Want a healthy and sharp mind? Play an instrument
Posted by Michelle Moquin on July 23rd, 2011
Good morning!
This is for you Doug and all the other musicians who read my blog:
Musicians Are Probably Smarter Than The Rest Of Us
Want to keep your mind healthy and sharp throughout your life? Pick up an instrument. A new study found that musicians might have brains that function better than their peers well into old age. Bet you wish you stuck with those piano lessons after all.
Researchers tested the mental abilities of senior citizens and discovered that musicians performed better at a number of tests. In particular, musicians excelled at visual memory tasks. While musicians had similar verbal capabilities to non-musicians, the musicians’ ability to memorize new words was markedly better, too. Perhaps most importantly, the musicians’ IQ scores were higher overall than those who spent their lives listening to music rather than performing it.
More from FYI Living:
Want to Slow Memory Loss? Chomp on Some Celery
The Pesticides That Increase Risk of Parkinson’s Disease
Brains Don’t Need A Study Break
The experience of musicians also played a role in how sharp their minds were. The younger the musicians began to play their instruments, the better their minds performed at the mental tasks. Additionally, the total number of years musicians played instruments throughout their life corresponded with how strong their brains remained years later.
The study also found that musicians who took the time to exercise between symphonies had even higher-functioning brain capabilities. This finding supports another recent study that reported people who walk regularly maintain healthier brains. With that in mind, perhaps joining a marching band now will make you the smartest person at the retirement home in the future.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH:
Musicians’ Brains Stay Sharp as They Age
Summary
While it is known that practicing music repeatedly changes the organization of the brain, it is not clear if these changes can correlate musical abilities with non-musical abilities. The study of 70 older participants, with different musical experience over their lifetimes, provides a connection between musical activity and mental balance in old age. “The results of this preliminary study revealed that participants with at least 10 years of musical experience (high activity musicians) had better performance in nonverbal memory, naming, and executive processes in advanced age relative to non-musicians.”
Introduction
Changing one’s lifestyle may postpone the onset of problems connected with old age, like Alzheimer’s disease. These diseases cause cognitive changes like loss of memory, reasoning, and perception. Adequate rest and physical exercise as well as a lifelong habit of stimulating the mind are favorable for clear thinking in old age. Musical activities, undertaken throughout the lifetime, have an impact on one’s mental health during old age. This has been studied in this current research work. Practicing music for a number of years brings about certain changes in brain organization. Comparing the lucidity in old age of those pursued music related activities and those who didn’t may help to understand the effect of the music-related reorganization of brain on successful aging.
Methods
– Seventy healthy participants, aged between 60 and 83, were divided into three groups, based on their degree of involvement in musical activities, over their lifetimes.
– The three groups were similar in average age, education, handedness, sex ratio, and physical exercise habits.
– The first group, namely the non-musicians, never received any formal musical training. The second group, the low activity musicians, had one to nine years of training. The third, the high activity musicians, trained for more than 10 years and played regularly afterward.
– All were tested for brain strengths such as memory, attention, and language prowess, using standardized tests. Their mastery on the use of language, ability to remember, and ability to express oneself were tested.
Results
– Verbal intellectual ability and learning, as well as recall of verbal information, were found to be similar across the three groups.
– The high activity musicians were significantly better at performing tasks based on visual inputs.
– Although language prowess seemed to be similar across the groups, the high activity musicians’ memory for words was significantly better than that of non-musicians.
– The age at which musical training started affected visual memory, while the number of years of training affected non-verbal memory.
Shortcomings/Next steps
High activity musicians have a better chance of retaining certain mental abilities in old age; however, preexisting factors that may affect their choices have not been considered in this study. Social influences like motivation should be considered in future studies. Effects of musical training on verbal memory need to be analyzed further, by considering changes in brain organization that set in with age. A study on whether the effects of music are generalized or whether they affect only specific parts of the brain could also be undertaken.
Conclusion
Engaging in musical activity for most of one’s lifetime significantly helps remember names, and enhances nonverbal memory, the ability to work based on what one sees, and mental agility during old age. The habit of physical exercise, in addition to musical involvement, further adds to mental lucidity in old age. Starting musical training early and continuing it for several years have a favorable effect on metal abilities during old age. Musical training also seems to enhance verbal prowess and the general IQ of a person, although it is possible that people with higher IQ tend to pursue music more seriously. It is advisable to think about our lifestyles and change them accordingly to have a better chance at a healthy, clear-headed old age.
For More Information:
The Relation between Instrumental Musical Activity and Cognitive Aging
Publication Journal: Neuropsychology, April 2011
By Brenda Hanna-Pladdy; Alicia MacKay
From the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas
*FYI Living Lab Reports Are Summaries of the Original Research.
*********
Readers: Enjoy your Saturday! My Mac is on its way back to my loving fingers today. I should be back to catching up with all of you by Monday, if not sooner. Thanks for continuing to be here with me. xoxo…
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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July 23rd, 2011 at 11:34 am
WHAT YOUR EYES REVEAL
We had such a strong reader response to our January 20, 2011 story Your Eyes and Your Health, that we decided to do a follow-up on the clues to your health that you can see in your own two eyes.
This time, we went to ophthalmologist Thomas Steinemann, MD, with the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Cleveland’s MetroHealth Medical Center, for further insight about our eyesight…
In fact, there are a good number of important health issues that the eyes can reveal either as overt symptoms or in changes detected in eye exams, says Dr. Steinemann.
When I spoke with him, he said that some problems manifested in the eyes are relatively common, but there also are others that are alarming and possibly even dangerous.
He told me the story of a woman who had always been in great health. She went to her ophthalmologist every year for a vision checkup.
At her last exam, she was startled when her eye doctor said that she should see her regular physician to check for high blood pressure.
The woman had had no idea there was a problem, but she followed through and discovered that yes, indeed, she had developed high blood pressure.
What was it that tipped her eye doctor off? Simple — as he examined her eyes, the doctor saw that blood vessels behind them had narrowed, nearly always a clear warning signal. Here are a number of other symptoms and what they mean…
A small blind spot in your vision with shimmering lights or wavy lines. Surprisingly, this frightening symptom is usually a form of migraine — surprising because it often does not include a headache.
Called ocular migraine or migraine aura, the blind spot with sparkling edges continues to expand for 20 to 30 minutes, after which it starts to resolve on its own at about the same pace.
It can also manifest as flashes of light, zigzagging patterns, multiple blind spots or shimmering stars — even temporary vision loss in one eye.
People who have had this happen once will recognize their precise symptoms and know they will self-resolve.
But Dr. Steinemann says that for anyone experiencing the above symptoms for the first time, it is important to let your doctor know both to calm your own anxiety —
and on the off chance it might be something else such as a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA or mini-stroke) or even a detached retina.
If you have never had these symptoms before and they last more than a few minutes, you should contact your ophthalmologist or go to the ER.
Yellowish, bumpy patches on the upper and lower lids. Called xanthelasma palpebra, these are small fatty deposits that likely indicate high cholesterol.
They appear as multiple deposits lying within the skin of the lid, but unlike styes, they are not red or tender, do not erupt acutely and do not show up at the base of the lashes. Having these patches means it’s time to check out your cholesterol levels.
Red eyes with swollen lids. Airborne allergens are highly recognizable with all their obvious symptoms — sneezing and coughing and eyes that are red and itchy.
But if your only symptoms are redness and swelling around the eyes, it’s a signal that you are probably allergic to something you are using in or near your eyes, such as a cosmetic or ointment.
Review all suspicious products to isolate the offending product and, of course, get rid of it.
A bump or pigmented spot on the lid. This could be skin cancer, and if the bump or spot has a brown color, it may be melanoma, a highly dangerous cancer.
Those who need to be most wary include older adults and fair-skinned individuals who have blue or green eyes. Not wearing sunglasses or prescription eyeglasses with UV protection also raises one’s risk.
Melanoma can also develop on the outer surface of the eyeball, the iris, inside the eye and even in the back of the eye under the retina.
The good news: If detected early with a doctor’s scope called an ophthalmoloscope, prompt treatment and careful monitoring of the melanoma make it definitely survivable today.
Blurred vision in people with diabetes. This can be a symptom of uncontrolled blood sugar or diabetic retinopathy, a slow but progressive disorder involving damage to blood vessels in the retina.
If left unchecked, it eventually causes blindness. In the early stages, diabetic retinopathy usually does not have symptoms.
As the disease progresses, blood leaking into the eye from damaged vessels can make the macula swell and cause blurred vision.
Dr. Steinemann notes that when blood sugar spikes and drops, it poses a major threat to the circulation in the retina.
Consequently the best way to protect your vision if you have diabetes is through careful control of your blood sugar.
These are just some of the conditions that your eyes can reveal, all the more reason to have regular eye checkups.
Source(s):
Thomas L. Steinemann, MD, professor of ophthalmology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, clinical correspondent for the American Academy of Ophthalmology (www.aao.org) and staff ophthalmologist, MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland.
July 23rd, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Hello Michelle. Happy for you your computer is coming back!
It’s a reality check when it goes down. I use mine constantly for information and when mine died and I no longer had access to it I found it completely debilitating! I swear it was like I lost a limb. Life is so much more efficient when you’re wired (or wireless).
I play the skin flute. I’ll play more often if it will keep me brilliant. :)
And if you pull your lower eye lid down a bit and the color of the skin exposed is white-ish it’s a good indicator of anemia, being low in iron. The color should be pink.
Its a beautiful weekend here in my little corner of Earth. I hear there’s chaos going on “out there” currently. I hope it all resolves peacefully. And as to the other big problem I hope those tornados and hurricanes coming don’t affect my relatives and loved ones or anybody reading here.
July 23rd, 2011 at 3:42 pm
As Aristotle pointed out, “From what has been said it is evident what an influence music has over the disposition of the mind, and how variously it can fascinate it: and if it can do this, most certainly it is what youth ought to be instructed in.”
So, I carry on to state, music is what carries youth along and keeps the mind agile, inquisitive and vibrant.
Oh, shit, I just remembered…I need to run off to rehearsal, if I could only remember where I put my keys…
July 23rd, 2011 at 8:38 pm
IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO FICTION DO IT RIGHT!
Michelle, I have not seen any of the Harry Potter movies. But a loved one wanted me to escort her to the last one. I went because she has sat through many of what must have been very boring movies for her to be with me.
I paid her back with this one. It was an adequate demonstration of what is said about white people. They have to be told what is GOOD, BAD, and in this case TERRIBLE, because they can’t think for themselves.
The thing that the saying doesn’t tell us is that they have to be told that the people setting the standards for them are special too.
Let me say I have not been designated as one of those people. But that movie SUCKED! As the expression goes, the only question is how bad did it SUCK?
I guess I should start with the way the story ended. Harry potter and his family 19 years later.
That was the inept authors best shot at wrapping up what was a silly premise to begin with. It could only excite white people because their imaginations is so limited in the first place.
The only genius in the movie was Harry’s female side kick. Harry Pathetic wouldn’t have survived an episode without her intervention. He was just one, Duh, from the next throughout the movie.
She on the other hand was johhny on the spot with the solutions that saved their asses every time.
In the end when he had the great wand that would give ALL THE POWER IN THE WORLD TO THE HOLDER, this ignoramus broke it in half and threw both pieces in the same direction over a bridge.
A thought that should have come to mind – Why break in in half if you are going to throw both parts in the same direction over a bridge. Who might me under it to retrieve the two parts and put them together again? (Duh?)
A thought that should have come to mind – Why not use “THE MOST POWERFUL WAND IN THE WORLD” to fix all the damage their search for it had caused?
I mean the the school, the town and the bodies of most of the people in the movie was a mess because of the search for the wand.
Then if you must dumb as white boy break it in half and toss both pieces in the same direction over a bridge.
A thought that should have come to mind – Why all the books and movies if at the end the struggle to be a wizard would end with the wanna be wizard tossing “THE MOST POWERFUL WAND IN THE WORLD ANY WIZARD COULD HAVE” over a bridge. And 19 years later sending his son to the same school to study be a wizard? His mother and father were – hello – wizards.
Believe me you gotta be white or have been dumbed down by white logic(oximoron) to even consider this piece of nonsense literary. It fails the common sense test.
Harry Potter became the central character because of an accident. The bad guy lost a piece of his essence to a baby in a crib because as he was killing the baby’s mother the bad guy’s essence had no other living place to go.
So It went into Harry Pathetic. Harry’s only claim to fame was that he had powers he didn’t understand. Those powers came from the essence of the bad guy that was accidentally transferred to him. Yeah – That is the Plot -
The other inane premise of the movie is that the bad guy was looking for immortality. Get this we learn at the end of the book that as long as both Harry and the bad guy didn’t die at the same time neither could die.
So the story should have ended at the beginning when a piece of the bad guy went into Harry the baby as collateral damage.
We are supposed to believe that this super smart bad guy couldn’t figure out that he shouldn’t be trying to kill the one person that guaranteed what he was killing everyone in the book to get, hello, IMMORTALITY.
Is there any wonder the world is in the shape it is in? White logic prevails.
Now we know why we spent 50 plus years fighting communism only to make the biggest and most ruthless communist nation on the planet our biggest trading partner. One we have given our own people’s jobs to.
White America has made China and the other communist country Vietnam our biggest creditors. We owe the hundreds of billions of Dollars. And we have made the the world’s second largest Economy and they will surpass us by 2025 to become the WORLD’S LARGEST ECONOMY.
So why was the white boy telling us we had to stop the communist in Vietnam so that we wouldn’t have to fight them in the street of America when as soon as it was profitable for them they intended to sell out to the Communist? Oh, yeah, WHITE LOGIC(definitely an Oxi-Moron) .
But at the same time they accuse a Black President of being an evil, yes you guessed it, Communist.
White logic justifies selling out to Communist China, a country that enslaves its people while telling Americans how evil Communism is. Makes sense to me then why they feel they can tell those same morons that Harry Potter is a great movie(s).
The logic of why they didn’t feature the smart girl and make Harry Pathetic a side character is explained by another great piece of white logic. That would be why we support arab nations that enslave, and pimp their women.
The white boy’s logic is about him. Just as Harry is stronger magically because of an accident of birth so is man over woman physically. But for in white logic this is superior to the intellectual prowess of a woman. So the fact that the BRAINS of the trio rests with a woman is immaterial to the logic of who should be featured as the star.
The male gets the nod because the white man is a male. And that’s that. So story after story the reader is forced to follow after the intellectual inept wimp Harry Pathetic, while his time-after-time Ass-saving Heroine is just there to, well, save Harry Pathetic’s ass.
Just to show you what she thought of Harry’s dumb ass, she, who had her pick of the two males in their trio, picked the other guy.
Even in the end she was using her intellect. She picked the most intellectual and physically capable of the two males and she knew it wasn’t, you guessed it correctly again, Harry Pathetic.
Larry
July 23rd, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Guam War Survivors: Part 6
Posted: Jul 21, 2011 9:25 PM
Updated: Jul 22, 2011 2:00 AM
Video Gallery
Survivor Stories: Cindy Terlaje
6:33
by Sabrina Salas Matanane
Guam – Cindy Terlaje was only a child during the war who was able to survive through the help of a complete stranger. December 1941 – Cindy Tenorio Terlaje was nine years old when the Japanese began their assault on Guam.
She said, “When the bomb started and my father just grabbed us kids 5 children all together my mom and dad and we start running up the hill because war was coming.
We get up toward and up to Manenggon and we stayed there for a whole my dad had dug up a cave and we stayed there for months.
There hardly any food we drink from the water form the river. Food is scarce. For a while I got sick and everything.
I was malnutrition and all and they continue the bombing. My parents were just devastated from the war and everything they had four other children and they tried to tell us not make any noise because the Japanese.”
As the months went by the Japanese finally located their hideout. Their family began to flea, but without Cindy.
She said, “I got very sick and people we’re running outside the cave saying their coming their coming we have to get out.
My mother knew I would not be able to make it because of my illness, so what she did she wrapped me up in a piece of cloth and I remember she said goodbye to me.
I was 9 years old at that time. I didn’t know I thought they were just going outside and later on I found out I was all by myself.”
Afraid and alone in a cave, Cindy says a man came running by and saw her. “So he picked me up he said, ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m going to take you’, he asked “Where are you parents?’,
I said I don’t know I thought they were outside there’s nobody out there people just going different directions. I call him Pop and when he got up his wife and daughter just left already with other crowd. He put me on his back and said hang on to it.”
Little did they know that they weren’t actually fleeing from the Japanese, but rather the Americans were coming to liberate the people of Guam.
“So we continued going to Agat and he handed me over to the military the American people to take care of him and that was the last time I saw him,” she said.
In Agat Cindy was reunited with her family. “I noticed my sister and I stood up and started yelling at her and I saw my mom and my dad and then they my mom thought she was seeing a ghost because she though I died already then they came up to the tent where I was staying and we started hugging each other,” she said.
Lucky to be alive and back with her family, for decades, Cindy would tell her story about this man who saved her. Ironically it was her mother that left her in that cave in Maneggon.
That found out who this mystery man was and shared it with her daughter almost 40 years later. “After she told me I didn’t even say goodbye to my mom I just took off and took my husband and we went to Yona,” she said.
When they arrived to Yona, people were gathered around and just so happened to be sharing their war stories.
But it was one particular story she knew all too well. A story told by her husband’s Uncle Frank. “During the war I was passing over at Manneggon I heard this little girl cry and she was all by herself so I picked her up.
Took off my wife is gone so I had her by myself we just took off going all the way down to Agat. I just wanted to know if she’s dead alive off-island married or she join before I die.
I want to know what happened to this girl. My husband was holding me down on the chair he was in shock…my husband she’s been telling me this story all my life and I can’t believe it.
“So Uncle Frank finished his story he let me go and I went and sat down on his lap and Auntie Beck say, ‘Uncle Pete, what’s wrong with your wife?’ He says just give her a glass of water and I was shaking everything, hugging him and kissing him.
I look face to face at him and said take a good look on the girls you picked up in Maneggon is right here facing you, but he says but you’re Cindy Terlaje, I said, ‘Yes, I’m Terjaje because I married a Terlaje, thank you for saving my life because if it wasn’t for you I won’t be here today.’”
Frank has since passed on, but a liberation day doesn’t go by without remembering this stranger in Manenngon she calls now Pop.
“Everytime I think of the liberation I think back memories its like I’m seeing it all over again, running in the jungle and everything going over dead bodies and things like that its just you know.
It’s just I don’t know, but its hardship what we had went through and one thing that its not going to go away its in my head forever,” she said.
July 23rd, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Larry:
You don’t think much of us white people do you? This story gives me pause about us too.
=========================
A.J. Nelson was just four years old when he was killed in a hit-and-run by an intoxicated driver in Atlanta. Now his own mother, Raquel Nelson — who was also hit by the car while trying to save her son — faces up to three years in prison for A.J.’s death.
Raquel and her three children got off a bus and — with several other passengers — attempted to cross a five-lane highway to get to her apartment across the street.
Standing at the median, little A.J. reportedly saw someone else jaywalk and ran out into the street to follow. Raquel ran out after him to stop him.
But it was too late. Both Raquel and A.J. were hit by a vehicle, and A.J. died in the hospital a few hours later.
The driver, who admitted having a few beers and pain medication that afternoon, spent just six months in jail.
This Tuesday, a judge will sentence Raquel Nelson to serve up to 36 months in jail for the death of her own son.
=======================
So Larry you argument is that it is white logic to give more time to the victim for being involved in the same event that the perpetrator caused than is given to that perpetrator.
Could be.
Janet
July 23rd, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Larry, you are an ass. This white man saw the movie and basically agreed with your premise that it failed because it just did not survive the common sense test.
But your accusation that white people have less common sense is ludicrous. Many races are fans of the Harry Potter series.
Keith.
July 23rd, 2011 at 10:00 pm
I like most of the Harry Potter movies. But this one was a let down. Why did it have to end 19 years later. Why 19 if all we were going to be presented with was the children of the protagonists going off the the same wizard school they went to?
Nina
July 24th, 2011 at 5:51 am
Howie:
I got up this morning looking for the second installment of Tesla. Hope to see it soon.
John
July 24th, 2011 at 6:01 am
Larry, they can call you racist, or shrill or whatever, but shit like this from followers of the republican party pretty much proves your point.
=================
Reclaim rock for conservatism:
Refuse to accept that Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is anything other than a Great Conservative Rock Song—a masterpiece of tub-thumping, gung-ho, redneck patriotism.
If mention is made of the anti-war sentiments in the verses about blue collar victims of Vietnam, simply go, “Yeah whatever.
No one listens to those bits anyway.” Then confirm your point by singing, “Born in the USA! Born in the USA! Born in the USA!” really loudly.
===============
So let me get this straight. In order to hint to the rest of us that they think President Obama was not born in the USA they pick a song by a man who wrote it basically to protest their support of the Vietnam war.
Oh yeah, Larry, this “special” guy tells them it’s okay to “Refuse to accept that Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is anything other than a Great Conservative Rock Song—a masterpiece of tub-thumping, gung-ho, redneck patriotism.” so they do.
As you said White Logic is an Oxi-Moron.
Daiyu
July 24th, 2011 at 6:21 am
Somebody should go after that Murdoch. I read this article about his news corp probably being the one that hacked into the Climate Scientists’ email in an attempt to embarrass them.
It turns out the cops that investigated the crime(Scotland Yard) were on the payroll of News Corp. About now Murdoch must be regretting he can’t pay off Anonz.
This American Indian say Whoop Whoop to you Anonz.
=====================
There have been countless independent investigations into the scientists whose emails were hacked in November 2009. And the scientists have been (quietly) vindicated every time.
But we still don’t know who hacked the emails! And now we know that one of the key investigative bodies tasked with tracking down the hackers — Scotland Yard — was compromised at the time.
How were they compromised? Neil Wallis — the former News of the World executive editor — became a “£1,000 ($1,613) a day” consultant to Scotland Yard in October 2009.
Last week, he became the ninth person arrested in the metastasizing News Corporation scandal “on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to section 1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977.”
Certainly Wallis had plenty of motive to join Scotland Yard just to keep an eye on the investigation into the phone-hacking scandal.
Indeed, The New York Times reports Wallis “was reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case.”
But this also suggests how corrupt Wallis was — and how corrupted Scotland Yard was.
In the light of the News Corp phone-hacking scandal, it is clear that Murdoch’s outfit had means, motive, and opportunity for the Climategate email hacking.
News Corp certainly has a history of defaming climate scientists and a penchant for hacking.
Indeed, in this country, a division of News Corp had a federal case brought against it for “hacking its way into Floorgraphics’s password protected computer system.”
The complaint said News America had “illegally accessed plaintiff’s computer system and obtained proprietary information” and “disseminated false, misleading and malicious information about the plaintiff.” Sounds familiar, no?
After a few days of testimony, News Corp “settled with Floorgraphics for $29.5 million and then, days later, bought it, even though it reportedly had sales of less than $1 million.” This behavior simply wasn’t a big shock to News Corp.
So News Corp would obviously now be on the top of anybody’s short list of possible suspects in the Climategate hacking.
At the same time, we now know things were so cozy between News Corp, Wallis, and Scotland Yard that it is hard to believe News Corp would have been thoroughly investigated for Climategate, if they were investigated at all.
How cozy? Staff at News Corp’s News of the World tabloid apparently routinely paid off members of the Metropolitan Police Service, aka Scotland Yard — payments that were “condoned” by then-editor Andy Coulson, who later became chief spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron.
How cozy? The Guardian dropped this bombshell Friday: “Scotland Yard’s most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis.”
Scotland Yard shilling for News Corp? I don’t think people would have believed this had they seen it in a blockbuster movie.
How cozy? As The New York Times explains, the Yard hardly investigated the phone hacking scandal, ignoring mountains of evidence for years.
And then we have the social coziness:
Executives and others at the company also enjoyed close social ties to Scotland Yard’s top officials.
Since the hacking scandal began in 2006, Mr. Yates [the assistant commissioner] and others regularly dined with editors from News International papers, records show.
Sir Paul Stephenson, the police commissioner, met for meals 18 times with company executives and editors during the investigation, including on eight occasions with Mr. Wallis while he was still working at The News of the World …
Just after Christmas last year Sir Paul recovered from surgery at a Champneys Spa in Hertfordshire, and his $19,000 bill was paid by a friend, the spa’s managing partner, Sky News reported.
Sir Paul learned Saturday that Mr. Wallis had worked as a public-relations consultant for the spa …
So I think it is quite safe to say that it is unlikely Scotland Yard pursued any serious investigation into the possibility that News Corp was involved in Climategate.
Now, it is entirely possible that News Corp wasn’t involved. But there is no way of knowing until we get a thorough and independent investigation.
Here’s one more astrological coincidence of the highest order: In October 2009, Wallis became a senior consultant to Outside Organisation — a PR firm and crisis management agency, which … wait for it … “was used by the [University of East Anglia] following the Climategate scandal.”
What’s funny is that if you go over to the denier sites, like Climate Audit, the hiring of Wallis’s firm by the University of East Anglia (UEA)’s Climatic Research Unit is somehow further evidence of their corruption, that they were trying to carry out “covert” operations to clear their name. One article reports:
Wallis led on the University of East Anglia “climategate” job, when Outside was drafted in to help the university’s Climatic Research Unit defend itself against charges of scientific misconduct.
In fact, most people think that UEA’s crisis management was catastrophically bad for months — “covert” is a good word for it, though I prefer “virtually nonexistent.”
I can’t imagine wanting to put on your resume that you were the guy in charge of UEA’s PR after Climategate. It’d be like saying you advised President Bush on how to handle PR around his response to Hurricane Katrina. Of course, Wallis won’t be getting many PR jobs for the foreseeable future.
Whether there is anything more than just extreme coincidence in Wallis leading on UEA’s Climategate defense, I do know that when the deniers say it is cooling, you can be certain it is warming, and when they say there is no smoke, you can be sure it is a hellish, record-breaking wildfire.
In any case, it is time for an independent investigation into the Climategate email hacking.
We now know that for four years, Scotland Yard sat on evidence suggesting the phones of “nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims” had been hacked.
So the Climategate investigation should not involve Scotland Yard, and should investigate whether News Corp had any involvement.
It could start by investigating whether News Corp hacked the phone of any climate scientists.
Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
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I read Larry’s bit about White Logic. As an American Indian who’s forefathers barely survived the genocide attempt of the White man, I can see his point.
So the British will use some of that white logic to come up with the logic that they have to kill someone to protect the reputation of the cops-for-hire service called Scotland Yard.
Conventional logic would be to clean out the garbage by firing any and all personnel in the Yard caught taking bribes. I said conventional logic not white logic.
Waki
July 24th, 2011 at 6:25 am
Rupert Murdoch is the epitome of evil, or at least one of them. And hacking is a minor detail compared to the real harms he’s wrought.
Murdoch is a right wing fascist who controls large portion of the mass media in the two most powerful countries, and has politicians so scared that he’ll expose their dirty laundry that he basically gets whatever he wants politically.
I agree that hacking into someone’s personal email is generally a bad thing — I make exceptions for certain people, like Murdoch — but it pales in comparison to his media dominance and all of the harms that’s caused.
July 24th, 2011 at 6:26 am
C’mon Howie where’s part II?
July 24th, 2011 at 6:31 am
One thing seems to be clear – Murdoch’s News Corp engaged in bribery, hacking, and other criminal activity on a regular basis, in an organized fashion.
That’s a pretty systematic fraud, and they deserve to be taken down. If it were a person doing this instead of a corporation, you would probably call them a psychopath.
July 24th, 2011 at 7:07 am
Larry, it is my belief that the “white logic” you are referring to is unique to the racist attitudes of American and UK bigots. They are easily manipulated because they see everything through their self deluded images of superiority.
Any concept put forward that incorporates that delusion of theirs is taken as gospel.
We finnish are not affected by that kind of manipulation.
Aamu
July 24th, 2011 at 7:16 am
obama’s a bull$hitter and LIAR….
he’ll make up words or definitions to words so he can see himself as always being right…
obama’s the biggest scam that’s ever been run in the U.S.
americans should be very embarrassed that they allowed this to happen….
July 24th, 2011 at 7:21 am
Bedbug Cases Could Triple This Year
Jeffrey White
Bedbug infestations are most common July through September.
Infestations were widespread last year, so the bugs are already widely embedded. Bedbugs are difficult to eradicate and can live for a year without feeding.
Self-defense: Check for bedbugs in your box spring and on your headboard, as well as bedbug feces, which look like small black dots.
If you discover an infestation, call a professional. Your home may have to be treated three or more times over two weeks. Using over-the-counter sprays can make the infestation worse because bugs that are not killed will spread.
Personal interviewed Jeffrey White, research entomologist, BedBugCentral.com, Lawrenceville, New Jersey.