The end of a brief era?

I don't want to write too much about what how things ended between Gavin and I. Partially because it's just too long and convoluted of a story, and partially because it's imperative that I convince myself of how unimportant he is, in the grand scheme of things.

Whenever I start to think about it, I start to tear up. But I can't let myself be like this. It really, really hurts, but it's so important that I keep my chin up and try to avoid allowing myself to feel the pain that comes along with loss.

I'm just completely confused by him (what's new, right?). I had thought he was so much more open minded, and I believed he cared for me as a person.

But something tells me that this isn't the final end to this saga. Yet simultaneously, I have to convince myself that it is and just move on.

Ugh.

TBC

Obama's passivity could lead to the loss of a Palestinian partner

To realize the extent to which the lame-duck candidate has regressed from the positions of the new and promising President Obama, the speech to the United Nations in September 2011 should be compared to one he gave in Cairo in 2009. At that time he pledged to "personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires," and said "... it is time for all of us to live up to our responsibilities." Yesterday he sent the occupied and the occupier, the strong and the weak, to solve the core issues on their own.

In Cairo he recalled, along with Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, the "daily humiliations ... that come with the occupation." And he added: "Let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable." He even compared the struggle of the Palestinians for freedom to the struggle of black people in the United States for equal rights. On Wednesday, Obama paid pursed lip service to the legitimate aspirations and forgot to mention the occupation.

In June 2009, Obama spoke of "the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map." He meant, among other things, and perhaps mainly, Israel's obligation to completely stop construction in the settlements and dismantle the outposts built after March 2001. To remove all doubt, he stated resolutely: "It is time for these settlements to stop."

On Wednesday, not one word of criticism was heard about Israel creating unilateral physical facts on the ground. To the 2011-model Obama, only the Palestinians' approach to the United Nations is unilateral, objectionable and meriting the death penalty. Only the very best navigators of the endless maze of the "peace process" could find in yesterday's address an indirect mention of Obama's support for negotiations based on the 1967 borders and an exchange of territories - in a general reference to his speech last May.

Obama forgot to mention that in July he demanded that the Quartet release a statement of support for the annexation of the settlement blocs to Israel and recognition of Israel's Jewish character. Yesterday he was a bit more cautious and made do with the declaration that "Israel deserves recognition." To whom exactly was the statement directed? To North Korea? To Iran? How many countries among those whose leaders were listening to his remarks do not recognize Israel? True, none of them, including the United States, recognize the occupation, nor the annexation of East Jerusalem.

 But the abrupt 180 Obama's pulling right now makes sense in the current political climate. He's obviously courting the all-important American Jewish vote while simultaneously dodging charges from both the left and right that he's not pro-Israeli enough.

The following observation:

"Obama's graceless courting of the Israeli government is unlikely to attract Jewish votes or financing; those who believe in the perpetuation of the conflict will prefer a Republican candidate who recycles the hollow vow to bring the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. "

  ...is somewhat true, but misses the larger point that in order for Obama to win reelection, his policies concerning Israel must be in line with the American voter's, and for historical reasons far too nuanced to go into here, the American masses have always been strongly pro-Israel.

Lack of empathy in people with severe TBI?

Things that make you go "hmm." This actually explains a lot.


Lack of Empathy Following Traumatic Brain Injury Associated With Reduced Responsiveness to Anger

Egocentric, self-centred, and insensitive to the needs of others: these social problems often arise in people with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and have been attributed in part to a loss of emotional empathy, the capacity to recognise and understand the emotions of other people. Given that traumatic brain injuries are becoming more common, and resulting empathy deficits can have negative repercussions on social functioning and quality of life, it is increasingly important to understand the processes that shape emotional empathy.

A new study has recently revealed evidence of a relationship between physiological responses to anger and a reduction of emotional empathy post-injury, as reported in the May 2011 issue of Elsevier's Cortex.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales, Australia, teamed up to investigate whether physiological responses to emotions correlate with emotional empathy in a group of adults with severe TBI and a group of healthy control participants. After determining the emotional empathy abilities of the participants by questionnaire, the researchers measured activation of their facial muscles and sweat glands, in response to happy and angry facial expressions, using facial electromyography (EMG) and skin conductance. They found that the control group spontaneously mimicked the emotional facial expressions they saw, and also perspired more in response to angry faces. In contrast, those in the TBI group generally scored lower in emotional empathy and were less responsive, specifically to angry faces. Lack of emotional empathy was specifically found to be associated with reduced physiological responses to angry faces.

"The results of this study were the first to reveal that reduced emotional responsiveness observed after severe TBI is linked to changes in empathy in this population. The study also lends support to the conclusion that impaired emotional responsiveness -- including facial mimicry and skin conductance -- may be caused, at least in part, by dysfunction within the system responsible for emotional empathy," explains author Arielle De Sousa. "This has important implications for understanding the impaired social functioning and poor quality of interpersonal relationships commonly seen as a consequence of TBI, and may be key to comprehending and treating empathy deficits post-injury."

Kickboxing?

I've really enjoyed karate quite a bit, but I was chatting with Gabrielle a few days ago about how one of my motivations for joining karate is my determination to achieve a sculpted body (i.e. toned, relatively muscular, and with a healthier amount of body fat), and she replied that kickboxing would be a more ideal sport for that kind of goal.

Thus, I looked into it a bit more, and it would appear that she's actually right. So I think I'm either going drop karate for now (though I really love that dojo, so I may definitely come back to it later), but it would appear that kickboxing would more comport with my immediate fitness goals.

My weight loss has been going excruciatingly slow. In the past few weeks or so, I've only lost about 6-8 pounds. I could really use a cardio intensive workout regimen to help kick start my weight loss.

And for the record, I really am doing this more than anything for myself. Because I've always wanted a sculpted body --Gavin just provided the impetus do something I've been putting off for a long time. Gabrielle actually became very angry with Gavin when I told her what he had said to me about my weight, but I defended him, arguing that he is being perfectly reasonable to have such stringent and high expectations of his lovers (not that I'm yet his lover or anything) because it comes with the territory. That is that part of being so attractive necessarily entails that you can have better expectations of others than people who aren't able to be so choosy, and I'm perfectly aware of just how much this sounds like an elitist rant, but it's the truth, so deal with it.