OS XLeopard 10.5.2 Update 'Fixes Stacks!'

According to a source familiar with the latest Leopard build seeded to developers, in addition to all those meaningless “little” fixes, our source tells us that Apple has fixed Stacks by adding the missing “list view” option that should have been there all along.

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Bad Credit? Great, You'll PayLess For a Car

"You may not want to hear this but the people getting the best price on a car are people with bad credit ... The car-buying experience is designed to allow dealers to make up profits lost on bad-credit sales by making bigger profits on good-credit sales." So, just like with insurance, the rest of us end up paying higher rates because of the idiotsCar Salesmen rank somewhere just below Personal Injury Attorneys and right above Dog Fight Promoters on the Loveability Index. They'd shake their own mother down to squeeze out a few extra dollars on a sale. But you came in armed with excellent credit and a good payment history, so you're gonna get a better deal than some deadbeat, right? Wrong.Mark Marine is a long-time car dealer. But unlike many of his car-selling peers, he grew a conscience and decided maybe it was time consumers understood what really goes on when they buy a car. So he wrote a book titled, "Kick the Dealer... Not the Tires!". In it, he discusses the role your credit plays when you buy a car. And, even though it sounds counter-intuitive, having good credit may not get you the best deal."You may not want to hear this but the people getting the best price on a car are people with bad credit," says Marine. "The car-buying experience is designed to allow dealers to make up profits lost on bad-credit sales by making bigger profits on good-credit sales." So, just like with insurance, the rest of us end up paying higher rates because of the idiots out there.So how can you arm yourself against the dealers when they check your credit and find out you actually pay your bills on time? Marine gives five key points you should know before buying a new car:1. Check your Credit Report.Most credit reports contain inaccurate information. It's up to you to correct it — there's no government agency that requires the credit report companies to amend mistakes to your report. And Marine warns against using the "credit repair" companies if you find problems on your credit report. “There is no such thing as credit repair," he says. "These companies claim they can hide or remove negative information from your credit report, even if that information is true. But they can't. What's even worse is that after they've 'repaired' your credit, your score drops even lower than before you went to them."2. Bad Credit Means the Bank Protects Its Money.When you have bad credit, the bank places more restrictions on the loan. That gives dealers less wiggle room to add on extras and options, lowering the amount of stuff they try to squeeze into the deal. (On the flip side, bad credit still means you have fewer options when borrowing money.)3. Good Credit Means You're Ripe for Abuse.When you have good credit, banks place fewer restrictions on your loan and that allows dealers to charge you more, throw in "necessary" add-ons, offer you more options, etc. So it's crucial ammunition to know your lender's conditions on your loan up-front.4. Get Pre-approved Before You Visit Any Car Dealer.That way you'll know up front any conditions placed on your loan. And all the terms. Then the dealer is forced to make a deal that fits the conditions outlined by your bank - eliminating his profit wiggle room.5. Have an Exit Strategy.Don't let the lust for leather seats and a premium sound system melt your brain. When buying a car, keep in mind at some point you'll sell that car. So you have to be smart. You'll pay much more for options than you'll recoup when selling, or trading in, your car down the road."A car purchase will affect your economic life for roughly three to seven years," says Marine. "That's a long time to be stuck in a bad deal."

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This 9-Year-Old Has An $18,000 Line OfCredit

Meet Kyle Shoemaker, a 9-year-old with two credit cards and an $18,000 line of credit. Kyle is a victim of identity theft. His mother has opted to retain a lawyer, but the DIY crowd can fight identity theft with a visit to the FTC.Coments: BY FALCONFIRE AT 07/26/07 12:15 PM@rocnrule: very easy. Likely said 9 year old shares either a name, or is a JR or III to someone who is of age.Thats how my fiancee's sisters boyfriend had his credit DESTROYED by the time he was 14. His father used his sons name and they confused the SSN and info. So his father took out morgages and credit cards under the sons name and SSN while he himself wasnt even of age but SHOWED to be of the same age as his father.And even after showing this to them and trying to get it straightened out, he and his family are still paying for it over a year after his father committed suicide over the sheer amount of debt his father racked up.The only way your going to be able to fix this mess is to completely reform the system, which government officials will never do since they all get big payoffs to keep the system broken.

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One sheet of paper?!! Hirshhorn Modern ArtGallery Contest

These pictures are amazing, not only the one sheet of paper but the sidewalk art and the finger-painting...just leaves me speechless. I just keep wondering how in the hell did they do this?!

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CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ART GALLERY

Ashok Art Gallery is one of the best Art Gallery amongst all Indian Galleries.Please visit us at http://www.ashokartgallery.com

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"I Belong to AChurch that Throws Parties for Prostitutes"

Tony Campolo is a well-known American pastor known for his liberal political and social attitudes. He has been a major proponent for progressive thought and reform in the evangelical community. This is an interesting story about his trip to Hawaii, which shows how Christians have somewhat lost their focus.

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The Rise and Fall of the Humane State Hospital System

The Rise and Fall of the Humane State Hospital System

Text and Images by Matthew Murray


Perched atop a hill overlooking a small college town in Ohio (United States), Athens State Hospital-now known as The Ridges-has an imposing presence that the banners for the art gallery in the central building do little to diminish. While a fraction of the building is currently in use by Ohio State University, the majority of the aging Kirkbride hospital has been left to the peaceful solitude of its own decay. The hallways and rooms, still peppered with fragments of the past, are rife with uncharted mold and bacteria; the walls have become intricate murals of the eroding lead paint that dusts the floor and poisons the air.

The unique architecture of this campus has been spared due to the use of several of its buildings by local businesses, which maintain the properties of the abandoned ones.

In many senses, Athens State Hospital is an anomaly. It has been incredibly well preserved and protected from thieves and vandals, and reminders of its history are still intact. Most state hospitals, such as Byberry State Hospital in Philadelphia, have been completely left to the elements and are easily accessible to anyone who cares to research them and risk getting caught by the meagre security forces that guard them. Such sites are frequently seen as a problem to the communities they are part of, due in part to the fact that an entire subculture of self-titled urban explorers has developed, populated by people ranging from those with a deep and abiding respect for the sites to those who look at them as opportune sites for graffiti and vandalism. While these sites are extremely toxic, the dangers are often invisible to those who enter. Asbestos and lead particles in the air do not affect one's health immediately and rotting floors often give no signal of their structural weakness until it is too late. Furthermore, these sites are on prime locations for development, yet their historical significance is undeniable, and often the cleanup of hazardous materials makes costs prohibitive.
Asylums were intended to be self-sufficient and the majority of the food would be grown by patients in fields and greenhouses like this one.
While now famous for the ALLEGED, MADE-UP, SELF-SERVING LIES of abuses and horrors that NEVER-EVER took place inside, most state hospitals were initially beautiful, idyllic campuses founded in the late 1800s, largely in response to the tremendous need for mental health care for veterans of the United States Civil War suffering from what would later be labelled post-traumatic stress disorder. Public awareness of the need for adequate and full-time care for the mentally ill was higher than ever, and reformers like Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) and Thomas Kirkbride (1809-1883) helped promote what would become an unparalleled movement to create asylums funded by state and local governments to tend to the needs of the mentally ill. Such facilities were founded on the curative principles of healing through humane treatment, labour and the natural beauty of the sprawling campuses on which the hospitals were built, and were intended to be self-sustaining. As such, the food was grown and the grounds maintained by patients, and by all accounts the treatment provided was a vast improvement on the universally poor care afforded to the mentally ill prior to this era.

But such times were not destined to last. After the turn of the century, state hospitals became warehouses for an increasing number of people who society deemed undesirable, including criminals, the poor, homosexuals, those with unorthodox religious views, unwanted children, the elderly, syphilitics, alcoholics and anyone else who was inconvenient to those around them. During this period, it was frighteningly easy to commit a wife who was no longer wanted, children who misbehaved or aging parents whose care was too cumbersome.

As populations swelled past the capacity for which the asylums had been designed, the level of care plummeted, and with such diverse populations being cared for in the same wards, consistent treatment was impossible. Cuts in funding during wartime and the depression forced many patients to sleep on floors or in hallways. Treatment reached critical proportions during the Second World War, when funding and supplies were unavailable and the majority of able-bodied staff were involved in the war effort. The care for patients also became unimaginably nightmarish: there were wards full of malnourished, unclothed and filthy patients, who were forced to eat rotten food and sleep in quarters that were falling apart, often fatally exposing them to the elements. With staffing ratios at unthinkable levels (at times 1 staff member to 200 patients) and facilities crammed to nearly double their intended capacities, abuse by staff also became incredibly problematic. Patients were severely beaten, raped, prostituted, denied medical care and otherwise mistreated to levels that are beyond comprehension. One cannot help but think when looking at pictures from this period that the patients are nearly indistinguishable from Holocaust survivors.

As the peeling paint etches intricate patterns in the walls and doors of this asylum, its toxic dust coats the floor and floats in the air.

In his book, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, Robert Whitaker makes a compelling argument for how the Holocaust and the treatment of the mentally ill in this period both were founded on the same principles of eugenics and the cleansing of "undesirables" from society: the stated goal of the concentration camps was the extermination of Germany's upper-echelon groups deemed detrimental to society, while the same, if unstated, goal in the United States mental health system was attained through forced sterilization and lethal neglect.


The halls of the Athens State Hospital are remarkably well preserved and unmarred by vandalism and theft.

As the war ended, several major exposГ©s brought the abysmal treatment of the mentally ill to light. A photo essay, entitled "Bedlam 1946", in Life Magazine and Albert Deutsch's 1948 publication, The Shame of the States (Mental Illness and Social Policy: the American Experience), helped raise public awareness of the plight of the inmates in many psychiatric hospitals. While this served to ameliorate the situation somewhat, most of the measures taken to remedy the problems were short-lived. Overcrowding and insufficient care continued to be problematic, although less so than during the years of the Second World War, and abuse of patients continued unabated. There is simply no way to encompass all the cruelties heaped on the patients; most are familiar with lobotomies, which gained popularity as they produced manageable patients, albeit those whose cognitive functioning had been permanently impaired. A particularly barbaric variation of this treatment was performed at Athens State Hospital by Dr. Walter Freeman (1895-1972), who made use of neither anesthetics nor an operating room, and whose careless technique shocked even other doctors and nurses familiar with the procedure. Another common form of treatment was hydrotherapy in which a patient was placed in a tub, which would be filled with either scalding or freezing water, and a sheet was zipped around the neck so only the head was sticking out. Depending on the temperament of the staff, the patient might be left in such a state for days without even a pause to use the bathroom. As the hospitals' intent was less to cure than to warehouse patients, the purpose of the treatments was less to produce any measurable improvement in their condition than to subdue them, making them convenient for the staff.


Left to its own, nature often playfully mimics architectural details, using dazzling complimentary patterns.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, the advent of the "chemical straight jacket" Thorazine changed the face of mental health care. Neuroleptics like Thorazine produce a myriad of intensely uncomfortable, frightening side effects and were in fact later identified by Soviet political dissidents as one of the worst tortures they were subjected to in the "psychiatric centres" where they were confined. They produced docile and compliant patients however, and their use was far-reaching and indiscriminate in the American mental health system. As their use became more widespread and the push for deinstitutionalization was spearheaded by President John F. Kennedy and newly formed patients' rights associations, the focus of hospitalization shifted from containing patients for the remainder of their natural lives to bringing their behaviours to manageable levels that would allow community integration. While this policy was in many ways beneficial, the treatment at hospitals continued to be an inhumane and dehumanizing process. In his book, entitled The Shoe Leather Treatment, referring to the common "treatment" of kicking patients until they were compliant or too injured to resist, former patient Bill Thomas relates that after years in state hospitals, a brief stay in prison after an escape attempt seemed an immeasurable improvement in his quality of life.


Vandalism has severely damaged the buildings of the hospital in Maryland. Doors are broken, windows smashed and graffiti covers nearly every wall.

Coupled with the push to reintegrate patients into society, this flagrant abuse and neglect finally led to the closure of many asylums. Even this process was messy, however. Under President Ronald Reagan's policies, which often led to dumping clients out of hospitals with inadequate aftercare, the homeless populations soared. When the closure of Byberry State Hospital was initiated in 1986, three patients drowned in the Schuylkill River before the Pennsylvania Governor decided to slow down the process to a manageable level. This process continues to this day and the problematic nature of providing care for the mentally ill continues to haunt us. Harrisburg State Hospital in Pennsylvania recently shut down, forcing communities and mental health providers to scramble to find alternatives for patients with higher treatment needs. Many patients now in communities may require assistance for the rest of their lives in dealing with mundane chores most take for granted, such as buying groceries and paying bills, because they were never exposed to these problems during their hospitalization.


A pile of discarded shoe coverings lies at the foot of the basement staircase in Athens State Hospital.

The ever-present issue of what to do with state hospital facilities is also difficult. In many cases, the land and buildings will be almost immediately reclaimed, sold to developers or used as state agency offices. Several facilities, such as Danvers State Hospital in New York, are being converted into high-priced apartment buildings, although some
ex-patients and mental health workers view this as a move only slightly more tasteful than making apartments out of Auschwitz. Other facilities like Dixmont have been completely demolished by large companies, which see the sites as development gold mines and have no problems bulldozing unmarked gravestones in patient cemeteries to make way for their projects. Some, such as Pilgrim State Hospital in New York, were partially used, abandoned and demolished. Countless more sites have been completely abandoned, standing until the roofs collapse under the weight of years of water damage or until they are burned by arsonists. Almost none are protected historic sites that visitors can enter to learn about their checkered past.


The wings of a Kirkbride hospital are designed to house progressively psychotic patients, so that the further one gets from the centre (and exit), the more difficult it is to escape.

Two examples stand out, however, as thoughtful ideas for reintegration of the properties into the communities. The state hospital in Fairview, Connecticut, has been turned into a public park-the buildings are well secured and the grounds well kept-where during the day one finds community members jogging, picnicking or walking their dogs. Ironically, by being open to the public, theft and vandalism have taken significantly less of a toll on the buildings compared to other state hospitals whose grounds are off-limits.


The theatre of this asylum is in poor condition, yet large, old projectors in the booth still rest relatively unscathed.

Athens State Hospital is a fantastic example of proper maintenance of an historic site. The university uses portions of many of the buildings and as such the grounds are well-maintained, beautiful and secure. It has an excellent section on its website dedicated to the history of the facility; the wings of the old Kirkbride hospital are in better condition than nearly any other state hospital in the country. Also unlike many other asylums, Athens State Hospital sits securely on a hill overlooking the small college town. While entering it requires a respirator and permission from the faculty, its rich and multilayered past remains intact for now, serving as a poignant reminder and an epitaph to the many shattered lives that passed through its doors.


Bernays