to see Roman Griffin Davis in here for his moderate child-actor moppet turn in the worryingly overindulged Jojo Rabbit. I would have liked to see Robert Downey Jr nominated for his very distinctive and personal performance as Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame.

Will win: Taron Egerton.

Should win: Leonardo DiCaprio.

Shoulda been a contender: Robert Downey Jr.

My feeling is that Awkwafina has this sewn up for her starring turn in The Farewell, a heart-rending and sweet movie about the Chinese-American experience. Cate Blanchett can never be anything other than a potent and intelligent screen presence, and her performance as the agoraphobic architect who goes missing in Whered You Go, Bernadette? has been much admired. As for Emma Thompson, she has been nominated for her role as an acid-tongued British talk-show host in Late Night a good performance although, oddly, she is more obviously funny in a far inferior film, the box-office smash Last Christmas, in which she was the grumpy Croatian mum. Ana de Armas is really good in Knives Out, but again I have to say in terms of real comedy not comedy-drama, not drama with bittersweet comic touches, but actual comedy Feldstein is streets ahead of anyone here. One person who deserved to be on this list is that great singer and actor Jessie Buckley for her full-throated performance in Wild Rose, the story of a Scottish woman yearning to be a country music star.

Will win: Awkwafina.

Should win: Beanie Feldstein.

Shoulda been a contender: Jessie Buckley.

There are some big names and revered silverback gorillas in this list all of whom are doing an excellent job, although I couldnt help wondering if the Hollywood Foreign Press Association could cast its net a little wider? For opaque reasons, Anthony Hopkins has a best supporting actor nomination, despite being of equal importance to Pryce in The Two Popes. Tom Hankss performance as the American TV legend Fred Rogers is causing critics to gibber with awestruck delight, although Brad Pitt may pinch it with his wonderfully mature performance in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which showcases his marvellous Gary-Cooper-like ease.

But the frontrunners have to be Al Pacino and Joe Pesci for their fantastic performances as the Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa and the coolly understated mobster Russell Bufalino in The Irishman. I reckon Pesci will get it to a roar of pleasure from the assembled crowd.

Will win: Joe Pesci.

Should win: Joe Pesci.

Shoulda been a contender: Wesley Snipes (Dolemite Is My Name).

Jennifer Lopez started as an actor; do not rule out the possibility that she will be rewarded for her performance in the widely enjoyed raunchfest Hustlers, as the mentor-stripper who takes Constance Wu under her wing. Yet the Globe might well go Kathy Bates for her part as the everyman-heros mother in Clint Eastwoods biopic drama Richard Jewell. Elsewhere, there is Margot Robbie for her (fictional) role in Bombshell; very uninhibited performance, and Robbie is not hampered like her co-stars by having to produce a quasi-impersonation of a real-life person. Annette Bening gives an intelligent, careful but uninspired performance inThe Report. But the winner here is surely Laura Dern, for her hilarious portrayal of a cunning divorce lawyer in Marriage Story.

Will win: Laura Dern.

Should win: Laura Dern.

Shoulda been a contender: Julia Butters (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).

What on earth happened to Gerwig for Little Women? Or indeed Alma Harel for Shia LaBeouf drama Honey Boy? At any rate, there are some heavy-hitters here: Mendes has a well-deserved nod for his superlative 1917, as do Scorsese and Tarantino. Perhaps the most notable nominee is the Korean film-maker Bong Joon-ho for his fascinating social satire Parasite; fast becoming the talking point of the 2020 awards season.

Will win: Martin Scorsese.

Should win: Martin Scorsese.

Shoulda been a contender: Greta Gerwig.

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Golden Globes: who will win and who should win the film awards? - The Guardian

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January 9th, 2020 at 7:47 pm

How to Chill Out and Relax Already – Outside

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Activate Your Vagus Nerve

Its the secret to calming down

Activate what now? Stick with us: The vagus is the largest and longest of the 12 nerve fibers emanating from your brain. It branches out to reach every major organ in your body, making the mind-body connection a literal one. Researchers hypothesize that the vagus is part of whats known as the microbiota-gut-brain axis, and John Cryan, an Irish neuroscientist, has identified the nerve as one way that microbes in your gut send signals to your brain. Which, as he likes to say, proves that what happens in vagus does not stay in vagus.

Why should you care?

Because the vagus nerve is a link to your parasympathetic, or rest and digest, nervous system. When stimulated, it slows down your heart rate, switches off your fight-or-flight response, and relaxes you. Things like yoga, deep breathing, massage therapy, and moderate exercise can activate it, which might help explain the positive feelings we get when we do them.

In an effort to trigger my own vagus nerve, I began searching for a quick and effective technique. Beyond stimulation therapy, in which surgeons implant a device that sends electrical impulses to the brain, there are no other FDA-approved methods to get the health benefits. Ive yet to find a piece of scientific evidence that doesnt get extrapolated well beyond where it should be, says Mike Tipton, a professor of environmental physiology at Englands University of Portsmouth.

I ruled out any method that required surgery, hiring a specialist, chanting, or gagging (the vagus nerve is connected to the throat muscles), as well as long-term investments like changing the composition of my gut microbiota or developing more meaningful friendships. The technique I kept returning to was cold-water face immersion. A number of experiments have shown that dunking your face in cold water reduces your heart rate and blood pressure. Even Tipton agrees that its a legitimate way of stimulating the vagus nerve, but notes that the therapeutic benefits are currently unproven.

A group of scientists in Luxembourg recently tested wearable devices that cool the vagus nerve via a patch of skin above the clavicle, but you dont need to buy any new gadgets. Simply submerge your face in cold water for a few seconds. I tried it for several days, using water at about 55 degrees, and found the experience refreshing and, after the initial shock, somewhat calming. Even a quick splash can work. Ahhhhh. Feel that? Thats vagus-nerve stimulation. Peter Andrey Smith

Just go outside. Thats it.

The crux of Jenny Odells argument in her book How to Do Nothing is that a narrow definition of productivity, which plays out on devices and social-media platforms, has monopolized our minds. Her solution? The 33-year-old Stanford lecturer urges us to pay attention to the natural world wherever we arewhether thats the wilderness or the middle of the city. We asked Odell what that looks like. Molly Mirhashem

I dont spend time outdoors to think about myself. Its not about self-improvement. Its about fundamentally refiguring your relationship to everything around you.

My book isnt anti-technology. I teach digital and internet art, and there are amazing things online. But within the attention economy and social media, time feels very stunted. Youre trapped in an endless urgent present. When I think about how it feels to go for a walk around the block and just look at things, its almost the direct opposite.

I use the crowdsourcing app iNaturalist to help identify local flora and fauna. It works well in places like the Bay Area where theres an active community of users. And I find it heartwarming to know that someone else is paying attention to the same thing as me and cares about it.

I considered myself to be in conversation with the outdoors as I worked on the book. Whatever environment I was in played an active role in how I formed my thoughts. It sounds cheesy, but I considered parks a collaborator, just like if you had a partner on a project who you talked through your ideas with.

(Photo: Hannah McCaughey)

Binge-watch Netflix. Eat pizza. Take that tequila shot. Not every day, but some days. Because a little indulgence is liberating.

Its good for your brain

Each time we acquire a complex skill, our brains spring into action, shifting gray and white matter around in a process sometimes referred to as activation-dependent structural plasticity. To use an analogy from running, its like trading a steady 5K jog for a series of high-intensity sprints. It might be painful at first, but it makes your brain stronger. Even more appealing, developing new abilities may make us less stressed.

I reminded myself of this one morning last fall as I stood on the deck of the Wild Pigeon, a J/24 keelboat with a jaunty red hull owned by the Manhattan Yacht Clubwhich, despite its name, islocated at Jersey Citys Liberty Harbor Marina. I was here to learn to sail, but also to explore the broader upside of doing so. In instructor Krista DeMille, I had an encouraging role model. She started sailing only a few years ago. A classically trained dancer and actor who also led river-rafting trips, she was a walking advertisement for the polyvalent self.

With the metallic clang of nearby construction as a backdrop, DeMille kicked off the two-day intensive course by guiding me through sailings dizzying multitude of terms. I struggled to keep up with the flurry of hanks and clews and halyards, my Scrabble arsenal expanding by the minute. Next we moved to knots: square knots, slipknots, figure-eight stopper knots. To teach me the bowline, DeMille used a little story of a rabbit and a tree. Then she had me raise the jib and mainsail and fix the trio of tensioners, each with its own dynamics. It felt like doing a full-body workout while standing on a balance board.

This dockside training was a tonic for my brain, suggests Denise Park, director of research at the University of Texass Center for Vital Longevity. There is some evidence, she says, that engaging in cognitively demanding tasks over a sustained period of time keeps our brains sharp as we age. The ideal task is something intellectually challenging and preferably novel. As much as the brain likes a mental workout, it also likes physical exertion: exercise has been shown to enhance cognition.

DeMille took us into New York Harbor, one of the worlds busiest, filled with a staggering array of large vessels, most of which seemed to be bearing down on us. Raise the jib! she shouted. I clambered toward the bow and began hoisting. The sail unfurled a few feet and then refused to budge. DeMille took a look. Sailing, she told me, is about problem-solving. Eventually, she found that Id shackled the line not only to the grommet (correct), but also to the forestay (incorrect).

Once that was sorted, she handed me the tiller, and all that previously abstract instruction became very real: we were a crew of two, and the winds were robust. Sailing demanded all my attention. This itself, in an age of endless distraction, has benefits. While at the tiller, I couldnt reach for my phone or think about the sources of anxiety in my life (bills, story deadlines, middle school application forms). No surprise there. But the fact that I was also learning a new skill provided its own form of stress reduction. As a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology on stress in the workplace suggests, learning gives us powerful psychological tools to combat job stressors, building our feeling of competence and enlarging our sense of self.

In my case, Id studied several things at once: knots, navigation, the wind, the etiquette of the seathe 100-question certification test I took afterward (I passed) only scratched the surface. Ultimately, sailing seemed like a metaphor for learning itself: something that takes you to new places and uses the power of nature to make you feel better.Tom Vanderbilt

It isnt making you happier

Caffeine is the worlds most popular psychoactive substanceAmericans alone spend $72 billion on coffee each year. But surprising research suggests that it doesnt work the way we think it does. According to Jack James, former editor of the Journal of Caffeine Research, if youre a regular coffee drinker, caffeine doesnt make you sharp, improve mood, or perk you up. And some of the worlds leading drug researchers, including David Nutt at Imperial College London and Peter Rogers at the University of Bristol, have confirmed that caffeine doesnt boost wakefulness above baseline for those who are dependent on it. They explain it this way: You feel fatigued as your first espresso wears off, and you start going into withdrawal. So your next jolt is really just bringing you back to normal. Thats pleasant and encourages caffeine consumption, Rogers says, but its not providing a net benefit to functioning. Given that, and the fact that caffeine can cause sleep disruption and elevate blood pressure, it may be time to wean yourself. Life really is possible without it.Peter Andrey Smith

Hang time is easy and portable with the Eno DoubleNest. Its small and light enough to bring on any adventure, easy to set up, and roomy enough for two.

Three simple steps

Jennifer Stewart is a cofounder of Gateway Productivity, which coaches business owners on how to be digitally organized. She shares the core principles that help her clients. AbigailBarronian

(Photo: Hannah McCaughey)

Multitasking is a myth, Stewart says. She recommends that you turn off all notifications except texts and phone calls and consider installing an app and website blocker like Freedom, which forces you to choose when you digitally engage.

We hold everything in our head, and that causes stress, says Stewart. Pick a place where all those things can go. That way your brain can relax. Things 3 is a simple management tool that allows you to sort and schedule your chores.

Wonder where the day went? Try Toggl, a piece of time-tracking software. You record how you spend your work hours. After a few days, youll have a clear sense of where your energy is going and how you can adjust.

Avoid the stress of airport lines and delayed flights and be a tourist in your own town.

You need more sleep

Ive always been a morning person. I set my alarm for before dawn and head to the trail or gym when most people are still asleep. Then I shower and sip coffee while I catch up on the news or sift through e-mail. But a few months ago, I started to feel sluggish during those sunrise jogs, and I watched my mile times slow. As I yawned through the day, I wondered whether I was a morning person after all.

It turns out a lot of us feel tired. According to a Gallup poll, 40 percent of Americans report getting less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night. The fewer zs we get, the more our bodies and brains are compromised. You might see a significant decline in physical performance over a period of three or four days, says W. Christopher Winter, a sleep researcher, neurologist, and author of The Sleep Solution. And youre likely to make three times as many mental errors.

So I vowed that for two weeks, I would sleep in. I reset my alarm from 5 a.m. to 6:30, kept my regular bedtime of 11:30 P.m., and meticulously tracked how every day went.

It didnt go well. Each morning, I woke up before my alarm and forced myself to close my eyes again. When the alarm went off, Id bolt upright, race to the shower, and start my day feeling unprepared. That frazzled state stuck with me as I hurried to meetings.

Yet I did notice that I was more engaged at work and made fewer mistakes. I started running in the evening and shaved five seconds off my mile time. While sleeping later isnt for me, it confirmed that my body feels healthier and my brain sharper when Im getting at least seven hours. So Ive set my alarm for 5 a.m. again, and I now have a second alarm that chimes at 10 P.m., telling me to go to bed. What I needed all along was to get more overall rest, something a lot of us could use. Abigail Wise

Exposure to biodiverse soil is good for your microbiome, which has been correlated with improved mood. Plant a tree, start a gardenor dig in at the Many Hands Peace Farm in Highlands, North Carolina, where guests learn and practice regenerative agriculture.

Want to relax? Tryknitting. Seriously.

Last winter, bucking gender stereotypes and the derisive looks of my 11-year-old daughter, I became a proud knitter. But lets back up. It all started as I was preparing for a podcast interview with Cal Newport, the author of Digital Minimalism, a bestselling book that examines the pitfalls of our screen-addicted lifestyles. My work project quickly evolved into a self-help mission. Newports book described a litany of bad habitstuning out the world with music, mindless social-media scrollingthat sounded eerily familiar. So I decided to commit to his prescribed digital declutter30 days without recreational screen time.

Newport is careful not tocall his plan a detox, a word he worries implies a short-term break rather than the transformation of ones relationship to technology that hes promoting. One of the things Ive noticed is that the people who succeed actually took advantage of the 30-day break to think seriously about what they really want to do with their time, Newport told me. You have to have a positive thing to replace this with. In other words, you need a hobbysomething you value that can fill the time you once spent scrolling through your Instagram feed when the monthlong moratorium expires.

(Photo: Hannah McCaughey)

Thats when I picked up knitting, essentially by default. It was February, so gardening and other outdoor hobbies werea no-go. I love reading, butI knew my passion for dense nonfiction would inevitably be overrun by the lure of Twitters more snackable nuggets. Woodworking sounded cool, but I have few tools and zero carpentry skills. Knitting? That seemed doable, perhaps even easy. I picked up two pairs of needles and two balls of yarn, recruited my wife to join me, then briefly broke my digital fast for a quick YouTube tutorial.

For the next month or so, we set aside our phones and plopped on the couch for nightly sessions of knit one, purl one. As soon as I had the basics down, I found that the repetitive, mindless task was relaxing and meditative, helping me to decompress from office life. Turns out research backs that up. In 2013, British well-being coach and knitting advocate Betsan Corkhill teamed up with an occupational-therapy researcher to survey more than 3,500 active knitters from 31 countries. Their conclusion: people who knit more than three times a week report improved moods, reduced anxiety, and less stress.

When the weather improved and the days got longer, I confess I put away my needles. But I plan to be a knitter for life. Winter is here, and theres a yard-long stretch of stitches in my closet yearning to become a scarf.Christopher Keyes

The scent of trees relaxes us. Skylonda Lodge, an hour south of San Francisco, has four-to-seven-day retreats that include strolling among redwoods reaching 300 feet.

Rest is an opportunity for reinvention

No one likes getting hurt, but sometimes the forced pause leads to much needed downtime and an opportunity for introspection. Last May, professional ultrarunner and coach Megan Roche ruptured her hamstring when she stepped into a prairie dog hole while training near her home in Boulder, Colorado. Initially, the prognosis was that shed never compete at the same level again. But Roche found a surgeon who told her that a reconstructed tendon could make her stronger than she was before. She had surgery soon afterward.

It was a crazy moment in my athletic career, because I fully contemplated what my life would look like without having that competitive outlet, 29-year-old Roche says. I went through every stage of the grieving process before ultimately getting the news that I should be OK. The episode made her acutely aware that she didnt want her identity wrapped up in something that could vanish in an instant. Roche, who also has a medical degree, says that her injury woke her up to the fragility of her career and inspired her to go back to school to pursue a Ph.D. in epidemiology.

Roche also points out that an injury often leads athletes to come back to their sport with a more well-rounded training approach. She appears to have found a middle ground: her research centers on bone health and the genetic predictors of sports injuries, and she plans to continue to coach and run.Martin Fritz Huber

(Photo: Hannah McCaughey)

Theres solid research on the stress-reducing benefits of having a pet. Meanwhile, Harvard researchers recently noted that walking is one of the healthiest forms of exercise.

Theres a reason tai chi has been aroundhundreds of years

Im a skier, biker, and climber with a full-time job, which means I obsessively cram my free time with as much high-impact activity as possible. But lately, recreation has felt less like fun and more like an urgent invitation to beat myself up, so I decided to slow things down. Which is why, on a sunny Friday afternoon, I find myself standing at the back of a martial-arts studio, relearning how to walk.

Jill Basso, a tai chi instructor for more than 20 years, comes over to correct my form. Im moving forward too much, she says. Which until now I considered the primary goal of walking. Tai chi, however, isnt really about getting anywhere.

The ancient Chinese martial art has been steadily growing in popularity in the U.S. over the past decade, boosted in part by support from the medical community. Research about its potential to build strength, balance, and stability, particularly in older practitioners, has led doctors to prescribe it to their patients. But those benefits probably extend to young people as well, explains Elizabeth Eckstrom, a professor at Oregon Health and Science University who has been studying tai chi in a clinical setting for nearly two decades. The practice can improve sleep, teach mindfulness, and help athletes advance in their sport. Its a good partner for all the things we do, says Eckstrom.

A typical session involves a slow series of movements. In Bassos class, the mostly over-60 students move fluidly and confidently through side steps, lunges, and sweeping arm motions. Without the goal of getting faster or going bigger, I learn about smaller limitations: my ankles are rigid, my quads allow my knees to bend only so far, my hips catch with certain movements. My limits are internal.

I have a complicated relationship with exercise. Its deeply tied to my sense of self-worth, and if I havent gotten my heart rate somewhere near 180 in a few days, I can get manic. Its something Im trying to change, healing my relationship with physical activities that are supposed to be enjoyable but have become a form of self-flagellation.

Tai chi, on the other hand, kept my heart rate around 80. It plugged me into a welcoming community of people who are tending to their bodies like a slow-growing garden. I started going to class twice a week, moving as deliberately as my body would allow. I learned that my sports habits and tai chi actually have the same goalsmental calm, physical strength, and overall well-being. And tai chi doesnt put me at risk of broken bones or a bruised ego.Abigail Barronian

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How to Chill Out and Relax Already - Outside

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Vegetarian and Vegan Diets: Nutritional Disasters Part 1 …

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Over the years since the publication of my first book, I have been asked time and again if there is a vegetarian version of The Paleo Diet. Ive got to say emphatically No! Vegetarian diets are a bit of a moving target because they come in at least three major versions. We all know in principle that vegetarians do not eat meat, poultry or fish this is the first and foremost characteristic of vegetarian diets. Less restrictive are lacto/ovo vegetarians who limit their animal food choices to dairy products and/or eggs, whereas vegans eat plant foods exclusively. A recent study published by Vegetarian Times Magazine revealed that 3.2% of U.S. adults or 7.3 million people follow a vegetarian-based diet.127 Approximately 0.5% or 1 million Americans are vegans. The study also indicated that over half (53%) of current vegetarians ate their plant based diet to improve overall health. Additional reasons underlying their vegetarian lifestyles were: 1) animal welfare cited by 54%, 2) environmental concerns named by 47%, 3) natural approaches to wellness mentioned by 39%, 4) food safety issues brought up by 31% and 5) weight loss and weight maintenance issues were cited by 25% of the respondents.127

First, let me say I respect everyones choice to eat whatever diet they like and those foods that they feel are best suited for themselves and their families. I also respect peoples decisions to abstain from eating meat for religious, moral, and ethical reasons. Nevertheless, as a scientist, I hope that we all try to make dietary decisions based not just upon philosophical and ethical issues, but also upon foods that are good for our bodies and long term health. Accordingly, I simply cant lend my support to any version of vegetarian diets that people may adopt for the mistaken idea that these diets improve overall health.

Although vegetarianism has deep historical roots dating back at least to 500 BC with such ancient Greeks as Pythagoras, Porphyry and Plutarch,106, 115, 134 this manner of eating has only been with us for the mere blink of an eye on an evolutionary timescale. In our comprehensive analysis of 229 hunter-gatherer diets, my research group and I showed beyond question that no historically studied foragers were vegetarians.26 In fact, whenever and wherever animal foods were available they were always preferred over plant foods.26 The chart to the left shows the overwhelming preference for animal foods in all 229 hunter-gatherer societies that we studied. Notice that not a single foraging society fell into the (0 5%) animal subsistence category.

Most (73%) of the 229 hunter-gatherers consumed 46% or more of their daily energy as animal food.26 The compelling reason for their preference of animal foods over plant foods was because hunter-gatherers got more bang (food calories) for the buck (their energy expended to obtain the food), as verified by optimal foraging theory.

Human preference and appetite for meat, marrow and animal food has an incredibly long history in our ancestral line.18, 33 Fossils of butchered animals with stone tool-cut marks on their bones were discovered in Africa dating back 2.5 million years.33 These definitive smoking guns in the archaeological record leave little doubt that all human species ate animal foods from the very get-go of our existence. Scientists are able to determine the relative percentage of plant and animal food in extinct human (hominid) species by analyzing elements called isotopes within their fossilized bones.10, 104, 105 Every single hominid skeleton examined since the emergence of our own genus (Homo) 2.5 million years ago show an isotopic signature characteristic of meat based diets.10, 83, 104, 105, 124 Further, if we compare our biochemical and anatomical machinery to cats, who are absolute carnivores, we both share evolutionary enzyme pathways characteristic of processing lots of meat.27 If you are interested in these details, I have written about them in my debate with the noted vegetarian, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study.27Download the Full Debate Here

If we accept the idea that vegetarianism represents an ideal human diet, then this manner of eating must be part of a much larger or ultimate mechanism governing human biology. What Im getting at is the question of Why? Why would a vegetarian diet, or for that matter, any diet represent an optimal nutritional road map for our species? Any unified theory of human nutrition is a detective story in which scientists attempt to reveal or uncover biological systems that have been designed by, and put into place by evolution through natural selection. Accordingly, hypotheses regarding what we should and shouldnt eat must be consistent with the system and ancient environments that engineered our current genes. If we are to buy into vegetarianism, then the system, evolution via natural selection, which shaped our present genome necessarily had to be conditioned over eons by a plant based, vegetarian diet. Otherwise, there is no rationale alternative hypothesis to explain why humans would prosper and thrive on vegetarian diets.

As I have extensively pointed out,26, 27 there is no credible fossil, archeological, anthropological or biochemical evidence to show that any hunter-gatherers or pre-agricultural humans ever consumed all plant based diets. This information should be your first clue that there just may be some problems with vegetarian dietary recommendations created by humans for humans. What is that expression? We are all human, we all make mistakes. Let us not depend upon human frailties for dietary advice, but rather let us fall back on the wisdom of the system, again, evolution via natural selection, that designed the diet to which we are genetically adapted.

If you are considering adopting a vegetarian diet because you think it may improve your overall health and wellbeing, my immediate advice to you would be to forget it. I urge you to always let the data speak for itself, and dont listen to me or anyone else until you have carefully scrutinized both sides of this or any other nutritional argument. I can guarantee you that the assessment of positive health effects, or lack thereof, caused by vegetarian diets is not just a straight forward matter involving objectivity and a mere sifting of scientific facts. Rather, this inquiry is politically charged involving charismatic individuals and well known scientists promoting a vegetarian viewpoint that is frequently at odds with the best science.

If you are currently a vegetarian or vegan, one of the most powerful health expectations for adopting this lifestyle is that you will outlive your hamburger eating neighbors by escaping cancer, 72 heart disease,69, 71 and all other causes of death (mortality).69, 71 In fact, if truth be told, your lifelong dietary deprivations will not prolong your lifespan, but rather will produce multiple nutrient deficiencies that are associated with numerous health problems and illnesses. If you have forced plant based diets upon your children, or unborn fetus they will also suffer. Not a pretty picture. Now lets let the data speak for itself and get into the science of vegetarian diets and health.

In their 2009 Position Statement on Vegetarian Diets,28 The American Dietetic Association tells us,appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain disease. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. I dont know what planet the authors of this paper came from or what scientific journals they have been reading, but these statements simply are not supported by the data.

To start with, if vegetarian diets are so healthful, then any reasonable person might expect that people eating plant based diets would have lower death rates from all causes than their meat eating counterparts. This question was never fully answered until 1999 when Dr. Key and colleagues at Oxford University conducted a large meta analysis comparing overall death rates between 27,808 vegetarians and 48,364 meat eaters.69 I quote Dr. Keys study, There were no significant differences between vegetarians and non-vegetarians in mortality from cerebrovascular disease, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer or all other causes combined. I have underlined and bolded the last words of this sentence to emphasize the fact that vegetarians do not fair any better than their hamburger eating counterparts when death rates for all causes are considered. A more recent 2009 analysis (The EPIC-Oxford Study), employing the largest sample of vegetarians (33,883) ever examined came up with identical conclusions.71 I quote the authors, Within the study mortality from circulatory diseases and all causes is not significantly different between vegetarians and meat eaters. The results of this study71 and the earlier meta analysis,69 fly directly in the face of the American Dietetic Associations suggestion that vegetarian and vegan diets may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain disease.28

The American Dietetic Association (ADA) advises us that, appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets are healthful and nutritionally adequate28 This view is also shared by the USDA Choose My Plate guidelines which counsel us that, Vegetarian diets can meet all the recommendations for nutrients.142 The American Dietetic Associations quote28 is a craftily written statement that is deliberately misleading and one sided. Taken at face value, it would appear that all vegetarian diets including vegan diets are nutritionally sound all by themselves and dont require any additional nutritional supplements.

In order to get to the true meaning out of the ADAs position statement, we need to dig deeper and determine what they mean by an appropriately planned vegetarian diet. The ADA further hedges this statement by telling us that key nutrients for vegetarians include protein, n-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, iodine, calcium, and vitamins D and B12. A vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, supplements or fortified foods can provide useful amounts of important nutrients.28 Lets dissect this masterly deceptive statement even further. The last line informing us that supplements and fortified foods sometimes are useful, is an outlandish understatement. In reality, it is not just in some cases that supplements and vitamin fortified foods are required, but rather in all cases for vegan diets and in most cases for lacto/ovo diets.Without supplementation vegetarian diets simply dont work and invariably cause multiple nutrient deficiencies that not only adversely affect our health and wellbeing, but also that of our children.

Even informed vegetarians wont argue that virtually all plant foods contain no vitamin B12 and that meat and animal foods are the only significant dietary source of this crucial nutrient. Additionally, we cant synthesize B12 in our bodies. Consequently, if you decide to become a vegan, by default you will become vitamin B12 deficient unless you supplement your diet with this essential vitamin or eat B12 fortified foods.

Any lifelong dietary plan that requires nutrient supplementation on a regular basis makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. You dont have to be an evolutionary biologist to realize that wild animals dont take nutritional supplements, nor do they normally develop vitamin deficiencies when living in their native environments. You will recall that not a single hunter-gatherer society consumed a vegetarian diet.26 This choice was not just a haphazard decision on their part, but rather was dictated by evolution through natural selection. If our ancestral foragers didnt eat B12 containing animal foods, they developed vitamin B12 deficiencies which in turn impaired health and survival thereby worsening their chances of reproducing. Accordingly, any behavior that favored all plant diets would have been quickly weeded out by natural selection because of our genetic requirement for vitamin B12. Unlike modern day vegetarians, hunter-gatherers couldnt simply pop a vitamin pill to make up for nutritional shortcomings in their diets. Without B12 supplementation, every hunter-gatherer who ever lived would have become vitamin B12 deficient if they didnt eat animal food.

I want to emphasize that this flaw in nutritional logic is not just a minor point to be shuffled under the rug as the ADA28 and the USDA142 have done, but rather represents a colossal error in judgment for recommending vegan diets. To fully appreciate this massive breakdown in reasoning lets examine the history of vitamin B12. Because it was the last vitamin to be discovered (1948), vitamin B12 only became available as a commercial supplement in the 1950s. Consequently, every person on the planet who consumed a strict lifelong vegan diet before B12s discovery in 1948 would have been deficient in this critical nutrient. I wonder if the ADA28 and USDA142 would recommend vegan diets to U.S. citizens living prior to 1948 or only after 1948? This case in point shows how absurd their rationale for vegan diets appears vegan diets are deadly before 1948 because they have no vitamin B12 but are healthful and nutritionally adequate28 after 1948 because we can supplement this vitamin. OK no big deal nothing to get too excited about just follow the ADA recommendations and make sure your vegetarian diet is appropriately planned.28 Right?

Unfortunately, most of the worlds vegetarians and vegans have not been able to figure out just exactly what an appropriately planned28 vegetarian diet consists of, as almost all of them maintain deficient or marginal vitamin B12 concentrations in their bloodstreams. A 2003 study by Dr. Hermann and colleagues of 95 vegetarians revealed that 77% of lacto/ovo vegetarians were deficient in vitamin B12 whereas a staggering 92% of the vegans maintained deficiencies in this essential vitamin.52 The elegance of this study was that the researchers employed a powerful new procedure to precisely monitor vitamin B12 status in their subjects.50, 52 The simple measurement of vitamin B12 in the bloodstream often is misleading and doesnt reflect true levels of B12 in our bodies.22, 64, 113 Nevertheless, a study (The EPIC-Oxford Study) which examined simple B12 concentrations in the blood of 231 ovo/lacto vegetarians and 232 vegans verified that B12 deficiencies were widespread within these groups.46 If we use the normal cutoff point (150 pmol/liter) as the measure for vitamin B12 deficiency in the blood, then the data from the EPIC-Oxford study shows that 73% of the vegans and 24% of the lacto/ovo vegetarians had vitamin B12 deficiencies.46 These two scientific papers are representative of nearly all other studies reporting vitamin B12 in vegetarians.1, 109, 118, 121 When this many people who follow vegetarian or vegan diets become vitamin B12 deficient, it is beyond comprehension to me why governmental agencies and national dietary organizations still stubbornly cling to the belief that plant based diets are healthful.

Even more disturbing is a report by Dr. Corinna Koebnick and co-workers in Germany showing that long term ovo/lacto vegetarian diets impair vitamin B12 status in pregnant women.74 The problem here is that maternal B12 deficiencies can then be handed down to the unborn fetus and to nursing infants who frequently have no other source of nutrition except for their mothers vitamin B12 depleted milk.89, 107 B12 deficiency in pregnant women is not just a simple benign nutritional problem, but rather has potentially disastrous health outcomes for both mother and child. B12 deficiency in pregnant women is known to cause spontaneous abortions, weak labor, premature and low birth weight deliveries, birth defects, and the condition preeclampsia where mothers experience high blood pressure and damage to the liver, kidneys and blood vessels.7, 86, 87 Infants born from mothers with vitamin B12 deficiency frequently suffer from congenital malformations, irritability, failure to thrive, apathy, mental retardation and developmental problems.35 These data hardly support the ADAs position that Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood.28 In reality, the ADAs recommendation of vegan and vegetarian diets during all states of the life cycle28 is not only irresponsible, but in many cases is life threatening for mother, fetus and infant.

In Vegetarian and Vegan Diets: Nutritional Disasters Part 2, well discuss why Vitamin B12 deficiencies are just as devastating to adults as they are to infants and expectant mothers.

Cordially,

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus

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November 3rd, 2015 at 2:49 pm

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DoMark International Inc. Donates Performance Enhancing Technology by Noraxon to Assist Physio Expert to World’s Top …

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LONGWOOD, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

DoMark International Inc. (DOMK) (the "Company" or "DoMark"), through its wholly owned subsidiary, MuscleFoot Inc., is pleased to announce that it has donated revolutionary Noraxon equipment to Sean Pea, physio and biomechanics expert to the worlds top track athletes, to assist in developing his clients ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games. In addition to helping his track and field clients, Mr. Pea will have the opportunity to harness the advanced performance measurement capabilities of the Noraxon system to aid his world class athletic clientele from the equestrian, NFL football, and US Olympics and Track & Field arenas. In combination with patented Barefoot Science technology by MuscleFoot Inc., which rehabilitates weak foot muscles and improves athletic performance, the donated Noraxon technology will vastly aid Mr. Pea in optimizing his clients biomechanics and adjusting their training regimens.

Sean Pea is the personal physio and biomechanics expert for many of the worlds top track and field athletes. Notable clients who by the release of this announcement had secured places on the US Olympic team include Justin Gatlin, Mike Rogers, William Claye, Joel Brown, and LoLo Jones. Mr. Pea also works with Olympic hopefuls, Brittany Reese and David Oliver, who continue to pursue spots on the US team. All of the previously mentioned athletes are using Barefoot Science insole system to prepare for the 2012 London Olympics.

Using this high level technology will allow me to improve the performance and decrease the risk of injuries to my clients by observing in an utterly accurate way the motion and performance of the athlete. Along with Barefoot Science, I will be able to fine tune both the highest level athlete and the average person to correct biomechanics. Technology like this was previously only available in a clinic or lab setting and will now be implemented real time towards functional activities, said Sean Pea.

The full system consists of a Clinical DTS (wireless EMG) 4-channel, instrumented treadmill with MyoVideo, and a FDM-SX pressure plate. The goal of this three component system is to provide complete insight into the full body mechanics that control the athletes gait. This system measures vertical force and ground reaction forces, underfoot pressure, temporal and special gait parameters, and provides insight into muscle innervations, symmetry and coordination. The systems 2D kinematics functionality can track height, distance, and angular data. In short, the Noraxon technology donated by DoMark provides a complete, inside and out picture of what is happening within the human body, and allows training staff to modify training routines and make performance adjustments based on real-time intelligent data.

Noraxon systems have recorded an instant decrease of 50% in postural sway or increase in balance/ stability as well as a significant increase in major gait related muscle efficiency and strength in subjects tested after using the patented Barefoot Science insole system. This donation is part of a drive on the part of MuscleFoot Inc. to demonstrate the power of Barefoot Sciences patented foot technology as an integral component of performance enhancement and pain relief for individuals from across the spectrum of amateur, elite, and professional athletics.

Donating this piece of technology to Sean will enhance his clients performance immensely, and we are pleased to help him attain even more credibility in his field as one of the top sports physios on the planet and help his clients to maximize their full potential, said VP of Corporate Development, Patrick Johnson.

Barefoot Science is revolutionizing the $223 billion global footwear and $3.5 billion foot care markets with its patented insole technology. For over 15 years, Barefoot Science has studied foot biomechanics, as well as the capabilities of its products to actively stimulate, strengthen, and restore the foot. This is significant disruptive foot therapy technology that will revolutionize the foot care industry. Applied either through an insole placed inside the shoe, or by integration directly into the design of the shoe, Barefoot Science technology prevents and rehabilitates a wide range of foot, leg, and back ailments, and enhances athletic performance. Barefoot Science backs these claims with a wealth of scientific research and endorsements from thousands of customers who currently use Barefoot Science insoles.

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DoMark International Inc. Donates Performance Enhancing Technology by Noraxon to Assist Physio Expert to World’s Top ...

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