Randolph Harris II International Institute

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The Psychic Storm that Had Swirled

It was dark, the path to my home was so precipitous that I was forced to brace my knees and steady myself on the overhanging branches so as not to lose my footing. The extravagant roots of ancient trees crisscrossed the path. Stones, uneven Earth, and fallen fossilized branches—everything was familiar, but somehow distorted. For almost two hours, guns were rumbling. The atmosphere grew more claustrophobic as horsemen crossed my route. I felt trapped, as though the forest on my estate was closing in on me. There was something very grotesque about the strength of the enemy as they launched their grand assault on my estate. I summoned a column of horses several hundred yards wife and half-mile deep to ram through the line of cavalry attacking my mansion. They advanced across the fruit orchard, still my body of men endured the artillery fire, the finally the canter and charge. The Spanish army was not quite as large, but travelling directly at my soldiers. I watched as suddenly the two opposing forced collided, the Winchester soldiers knocking the sending the Spanish horsemen somersaulting backward, their riders were being crushed by squirming horseflesh, as they crashed together. I had finally made it to my observation tower, and from this point I saw that the Winchester soldiers do incredible damage to the Spanish column. The few strangling men sabered left and right until they collapsed in defeat. I could feel my nerves starting to get the better of me. Even though the Winchester soldiers were triumphant, increasingly I imagined peculiar shapes, outlines, behind every tree, eyes in the dark of my mansion watching me, an unwelcome and persistent voice in my ear asking if it was more than just invasion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

In the deepest corners of my home, the light had all but disappeared. A red mist was slinking through the halls, slipping in and out of hundreds of rooms like an animal hunting its prey. There was an absolute and impenetrable stillness. Then I heard a glass shattering. I stopped dead in my tracks, straining to listen. Another sound…something was moving through the walls. As if I could take on any kind of beast, I looked for an object to defend myself. Should I have the misfortune to encounter a demonic enemy force lurking in my home, my only resort was to stay absolutely still and pray it did not pick up my scent. If it did, there would be nothing to do but run for my life. The caretakers were nowhere to be found. Another breaking glass, something inching closer and closer. I looked around to see if there was anywhere I could hide. There was a secret passageway about 50 feet from my location. If I stayed low to the ground, I could make it. Moments after I started to crawl to the escape, two indistinct figures emerged from the mist on the floor.  They had no eyes, no face. Not even a nose was visible. The dim figures moved behind the doors, through the long shadows of the twisting hallways. A bearded man dressed in high boots and blue coat, helped me as we disappeared through the apartment of rooms. We ventured up to the attic where I could hear the sounds of boots dragging across the floor below. As we opened the door, we caught sight of a wispy something retreating to a darkened comer of the storage area. It was an ectoplasmic spirit leaving a trail of cobweb mucus behind. Next, the peripatetic figure who roamed my mansion to save me from the intruders disappeared after helping me to safety. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

As I walked through my home, occasional objects suddenly became airborne without any apparent physical cause for their levitation. The house seemed lighter to me, and there was just a hit of the faintest red mist, as a twist of smoke wreathing up into the air arose from the floor. Invisible helping hands started setting the rooms in order, right down to the last doyly and rug in place. Windows magically healed themselves from their fractures, the crystal chandeliers came back together and levitated back to their place in the ceiling. There were sounds of furniture being dragged across the floor to their proper location. The spirits were not going to let me be driven from my home. There was great pride in the veteran transmigration of souls I called the Winchester Soldiers. When there was not a war going on, the center of the hauntings seemed to take place in the basement and in one of the 9 kitchens known to the caretakers as the Devil’s Kitchen. In the Devil’s Kitchen, the hauntings primarily consisted of knocking, thumpings, and the sound of footsteps running down the caretaker’s stairs and shuffling across the floor. Many often heard the thin tolling of the church bell, the mournful single note carried on the air. Entering the Devil’s Kitchen in the morning, many of the caretakers were often surprised to find themselves walking out of it at night, but feeling like so little time had passed, as the bell died away. Before leaving the estate to go home, they would hesitate a moment, confused, looking over their shoulder in the direction they had come. There was some kind of cloud, some sadness, hanging over that kitchen. They knew something was not quite right, misaligned, like a picture askew on a wall. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

Certainly, the most dramatic manifestation of the haunting was the materialization of 13 skeletons in the basement. After appearing in startling blood red color, the skeletal figures would slowly manifest themselves into what appeared to be solid, three-dimensional representations of 7 men, 4 women, and a little boy and little girl. The images appeared to be wealthy and appeared to adorn in vogue fashions. Once the entities had fully materialized, a bizarre ethereal drama would unfold before any witness who might be present to observe the phenomenon. As the ghost of a lovely, raven haired girl with long hair sat playing idly with her dolls, one of the men in the spectral reenactment strangled one of the women while the little boy cried in the corner and the others stood by with pleased expressions of immense satisfaction. We always suspected that the ghastly reenactment was the tragic playing out of the eternal witch trials. The shocked witnesses, who had seen the grimly performance, felt this was a scene from a Salem courtroom. A judge strangling a suspected witch to please the family of the bewitched. Some cursory historical research and an examination of local folklore revealed a scandal regarding a lady of the house who had disappeared without a trace and a husband who had remarried after an extremely brief period of grieving. Local Salem stories had it that the wife of an enslaved man was accused of fortune telling and had been murdered in court by Judge Samuel Sewall. The judge apparently strangled the woman because he believed she was a witch and said that “Black Africans could not live peacefully among White New Englanders.” Nevertheless, he allowed the man to marry a White woman. Why had the controversy of this wedlock been taking stage in my home? #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

I do not believe I ever did such hard thinking as I did that night. It was not so easy, neither. I figured it out. You see, dearie, when I was laying in my bed last night something came to me from the spirit World. I knew at once it was from the enslaved woman who had been strangled in court. I had to wait, she was crying so hard. She asked me to look at the paintings in my hall gallery. There was a particular titled “Examination of a Witch” produced in 1853 by Tompkins Harrison Matteson that William’s mother had given me as a wedding gift. In this picture was Judge Samuel Sewall, and upon observation, it was revealed that Mary Fisher was sized upon by a Black African, and was shamefully stripped for the purpose of ascertaining whether she had the Devil’s mark upon her. The woman being subdued by her hair and the man lying on the floor were Black Africans involved in a vile and bloodthirst cult for breeding babies with White women for ritual purposes. They were abusing children in similar numbers and were putting young men and women through terrifying ordeals of sexual torture and sometimes death. They hysteria is what is depicted in that work of art, which was originally titled, The Making of a Satanic Myth. The judged is asking the simple question: Where is the evidence? As the investigations had produced no bodies, no bones…no bloodstains. Nothing. These tales of satanic slavery had reached incredible proportions and it was believed an occult alliance stretching from the local group level to higher international orders, with its tentacles established far and wide through society, into the judiciary, politics and law enforcement. It was claimed to be basically occult, a largely satanical exchange network where the 27 children produced in these unions were goaled. The accused were carried two days’ journey into the woods, and left to the tender mercies of Indians and wolves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

The psychic storm that had swirled throughout the household was finally diminished. “Thus twice before, and just at this dead hour, with marital stalk hath he gone by our watch,” Hamlet, Act I, Scene I was very appropriate for this re-enactment. They were so blinded by the beauty of these exotic babies—so much so that they could not figure out what they were. Tan skin, blonde hair, blue eyes. White, curly hair, dark eyes, full lips. They had to keep them concealed. In my hoe, I saw an occasional shadow move in and out of the slivers of light that slipped out between the partially open curtains, but no one out and about. Often, I still heard footsteps behind me, but when I would look asunder, there would be no one behind me. I was so sorry for the woman in the painting. So I went back my gallery the next evening; as I climbed the stairs I felt one of those sudden warnings that sometime used to take me by the throat. “It is as cold as ice on these stairs,” I thought, “and I will wager there is no one made up the fire in this room since this morning.” But it was not really the cold I was afraid of; I could tell there was worse than that waiting for me. I pushed open the door and went in. “Well,” says I, as cheerful as I could while looking at the painting, “Only lying awake all night and turning thing over, I got so miserable,” Turning away my head away from the painting so she would not see the tears running down my cheeks, and I felt that the cold came from her, and not from the empty fireplace. As I walked out of the gallery, I fell on my knees. “You shall not go without a prayer, you poor dear,” I whispered to her. But though my heart was full of mourning I did not pray for long. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

The Winchester Mystery House

Mrs. Winchester was doing battle with entities, some terrible, and some against her. The dark pagan gods were not about to yield this green land without a fight. They converged in the mansions and attempted to thwart Mrs. Winchester in her mission, while other supernarural beins assisted her.

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Well, I’ve Walked these Streets, a Virtual Stage, it Seemed to Me

The soul is threatened by modern life. And if an emotional problem presents itself, the real issue may not be some single trauma or troubled relationship. Maybe the issue is a life set up in such a way that soul is neglected habitually. Culture is a factor in rape, but the precise nature of the relationship between culture and sexual violence remains a topic of discussion. Ethnographic data from pre-industrial societies show the existence of rape-free cultures, though explanations for the phenomena differ. We can relate sexual violence to contempt for the female qualities and suggest that rape is a part of a culture of violence and an expression of male dominance. However, it has also be argued that in pre-industrial societies women are more likely to lack important life options and to be physically and politically oppressed where they lack economic power relative to men. Furthermore, in pre-industrial societies relative economic power enables women to win some immunity from men’s use of force against them. Among modern societies, the frequency of rape varies dramatically, and the United States of America is among the most rape-prone of all. The rate of reported rape and attempted rape for the United States of America is eighteen times higher than the corresponding rate for England and Wales. Spurred by the Woman’s Movement, feminists have generated an impressive body of theory regarding the cultural etiology of rape in the United States of America. Representative of the feminist view called rape “The All American Crime.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

The feminist perspective views rape as an act of violence and social control which functions to “keep women in their place.” Feminists see rape as an extension of normative male behavior, the result of conformity or overconformitty to the values and prerogatives which define the traditional male gender role. That is, traditional socialization encourages males to associate power, dominance, strength, virility, and superiority with masculinity, and submissiveness, passivity, weakness, and inferiority with masculinity, and submissiveness, passivity, weakness, and inferiority with femininity. Furthermore, males are taught to have expectations about their level of sexual needs and expectations for corresponding female accessibility which function to justify forcing sexual access. The justification for forced sexual access is buttressed by legal, social, and religious definitions of women as male property and sex as an exchange of goods. Socialization prepares women to be “legitimate” victims and men to be potential offenders. The United States of America has some form of a rape culture because both genders are socialized to regard male aggression as a natural and normal part of sexual intercourse. However, society is also set up where women suffer greatly if the husband is arrested. Married women will lose more than half, if not all the financial support they have, and unmarried women will no longer receive their alimony checks because a man in jail or prison cannot work. The way to overcome that is to teach women the importance of education and make sure they have careers where they can afford to fully support themselves. A husband should just be a supplement, not your main source of income. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

Feminists view pornography as an important element in a larger system of sexual violence; they see pornography as an expression of a rape-probe culture where women are seen as objects available for use by men. However, I argue that with the frequency of disease and viruses, pornography may help some people abstain from pleasures of the flesh, as they do not want to catch an illness, nor be exposed to germs or bacteria, nor deal with fracture emotions. And by using pornography as a form of gratification, it could make them hold off on pleasures of the flesh. After awhile pleasures of the flesh will become so boring that one will want true love so they have something special to hold on to and not just a fleeting, meaningless encounter. However, experts disagree with me. They argue that rape is presented as part of normal male/female sexual relations, but the women, despite her terror, is always depicted as sexually aroused to the point of cooperation. In the end, she is ashamed but physically gratified. The message—women desire and enjoy rape—has more potential for damage than the image of the violence per se. Still, I believe that you have to keep in mind that most pornography does not depict rape, and more and more of adult focused films are now produced by the individuals in them and they tend to be solo videos or collaborations where people act out soft core pornographic acts, such as dancing, with friends, suggestively in their underclothes or with skin showing. So, there is a move away from the hardcore stuff that many are used to. Also, the actors are often times on social media, so the viewer can get to know them and interact with them and so there is more of a connection to the actors. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

I communicate with some of the actors on social media because I like to see them as humans, but I do not really like their adult content. They just seem more willing to talk than others who are marketing something. And I think they like to know that someone actually cares about their brains. It can make a person want to be your friend when you are genuinely interested in their minds and character and not just their body. Nonetheless, the fusion of these themes—sex as an impersonal act, the victim’s uncontrollable orgasm, and the violent infliction of pain—is commonplace in the actual accounts of rapist. Many convicted rapists deny their crime and attempt to justify their rapes by arguing that their victim had enjoyed herself despite the use of a weapon and the inflicting of serious injuries, or even death. In fact, many argued, they had been instrumental in making her fantasy come true. The images projected in pornography contribute to a vocabulary of motive which trivializes and neutralizes rape and which might lessen the internal controls that otherwise would prevent sexually aggressive behavior. Men who rape use this culturally acquired vocabulary to justify their sexual violence. One must examine the goals that some men have learned to achieve through sexually violent means. Thus, one approach to understanding why some men rape is to shift attention from individual psychopathology to the important question of what rapists gain from sexual aggression and violence in a culture seemingly prone to rape. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

Also, I think it is important to remember that just because a person may accept money for pleasures of the flesh does not mean that you own their body for the time you paid for. It does not mean that you can do whatever you want. And if an individual is intoxicated, even if they seem interested, it is best to stay away from them because they may not remember consenting to pleasures of the flesh and accuse you of rape in the morning. With that being said, I do not know what the law says about two adults who are both drunk and have pleasures of the flesh, but wake up in the morning feeling violated. However, I supposed it is best to learn not to drink to the point of being inebriated so you can know what it going on. Perhaps a class on “knowing your limits” is a course a lot of people would benefit from. And if a person says, “No,” or “Stop,” it is best not to go any further until they are ready or agree to the act. Often times the culturally derived excuses and justifications allow people to view their behavior as either idiosyncratic or situationally appropriate and thus it reduced their sense of moral responsibility for the actions. Having disavowed deviance, these men revealed how they had used rape to achieve a number of objectives. We find that one men used rape for revenge or punishment while, for others, it was an “added bonus”—a last minute decision made while committing another crimes. In still other cases, rape was used to gain sexual access to women who were unwilling or unavailable, and for some it was a source of power and sex without any personal feelings. Rape was also a form of recreation, a diversion or an adventure and, finally, it was something that made these men “feel good.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

A rapist might see his act as a legitimized form of revenge or punishment. Additionally, he asserts that the idea of “collective liability” accounts for much seemingly random violence. “Collective liability” suggests that all people in a particular category are held accountable for the conduct of each of their counterparts. Thus, the victim of a violent act may merely represent the category of individual being punished. These factors—revenge, punishment, and the collective liability of women—can be used to explain a number of rapes in our research. Several cases will illustrate the ways in which these factors combined in various types of rape. Revenge-rapes were among the most brutal and often included beatings, serious injuries and, even murder. Typically, revenge-rapes included the element of collective liability. This is, from the rapist’s perspective, the victim was a substitute for the woman they wanted to avenge. As explained elsewhere, an upsetting event, involving a woman, preceded a significant number of rapes. When they raped, these men were angry because of a perceived indiscretion, typically related to a rigid, moralistic standard of sexual conduct, which they required from “their woman” but, in most cases, did not abide by themselves. Over and over these rapists talked about using rape “to get even” with their wives or other significant women. Typically is a young man who, prior to the rape, had a violent argument with his wife over what eventually proved to be her misdiagnosed case of venereal disease (VD). She assumed the disease had been contracted through him, an accusation that infuriated him. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

After fighting with his wife, he explained that he drove around “thinking about hurting someone.” He encountered his victim, a stranger, on the road where her car had broken down. It appears she accepted his offered ride because her car was out of commission. When she realized that her rape was pending, she called him “a son of a b”tch,” and attempted to resist. He reported flying into a rage and beating her, and he confided. “I have never felt that much anger before. If she had resisted, I would have killed her…The rape was for revenge. I didn’t have an orgasm. She was there to get my hostile feelings off on.” Although not the most common form of revenge, sexual assault continues to be used in retaliation against the victim’s male partner. In one such case, the offender, angry because the victim’s husband owned him money, went to the victim’s home to collect. He confided, “I was going to get it one way or another.” Finding the victim alone, he explained, they stated to argue about the money and, “I grabbed her and started beating the hell out of her. Then I committed the act. I knew what I was doing. I was mad. I could have stopped but I didn’t. I did it to get even with her and her husband.” When women are viewed as commodities, “In raping another man’s woman, a man may aggrandize his own manhood and concurrently reduce that of another man.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

Revenge-rapes often contained an element of punishment. In some cases, while the victim was not the initial object of the revenge, the intent was to punish her because of something that transpired after the decision to rape had been made or during the course of the rape itself. This was the case with a young man whose wife had recently left him. Although they were in the process of reconciliation, he remained angry and upset over the separation. The night of the rape, he met the victim and her friend in a bar where he had gone to watch a fight on TV. The two women apparently accepted a ride from him but, after taking her friends home, he drove the victim to his apartment. At his apartment, he found a note from his wife indicating she had stopped by to watch the fight with him. This increased his anger because he preferred his wife’s company. Inside his apartment, the victim allegedly remarked that she was sexually interested in his dog, which he reported, put him in a rage. In the ensuing attack, he raped and pistol-whipped the victim. Then he forced a vacuum cleaner hose, switched on suction, into her female private part, and bit her breast, severing the nipple. He stated: “I hated at the time, but I don’t know if it was her (the victim). (Who could it have been?) My wife? Even though we were getting back together, I still didn’t trust her.” During his interview, it became clear tht this offender, like many of the men, believed men have the right to discipline and punish women. In fact, he argued that most of the men he knew would also have beaten the victim because “that kind of thing (referring to the dog) is not acceptable among my friends.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

In some rapes, both revenge and punishment were directed at victims because they represented women who these offenders perceived as collectively responsible and liable for their problems. Rape was used “to put women in their place” and as a method of proving their “manhood” by displaying dominance over a female. For example, one multiple rapist believed his actions were related to the feelings that women though they were better off than he was. “Rape was a feeling of total dominance. Before the raped, I would always get a feeling of power and anger. I would degrade women so I could feel there was a person of less worth than me.” There is a difference between “false” teachers and deceived ones. There are many deceived ones among the most able teachers today because they do not recognize that an army of teaching spirits have come forth to deceive the people of God and that the special peril of the earnest sections of the professing Church lies in the supernatural realm, from whence the deceiving spirits with “teachings” are whispering their lies to all who are “spiritual,” id est, open to spiritual things. These “teaching spirits” with “doctrines” will make a special effort to deceive those who have to transmit doctrine and seek to mingle their teachings with truth so as to get them accepted. Every believer must test all teachers today for him or herself, by the Word of God and by their attitude to the atoning cross of Christ and other fundamental truths of the gospel, and not be misled into testing “teaching” by the character of the teacher. Good men can be deceived, and Satan needs good men to float his lies under the guise of truth. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

I was the son of an army officer, and I went to West Point and spent seven years in a very numb and lonely existence as an army officer. It was during a time of intense loneliness that I split with my wife after ten years of marriage and I was very deeply into experiencing that tragic loss for the first time. Loneliness had been an emotion which I had always managed to outrun. I had discovered that if I did something important or impressive that people would make a fuss over me and I would not have to experience my own loneliness. Additionally, at age five, I became “man of the house” when my father left for World War II, leaving me in charge of my mother and telling me to take care of her and to “be good,” yet he did not come home for four years. I did not burden my mother and kept my loneliness literally caught up with me after having outrun it for so long, I cried deeply; I went beneath the veneer of my tough shell and found a whole new part of the essence of me—a creativity. I wrote poems and a book and painted. And more important, I discovered a little boy part of me that had grown up early—a tenderness which West Point did not exactly nourish. I find that this tender part of me, rather than the tough part, was a part my friends and I both cherish. I then discovered that rather than my toughness being my strength, as I had misconstrued it in the military, it was really my tenderness that was my strength. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

The question of using a right attitude as a weapon against negative emotions requires understanding; it refers to our attitude to the emotions themselves, because we may have a right or a wrong attitude to our negativeness. It is different in different cases and there can be no generalization. Now we must consider the attitudes in themselves and realize that a positive attitude is right in some cases, and that a negative attitude is right in other cases. A positive attitude belongs to the part of our intellect which says “Yes” and a negative attitude to the part which says “No.” There can also be different attitudes but these are the two most important. Lack of understanding about some subject or problem may be caused simply by having a wrong attitude towards it. There are people who have a negative attitude towards everything and anything, and there are others who try to cultivate a positive attitude about things towards which they should have a negative attitude. Using the words “positive” and “negative” in the ordinary sense of approval or disapproval, we can say that in order to understand certain things we must have negative attitudes whereas other things can be understood positively. Too much of an indiscriminately positive attitude can spoil things in the same ways as a persistently negative attitude is useful because there are many things in life which can only be understood through having a sufficiently good negative attitude towards them. Certainly, identification with a negative attitude would cause negative emotion, but his can be avoided, and very often identifying is the result of a wrong attitude. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

Paradoxical as it may seem, we have many negative emotions because we do not have a sufficiently negative attitude towards negative emotions. On the other hand, the moment you have a negative attitude towards any of the things connected with this work of development, you will cease to understand it. We must understand that we have no control, that we are machines, that everything happens to us. Simply to speak about it does not change these facts. To cease to be mechanical something else is needed. A change of attitude is necessary. Attitude can be independent of emotion, and to a certain extent it can be under our control. For instance, we have some control over our attitudes towards knowledge, towards friends, towards this work and towards self-study. Attitude is really a point of view, and if a point of view is right, there is one effect; if it is wrong, another effect. It is necessary to understand that we cannot do things, but we can change our attitudes. A right attitude may be developed gradually through the study of oneself and the study of life, in accordance with the special ways in which we study it. This study does not depend only on knowledge but upon a different way of thinking. Different thinking can only come from different attitudes and from an understanding of the relative values of things. Change of attitude does not bring about change of a man’s being by itself. Valuation is necessary. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

It need only be noted that improprieties can, of course, occur because the individual is alienated, or wants to appear alienated, from an on-going engagement. Examples can be found during group psychotherapy sessions in mental hospitals, where patients, coerced to participate, may pointedly read magazines or play solitaire. A situational impropriety can convey to its witnesses, justifiably or not, that the actor is alienated not so much from the gathering as from one’s community, or one’s establishment, or one’s intimates, or one’s conversation. However, we must be quite clear that, no matter how distant or broad the target of an offense, the idiom in this case is first of all a means of expressing alienation from or attachment to the gathering that is present. Anything else the individual thus conveys, however much it constitutes the crucial implication of one’s act, must be superimposed upon these original situational meanings. Whatever the social unit to which the individual is concerned to indicate one’s relationship, many of the signs one must rely on will be written entirely in a situational language. Because of this tendency for the situational idiom to be made a convenience of and pressed into service as the language of relationship, it is at once more and less important than we might at first perceive. We can now come to the conclusions and to the point where the sociologist might find cause to nibble at the psychiatric hand that feeds one data. For while psychiatry forcible directs our attention to situational improprieties, there appear to be ways in which psychiatry embodies and rationalizes lay attitudes toward this aspect of conduct, instead of carrying us beyond these conceptions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

The problems with majority rule go beyond manipulating the outcome through control of the agenda. Even sophisticated voters who exercise foresight can collectively outsmart themselves. We tell a story that illustrates the point, freely adapting the saga of President Reagan’s nominees for the Supreme Court. Judge Bork was the first nominee. Judges Ginsberg and Kennedy were known to be high on the list, and likely to be nominated should Bork not be confirmed by the Senate. If the Senate turned down all three, the likelihood was that the seat would stay vacant for the next president to fill. Imagine that the decision rests in the hands of three powerful senators. To avoid impugning the reputation of any actual persons, we will call the three A, B, and C. Their rankings of the four possible outcomes are as follows: A’s Ranking: 1st Kennedy, 2nd Vacant, 3rd Bork, 4th Ginsberg. B’s Ranking: 1st Ginsberg, 2nd Kennedy, 3rd Vacant, 4th Bork. C’s Ranking: 1st Vacant, 2nd Bork, 3rd Ginsberg, 4th Kennedy. The first thing to observe is that leaving the seat vacant is unanimously preferred to nominating Judge Bork. Yet if these are the preferences and the senators correctly predict the order of nominations as Bork, Ginsberg, and Kennedy, the result will be that Bork is confirmed. We figure out the voting patterns by working backward up the tree. Vacant, Kennedy, Ginsberg, Bork. If the vote comes down to appointing Kennedy versus leaving the seat vacant, Kennedy will win. By looking ahead and reasoning backward the senators can predict a victory for Kennedy if Ginsberg is defeated. There, if Bork is turned down the contest becomes Ginsberg or Kennedy. In the Ginsberg versus Kennedy contest, Ginsberg wins two to one. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

Reasoning backward again, right at the start the senators should realize that their choice is Bork or Ginsberg. Here, Bork wins two to one. Everyone is looking ahead and correctly figures out the consequences of their action. Yet they collectively end up with a candidate whose nomination, everyone agrees, is worse than leaving the seat vacant. Now in fact it did not turn out that way, and there are several reasons. No one was quite certain who the next nominee would be. Preferences changes as more information was learned about the nominees. The senators’ preferences may not have been as we represented them. Equally important, we have ignored any possibility for logrolling. This was a perfect opportunity for logrolling to arise. There were three 2.1 votes. Each of the senators was on the winning side twice and on the losing side once. The gain from each win was worth one position in their ranking, but the loss pushed them down three. It does not help to win two small battles and lose the big war. The possibility for mutual gain opens the door for logrolling, and with thee preferences we expect Bork would be defeated. The globalization of the media, necessary for the new economy, is in fact moving rapidly. When Japan’s Sony bought up Columbia Pictures Entertainment for $5 billion, acquiring Hollywood’s largest library of films, including such quality products as On the Waterfront, Lawrence of Arabia, and Kramer vs. Kramer, along with 220 movie houses and 23,000 TV episodes, it shook the entertainment industry. Sometimes shacking things up can generate more publicity and interest in a product and make it more desirable. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

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Sunny Came Home with a List of Names, She Didn’t Believe in Transcendence

Scholars have repeatedly attempted to dissect the cognitive aspects of rape and sexual assault. The most frequently employed means of accomplishing this goal has been to ask convicted rapists about their past offending patterns. Offender based research reveals that most rapists are driven by a will to degrade or dominate their victims, not by a quest for sexual gratification. It seems that the sex at is characterized as a convenient and especially effective way to assert control or revenge over a particular individual or class of individuals. At the same time, rapists can sometimes be driven by instrumental motives. A violent sex acts can be used as a way of settling a score or satisfying an elusive sexual desire. Clearly, the use of such extreme forms of conflict resolution are not condoned or pursued by most individuals. However, in the mind of a sexually aggressive individual, the wrong set of situational and cognitive variables can make rape take on acceptable or even desirable qualities. Planning does not seem to be a well-defined component of most violent sex crimes. In the case of acquaintance or intimate rape, the violent sex act may spontaneously surface as a form of frustration reaction; perhaps the perpetrator expected more sexual interaction with his date or a husband becomes upset with the way his wife acted while they were out that night. Regardless of the catalysts, most acquaintance rapes spontaneously emerge out of a dangerous combination of cognitive, cultural, and social factors and there exists little time for mindful planning. The serial rapist stands as the noticeable exception to this rule. These predators often exhibit highly routinized predatory habits. They are known to operate in selective environment and/or to target specific types of victims. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Normative neutralizations occupy an important role in the rapist’s mental repertoire. Like other criminals, the rapist sees a need to justify or rationalize his or her aberrant behavior. Most scholars agree that the key to this mental mechanism lays in the offender’s view of what constitutes acceptably social or intimate relations. Many rape offenders are exposed to emotional or physical trauma (often sexual in nature) early in their lives. These traumas, when mixed with patriarchal gender norms, provide a convenient cognitive canvas for the male rapist to work with. The perpetrator’s anger thus allows one to distort cultural messages about intimate relationships and women in general in such a way that rape becomes an acceptable means of problem solving. The male rapists that were interviewed offered up a host of excuses ranging from revenge, to adventurous sex, to sexual fetishes to account for their violent sexual acts. In almost every case, these offenders attributed the blame for the act onto the victim or some external forces beyond their control. Scholars acknowledge that societal gender norms play an important role in the rape equation. Cognitive and behavioral aspects of intimate relations are considered a continuum of sexual behavior. At one end the continuum, locates healthy sexual behavior that serves to empower and liberate both men and women. Then one can position acts of sexual violence at the other end of the continuum. Between these two extremes, there exists a whole range of sexual behaviors. The closer one gets to the rape end of the continuum, the more deviant and oppressive the sexual norms and behaviors become. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

However, there is an important departure point. For most men, exposure to domineering sex scripts has little effect. Given the fact that they are normatively grounded toward the nonrape end of the continuum, they reject these messages as deviant. However, an oppressive or overly patriarchal upbringing can leave an individual firmly entrenched in a location close to the pro-rape end of the continuum. This person becomes receptive to violent sexual messages and is thus more likely to act and think in ways that represent the psychological and behavioral environments with which one is most familiar and comfortable. Most rapists operate as colleagues. Although they commit their crimes without the assistance of other offenders, they maintain frequent contacts with the sexual underworld. They are often habitual consumers of pornographic materials and may exhibit peculiar sexual tastes and fantasies. Routinized contacts with other sexual deviants provide the rapist with vicarious reinforcement (id est, socialization scripts) for the sexually aggressive ideas and behaviors. These contacts do not replace the types of mundane socialization contacts that were previously mentioned. Instead, they represent supplements to the biased gender norms and traumatic life events that are part and parcel of these individuals’ social Worlds. Violent sex crimes generally elicit a harsh response from the criminal justice system. Rape is granted a two-tiered offense categorization in most jurisdictions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

Those rapes in which nonconsensual sexual penetration occurs, but the victim incurs minimal physical injuries, are generally graded as a second degree felony. If convicted, the perpetrator faces the prospect of 1 to 10 years in prison; however, the court may choose to upgrade this type of rape to a felony in the first degree if there is evidence that the offender inflicted serious bodily harm to the victim. In these more severe cases, the offender faces a sentence ranging from 1 year to life in prison. Most jurisdictions classify statutory rape as a first-degree felony. Sexual assault or those less serious instances that involve the forceful or coercive unwanted sexual touching of another are generally classified as misdemeanors and carry a sentence of up to 1 year in prison. Some courts have leeway to upgrade sexual assault case to a second- or third-degree felony. Police have a difficult time combatting violent sex crimes. U.S.A. police received 101, 491 forcible rape reports in 2022. Less than 50 percent of those were cleared for arrest. This translated to an arrest rate of 9.6 per 100,000 inhabitants. This clearance rate is significantly less then the 60 to 70 percent levels that were realized that year for the crimes of murder and aggravated assault. Once arrested, violent sex offenders receive heavy-handed treatment from the U.S.A. court system. Rapes cases represent only about 5 percent of all felony cases processed through state courts each year; however, the available amount set in excess of $10,000 (average = $63,500) and 12 percent were denied bail entirely. These high dollar amounts led to nearly half of all rape defendants that year being held in custody from the point of arrests to final disposition. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

Rape defendants face a 50/50 chance of being convicted and sentenced to some term of imprisonment (jail or prison). When the prosecution is able to secure a guilty verdict or plea, they generally waste no time getting the person off the streets. Eighty two percent of the state-level rape and sexual assault trial convictions in 2022 resulted in a prison term. (The high conviction rate is probably why a significant amount of case never make it to court. Some are hard to prove, so the prosecutor does not want to take the case to trial, and people do file false reports.) The average sentence was nearly 10 years (median length of 6 years), with 2 percent receiving a life term. It is estimated that a convicted rapist will serve 5 years, or roughly half of their prison sentence. At year-end 2022, convicted rapists comprised 3 percent of the total state prison population and 6 percent subpopulation of persons serving time for a violent crime. While we as society are taking a relatively strong formal stance toward rape and sexual assault, our informal social control efforts are lacking. Studies of high school and college students reveal that boys and girls alike feel ill-equipped to deal with aggressive sexual behavior in relationships. These studies suggest that young males often misinterpret the sexual desires of women and that young women tend to do a poor job in communicating their displeasure with progressively intrusive sexual acts. In these cases, there appears to be a breakdown in dating relationships that opens the door for increasingly problematic levels of unwanted sexual contact. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

Many scholars contend that the long-term social and emotional costs of rape outweigh that of any other form of violent crime. This would suggest that violent sex crimes warrant an especially stringent societal response. Apart from traditional imprisonment options, what other forms of innovative sanctions might we pursue in response to rape and sexual assault? Perhaps they can go to mental hospitals and be forced to watch Law and Order SVU every day for a year, and then write a report about what they learned, what they did wrong, and pay restitution to their victims, as well as apologize. Feminist scholars have focused a great deal of attention on the way that conventional gender norms serve to implicitly reinforce pro-rape messages. At the same time, a sizable portion of American women are content with the sexual politics of the day and oppose significant changes to the way males and females interact in the courtship process. What can and should be done to resolve this structural impediment to gender norm revision? Well, since many rapes happen after 6 p.m., only meet prospects for breakfast or lunch. Lunch is a safe meal. Perhaps do not go to bars or parties and get drunk because some of your friends are not really your friends and want you to get hurt. And if you notice something is off or uncomfortable about a person you meet, stop seeing them. We hear so little about male rape—the forced penetration of a male victim. Why is this such a rarely reported phenomenon and what can be learned from this indisputable reality? A lot of men rarely report because not only is it embarrassing, it is seen as demeaning to admit to. Not only that, but complaints by men are not usually taken seriously, and often times sexual assault to a male is seen as hazing. Just horsing around. And reporting the incident can truly make matter worse. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

Also, I think with men there comes a different sense of shame. You do not want anyone to know. You feel you are scarred for life, and it also may mean to a heterosexual male that he is homosexual because he was assaulted, and that may not be the case. It is kind of like the lyrics of that Blueface song Thotiana, “You gon’ take these damn strokes Thotiana” (because I said you’re gay). Also, the way that it is talked about. Many people, when talking about male rape say that most men who are raped are homosexual, but one has to realize that is not always the case. I have friends who are heterosexual who were raped and they went on to marry and have families, and the only people who know about are the ones who heard the offender joking about the assault, or their guy friend who set it up. A lot of guys think they are safe around their boys, it is okay to drink, nothing will happen. However, as they become mature adults, the rules change. There are a lot of men who are still in the closet, and they rape other men so no one finds out they are interested in guys. They see a guy they like, have his friend get him drunk, and then insert themselves in the situation. Often times the male victim is just thankful that he was not brutalized nor infected with anything and that he sees his new associates are filthy heathens and is thankful he did not get gang raped. Often times men just chalk it up to something that happened that they wished did not happen and move on. They may feel more shamed about private pictures of them being distributed. It is commonly held that some maladjusted men revert to rape as an extreme manifestation of gender socialization gone awry. In effect, the average rapist is portrayed as suffering from a dangerous mix of psychological trauma and hypermacho cognition. Is there a female equivalent to the male rapist? That is, do you get the same extreme deviant manifestation when you mix a hyperfeminine upbringing with serious psychological trauma? If so, what are the costs? I think that is something Paris Hilton might be better at answering. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Six motivational themes among rapists were uncovered. Some of the rapists interviewed claimed that they committed their crimes out of revenge or as an act of punishment. Others committed rape in conjunction with another felony offense—faced with one pending violation they viewed their sex crimes as an “added bonus.” A third manifestation saw individuals using rape as a means of sexual access or a way to fill wild fetishes or fantasies. The fourth motivational category had men using the rape act as an impersonal means of establishing or regaining self-esteem or power over the other gender or individual. Still other rapists emphasized the recreational or adventurous aspects of the rape act, insisting that it provided them with a sense of excitement or challenge. Finally, some men used rape as a simple source of self-gratification, claiming that the act represented an emotional or physical release. The consistent presence of rational, self-gratification-orientation motivations leads to the conclusion that gender norms play a critical role in the impetus and proliferation of male-on-female sexual violence. Over the past several decades, rape has become a “medicalized” social problem. That is to say, the theories used to explain rape are predicated on psychopathological models. They have been generated from clinical experiences with small samples of rapists, often the therapists’ own clients. Although these psychiatric explanations are most appropriately applied to the atypical rapist, they have been generalized to all men who rape and have come to inform the public view on this topic. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

Two assumptions are at the core of the psychopathological model: that rape is the result of idiosyncratic mental disease and that it often includes an uncontrollable sexual impulse. For example, the presumption of psychopathology is evident in nonsexual nature of rape (power, anger, sadism). Rape is always a symptom of some psychological dysfunction, either temporary and transient or chronic and repetitive. Thus, in the psychopathological view, rapists lack the ability to control their behavior: they are “sick” individuals from the “lunatic fringe” of society. In contradiction to this model, empirical research has repeatedly failed to find a consistent pattern of personality type or character disorder that reliably discriminates rapists from other groups of men and women. Indeed, other research has found that fewer than 5 percent of men were psychotic when they raped. Evidence indicates that rape is not a behavior confined to a few “sick” men but many men have the attitudes and beliefs necessary to commit a sexually aggressive act. In research conducted at a midwestern university, it was discovered that 85 percent of men defined as highly sexually aggressive had victimized women with whom they were romantically involved. More than 20 percent of college women are the victims of rape and attempted rape. These findings mirror research published several decades earlier which also concluded that sexual aggression was commonplace in dating relationships. In their study of 53 college males, it was found that 51 percent indicated a likelihood that they, themselves, would rape if assured of not being punished. Some men even talk about the type of women they would rape and describe acts of rape, where a woman said “No, stop” but they ripped her undergarments off and reported she enjoyed the encounter. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

In addition, the frequency of rape in the United States of America makes it unlikely that responsibility rests solely with a small lunatic fringe of psychopathic men. When calculating the lifetime risk of rape to girls and women aged twelve and over, it was calculated that, excluding sexual abuse in marriage and assuming equal risk to all women, 20 to 30 percent of girls not 12 years old will suffer a violent sexual attack during the remainder of their lives. Interestingly, the lack of empirical support for the psychopathological model has not resulted in the de-medicalization of rape, nor does it appear to have diminished the belief that rapists are “sick” aberrations in their own culture. This is significant because of the implications and consequences of the model. A central assumption in the psychopathological model is that male sexual aggression is unusual or strange. This assumption removes rape from the realm of everyday or “normal” World and places it in the category of “special” or “sick” behavior. As a consequence, men who rape are cast in the role of outsider and a connection with normative male behavior is avoided. Since, in this view, the source of the behavior is thought to be within the psychology of the individual, attention is diverted away from culture or social structure as contributing factors. Thus, the psychopathological model ignores evidence which links sexual aggression to environmental variables and which suggests that rape, like all behavior, is learned. People who have been raped often feel that they are at night, all alone in the World, standing in pitch darkness, trying to clean all that is dirty. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

No matter how much you clear, there is always more dirt, and more dirt, and more dark nights, more loneliness, more and more. One feels like a lone figure becoming swallowed up by darkness. If the individual is silent, locked in a shell, if one appears retiring and a bore, if one seems withdrawn, unreachable, shattered, empty; if one seems to be tearful, sad, quiet; if one does not respond with enthusiasm; if one seems dying in one’s ways; if one seems secluded; if one seems bitter; if one seems simple, and at times too gentile; if one seems that way, do not reproach, do not scorn, as this is the one way left in which one can preserve some sense of self-respect, preserver some room for one’s self that will not be shattered, will not be destroyed; that will not give up; that dares not die; that wants still live. If there is only silence, only in this way can one still be oneself; still hang on to a piece, a thread, a slight connection with life, with sanity, before one falls to pieces, before the darkness sets in and envelops one completely before blackness covers one’s World. One wants to remain quiet and burst forth into the vibrant, multivaried colors of a new dawn, sprinkled with the freshness of wet rain, for in silence there is a growing that takes place; in silence there is a birth about to be born; and in the darkness there is a dawn. It takes time to come out of that very numb and lonely existence because an individual is deeply experiencing a sort of tragic loss of self for the first time, and they cannot outrun that loneliness, the betrayal. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

Why are evil spirits able to get men to receive their teachings? There are three basic reasons: Some people naively believe that anything supernatural has its source in God: occult forces do not exist. Any spiritual revelation or teaching is assumed to be divine because it is supernatural. Any “flash of light” on a text, any “vision of Christ” or of an “angelic being” is considered as sent by the Holy Spirit. The possibility of deception from a demonic source is never given thought. Such persons, obviously, are wide open to arcane doctrines—even if they should be Christians. Most Christians, however, would be greatly surprised to have an explicitly supernatural experience—a vision or some other paranormal revelation. Though they believe that both God and Satan exist, and angels and demons also, a direct encounter with any of them would be considered abnormal and possibly suspect. So with these less gullible persons deceiving spirits will normally take a more subtle approach. They will attempt to mix their “teachings” with the man’s own reasonings, so that he thinks he has come to his own conclusions on the matter under consideration. The teachings of the deceiving spirits in this form are so natural in appearance that they seem to come from the man himself as the fruit of his own mind and reasoning. The spirits counterfeit the working of the human brain, and inject thoughts and suggestions into the human mind; for they can directly communicate with the mind, quite apart from gaining possession (in any degree) of mind or body. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

Those who are thus deceived believe that they have come to their own conclusions by their own reasonings, ignorant that the deceiving spirits have incited them to “reason” without sufficient data, or on a wrong premise, and thus come to false conclusions. The teaching spirit has achieved his own end by putting a lie in the man’s mind, through the instrumentality of a false reasoning. However, perhaps even more common is the indirect means: by the use of deceived human teachers, supposedly conveying undiluted divine truth—instructors who are implicitly believed because of their godly life and character. The trustful students says, “He is a good man, even a holy man, and I believe him.” The life of the man is taken as a sufficient guarantee for his teaching, instead of judging the teaching by the Scriptures, apart from his personal character. This has its foundations in the prevalent idea that everything that Satan and his evil spirits do is manifestly evil, the truth not being recognized that the work under cover of light (2 Cor. 11.14). If demons can get a “good man” to accept some idea from them, and pass it on as “truth,” he is a better instrument for deceptive purposes than a bad man who would not be believed. In order to have a right attitude about things, we must learn to think differently, and to have longer thoughts. Each of our thoughts is too short. Until one has experience from one’s own observation of the difference between long and short thoughts, this idea will mean nothing to you. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

As long as we allow our thinking to depend entirely upon habitual association, it will not improve; but by introducing new point of view, we can create new associations. For instance, we are accustomed to think in absolutes—all or nothing—but it is necessary to understand that anything new comes at first in flashes. It comes, then it disappears. Only after a certain time these flashes become longer and then still longer, so that you can see and notice them. Nothing comes at once in a complete form. Everything that can be acquired comes, then disappears, comes again, again disappears. After a long time it comes and stays a little, so that you are able to give a name to it, to notice it. I do not want to give an example because it would lead to imagination. All I want to say is that, for instance, by certain efforts of self-remembering one could see certain things that one cannot see now. Our eyes are not as limited as we think. There are many things that they can see but do not notice. We cannot perceive differently until we think differently. We have control only over thoughts; we have no control over perception. Perception does not depend upon our desire or decision, it depends particularly on our state of consciousness, on our being more awake. If one awakens for a sufficient time, say for one hour, on can see many things that one does not see now. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

In social establishments, as has already been suggested, a particular member may serve as guardian of situational order, being obliged to see that all present maintain a suitable allocation of involvement. A school teacher, for example, may interpret her pupils’ noise and byplay as forms of impermissible involvement which challenge her dominance in the classroom. She may be called upon to bring to her classroom with a crack of the ruler the kind of order that a judge brings to his court by means of the gavel, and in her own way will be able to hold the unruly in contempt of court. In such cases, certain kinds of involvement that are prohibited in the establishment may be presented as acts of interpersonal defiance and be understood as such. Sometimes such affronts are means of testing the limits, to determine how far the guardians can be pressed; sometimes, apparently, the offender may act in this way to see if the guardian will be true to him whatever he does. The use of situational improprieties as way of doing something about one’s relation to an official in the situation is merely one illustration of the more general fact that situational niceties and offenses are constantly used as a reflection of some kind on one’s relation to specific other individuals who are present. This can be seen in the link in our society between degree of required interpersonal respect, on the one hand, and degree of tightness of conduct on the other. At homes with his family, a lower-middle-class American may lounge in a chair, polish his eyeglasses with his shirt-tail, treat his children as if in many ways they were not really present, blech, and lay on the sofa, perhaps, only if his wife is not present. The same man in the same setting, but with his employer present, might be the very model of tight middle-class decorum. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

Hence, when an individual wishes to show hostility to someone before whom he would ordinarily conduct himself tightly, extreme expressions of looseness become an available means. If the relationship is already one where informal looseness is appropriate, something implying social distance can be expressed by reasserting tight proprieties. These aggressive devices are especially apt when the offender and the victim cannot leave the scene (for whatever psychological or social reasons), for these devices allow the offender to remain in the situation with the target of his offense. That the offender incidentally offends all others who enter the situation is a price he must pay for his choice of weapon—and is sometimes connected with his eventual commitment to a mental hospital. Correspondingly, if the individual chooses to use situational proprieties as a means of showing regard for a specific person, then, as was suggested earlier in connection with perfume, any case, it is understandable that a standard mechanism in the organization of involvement is found in the “by-your-leave” interchange whereby permission for relaxations is asked of and given by, or proffered by and acknowledged to, the individual present to whom marks of deference are due. In this way the actor can partially disentangle the involvement structure from the deference system. Here, incidentally, is a pertinent type of dominance. The individual in the situation to whom the tightest conduct is owed (as opposed to those whom loose conduct is appropriate) tends to “govern” the gathering regardless of the extent to which he is outnumbered by persons present who are on symmetrically familiar terms with one another and could act loosely were he not present. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

Thus, for example, the change men manifest in their conduct when women are present is not much influenced by how many women are present; often, one will do. Similarly, at Lindon socials, after the games and presentations of awards had been run through, and the dance had begun, all the adult gentry tended to leave. Apparently they felt that, if even one should remain, his presence might cause the whole occasion to keep time too slow a tune. This kind of dominance seems to be at the base of our understanding about what can be accomplished by the presence of one chaperone. In situations where only two persons are present, situational proprieties are likely to carry a particularly heavy load of relationship information, especially, perhaps, in the handling of side involvements. Thus, men and women of the “evening” have been said to demonstrate disregard for their clients by smoking or doing their nails during the transaction of business, and men have been reported to counter this move by leaving their hats on during the engagement. One man even got married while smoking a cigarette throughout the entire ceremony. The relationship between situational improprieties and the offender’s emotional involvement in particular witnesses is, of course, something about which psychiatrists of the Sullivanian persuasion have given us much information. Some psychiatrists, in fact, would see this as the central problem in a consideration of improprieties. A very important example of that fits this analysis is the domestic behavioral disorganization that often characterizes an individual just before one’s family finds it necessary to commit him. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

While the difficulty he is having may well be caused by his relation to his spouse or parents, the expressions largely available to him, if he is not to desert the home, involve the rejection of domestic situational duties. It is open to him to become, in the language of case histories, slovenly, lazy, unclean, preoccupied, inattentive, careless, vulgar, sleepless or too sleepy, unconcerned with the tidy care of the children, and so forth. The “recovery” of some of these offenders, when they find themselves in a hospital setting, is sometimes due, of course, not to the security and therapy claimed for these institutions, but to the fact, which psychiatrists themselves often point out, that the special targets for the offense are no longer present. The way the U.S.A. judicial system works, a defendant is first found to be innocent or guilty. The punishment sentence is determined only after a defendant has been found guilty. It might seem that this is a relatively minor procedural issue. Yet, the order of this decision-making can mean the difference between life and death, or even between conviction and acquittal. We use the case of a defendant charged with a capital offense to make our point. There are three alternative procedures to determine the outcome of a criminal court cause. Each has its merits, and you might want to chose among them based on some underlying principles. Status Quo: First determine innocence or guilt, then if guilty consider the appropriate punishment. Roman Tradition: After hearing the evidence, start with the most serious punishment and work down the list. First decide if the death penalty should be imposed for this case. If, after proceeding down the list, no sentence is imposed, then the defendant is acquitted. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

Mandatory Sentencing: First specify the sentence for the crime. Then determine whether the defendant should be convicted. The difference between these systems is only one of agenda: what gets decided first. To illustrate how important this can be, we consider a case with only three possible outcomes: the death penalty, life imprisonment, and acquittal. This story is based on a true case; it is a modern update of the dilemma faced by Pliny the Younger, a Roman lawyer working under the Emperor Trajan around A.D. 100. The defendant’s fate rests in the hands of three judges. Their decision is determined by a majority vote. This is particularly useful since the three judges are deeply divided. One judge (Judge A) holds that the defendant is guilty and should be given the maximum possible sentence. This judge seeks to impose the death penalty. Life imprisonment is her second choice and acquittal is her worst outcome. The second judge (Judge B) also believes that the defendant is guilty. However, this judge adamantly opposes the death penalty. Her most preferred outcome is life imprisonment. The precedent of imposing a death sentence is sufficiently troublesome that she would prefer to see the defendant acquitted rather than executed by the state. The third judge, Judge C, is alone in holding that the defendant is innocent, and this seeks acquittal. She is on the other side of the fence from the second judge, believing that life in prison is a fate worse than death. (On this the defendant concurs.) Consequently, if acquittal fails, her second-best outcome would be to see the defendant sentenced to death. Life in prison would be the worst outcome. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

Judge A’s Ranking: Best is death sentence. Middle is life in prison. Worst is acquittal. Judge B’s Ranking: Best is life in prison. Middle is acquittal. Worst is death sentence. Judge C’s Ranking: Best is acquittal. Middle is death sentence. Worst is life. Under the status quo system, the first vote is to determine innocence versus guilt. However, these judges are sophisticated decision-makers. They look ahead and reason backward. They correctly predict, that is the defendant is found guilty, the vote will be two to one in favor of the death penalty. This effectively means that the original vote is between acquittal and the death penalty. Acquittal wins two to one, as Judge B tips the vote. It did not have to turn out that way. The judges might decide to follow the Roman tradition and work their way down the list of charges, starting with the most serious ones. They first decide whether or not to impose a death penalty. If the death penalty is chosen, there are no more decisions to be made. If the death penalty is rejected, the remaining options are life imprisonment or acquittal. By looking forward, the judges recognize that life imprisonment will be the outcome of the second stage. Reasoning backward, the first question reduces to a choice between life and death sentences. The death sentence wins two to one, with only Judge B dissenting. A third reasonable alternative is to first determine the appropriate punishment for the crime at hand. Here we are thinking along the lines of a mandatory sentencing code. Once the sentence had been determined, the judges must then decide whether the defendant in the case at hand is guilty of the crime. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

In this case, if the predetermined sentence is life imprisonment, then the defendant will be found guilty, as Judges A and B vote for conviction. However, if the death penalty is to be required, then we see that the defendant will be acquitted, as Judges B and C are unwilling to convict. Thus the choice of sentencing penalty comes down to the choice of life imprisonment versus acquittal. The vote is for imprisonment, with Judge C casting the lone dissent. You may find it remarkable and perhaps troubling that any of the three outcomes is possible based solely on the order in which votes are taken. Your choice of a judicial system might then depend on the outcome rather than the underlying principles. When it comes to the global sell—the existence of a global image market has led some companies, including media companies, to a simple, linear conclusion. The time had come to “globalize,” meaning they would now try doing on a global scale what they had successfully done before on a national scale. This straight-line strategy had tuned out to be a loser. Advanced wealth creation presupposed the globalization of a good bit of manufacturing and the parallel development of global means of distribution. Thus, as manufacturing and distribution corporations began forming cross-border alliances, or merging across national frontiers, ad agencies followed suit. Taking advantage of the low dollar, Britain’s WPP, for example, swallowed up both J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather, each an American giant in its own right. In its drive to become the World’s biggest agency, Saatchi & Saatchi gulped down Compton Advertising and Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, among other firms. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

The rationale for the “global sell” strategy was supplied in part by marketing guru Theodore Levitt of Harvard, who preached that “the World’s needs and desires have been irrevocably homogenized,” and who celebrated the coming of “global” products and brands—implying that the same product, back by the same advertising, which once old nationally could now be sold to the whole World. The same industrial-style standardization that earlier took place on the national level would now take place on a global level. What is wrong with the global sell theory is that it makes little distinction among the World’s regions and markets. Some are still in a pre-mass-market condition; others are still at the mass-market stage; and some are already experiencing the de-massification characteristic of an advanced economy. In these last, consumers demand greater individualization and customization of products and positively shun certain homogeneous goods and services. The same marketing or advertising can hardly be expected to work in all of them. The Levitt theory also drastically underestimates the economic impact of cultural preferences and assumptions at a time when culture is growing more, not less, important. As you now know, as far back as 1989, Hill Samuel merchant bank for the Confederation of British Industry suggested that even a unified Europe could not be regarded as uniform. According to its report, French housewives preferred washing machines that load from the top, while the British like front-loaders better. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Germans regard low blood pressure as a problem needing heavy medication, while British doctors did not. The French, the Hill Samuel study notes, worry about a “heart/digestive condition known as ‘spasmophilia,’ the existence of which the U.K. doctors do not even recognise.” Are attitudes toward food, beauty, work, love, play—or, for that matter, politics—any less diverse? In practice, the simplistic “global sell” theory proved disastrous for firms that applied it. The agonies of Parker Pen when it tried to follow the formula made them go into the red, sacking the responsible executives, and eventually having to sell off its pen division. When an attempt was made to peddle an Erno Laszlo skin-care brand to fair-skinned Australians and dark-skinned Italians alike, the pitch, not surprisingly, flopped. Even McDonald’s, it turns out, accommodates national differences, selling beer in Germany, wine in France, and even, at one time, mutton pot pie in Australia. In the Philippines it offers McSpaghetti. If diversity is necessary in consumer products, is it likely to be less necessary in culture or political ideology? Will global media really homogenize away the differences among peoples? The fact is that with some exceptions, culture, too—like products—are de-massifying. And the very multiplicity of media accelerates the process. Thus it is high diversity, not uniformity, that the marketers of political candidates or ideas will be forced to confront. If products, with only rare exceptions, fail when they try to sweep the World market, why should politicians or policies succeed? Rather than homogenizing the planet, as the old Second wave media did, the new global media system could deepen diversity instead. Globalization, therefore, is not the same as homogeneity. Instead of a single global village, as forecast by Marshall McLuhan, the late Canadian media theorist, we are likely to see a multiplicity of quite different global villages—all wired into the new media system, but all straining to retain or enhance their cultural, ethnic, national, or political individuality. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Angels and Demons, Gargoyles and Ghostly Apparitions

Except for William, the idea of love to me always seemed a question of submission. Of giving in to some powerful emotion, of losing control. Poor souls. However, with my beloved William, love seemed a natural thing, something one did not even need to remark upon, like breathing or raising one’s face to the sun on a summer’s day. It is no matter now, for he passed away years ago, and all I ask is to be left alone in my chair. Money has been an armor, you see; and there are few cracks in it. But William had a loving nature, if only others had show him love. He was a delicate boy when he was little, so his mother could curl him up, and put him into black velvet pants, like that boy in the book—little Lord Something. However, when his legs grew out of the pants, and they sent him to school, she said he was not her own little cuddly baby any more; and it riles a growing boy to hear himself talked about like that. It was like being pushed out of an illuminated ballroom, all flowers and chandeliers, into the winter night and snow. Yet, Mr. Winchester grew up into a fine man and that is why I married him. He used to go over and see his mother now and again; or she would come home for the holidays. And he used to take her out for lunch, or to dance at those cabaret places; and when the headwaiters adore his mother’s beauty and charm, he would talk about it for a week. For a time she used to get some comfort out of telling me about her early triumphs; and I used to listen to her patiently, taking notes on how to be a good wife and mother. You must not think of her as an unkind woman. She was friendly to her husband, and friendly to her children, but she knew she had to raise William to be tough and strong. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

There were always people prowling about in the background that she did not like the look of; people, you understand, who live on weak people. There is nothing more I can say. Reflecting of these memories was nice. It allowed me to sleep all day and into the evening. Or, rather, I drifted in and out of twilight state. I was aware of the housemaids and the parlor maids coming and going, shapes, blurred faces, the sound of kindlin and a striking match, the maid laying a fire. I work fully only twice. First, when Ersula placed a bowl of soup and bread beside the bed and waited until I had eaten it all. The second time, when she returned to administer a second draft of the bitter white medicine, a sleeping draft or some kind of traditional remedy, I never knew and hardly cared. My skin was alternatively burning and clammy with sweat. I tossed and turned in bed, like a ship on a storm-wracked sea, plagued by dreams and delusions. Angels and demons, gargoyles and ghostly apparitions, long-since deserted friends waltzed in and out of my head. For hours, so Ersula later told me, things hung in the balance as my temperature climbed as high as the nine-story observational tower. Certainly, I oscillated between beauty and horror. A skeletal hand pushing up from beneath freshly turned Earth, blossoms dying on the bough. The back of Annie’s heads, impassive and deaf to my consoling up her upset tummy. William smiling at me, in the orchard and by the stream, but then stepping just out of reach and turning away when I called out to him. Barbed wire and mud and blood, chlorine gas, a World of unimaginable pain. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Nearly 175,000 men—jamming the streets and roads and field of my estate, attempting to tear each other apart, and in doing so, leaving anywhere from 44,000 to 51,000 casualties behind, to be cared for immediately after the battle by a handful of doctors, orderlies, and the servants of my estate, and my mansion metamorphosing into one vast charnel-house. To day the least, my tidy rooms, barns, and farmhouses, and Victorian gardens were overflowing with men who were seriously hurt and badly needed shelter from the elements. These horrors seemed to last for weeks. The fever broke at about three o’clock in the morning. My temperature dropped. I stopped shaking and my skin, sticky with fever, returned to normal. For the first time in hours, I was able to get out of bed. In the still and sleeping house, I could hear the whirring and chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall downstairs. A ribbon of moonlight made its way between the shutters and painted a line across the floor. I watched the moonbeams dance, slowly shifting, as the hours passed and the World continued to turn. I walked through the hallway, looking through a couple of doorways and back into the original section of the house when I noticed a fresh-countenanced young man standing and watching the goings-on with a peculiar look on his face. The more I watched him, the more I saw it was a look of wanting to come out of the Grand Ball Room. Catching his eye, I motioned for the young man to come join me for a cup of tea. He just stood there and stared, the expression on his face becoming even more painted. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Then it dawned on me that he was a ghost, and he was stuck in the old part of the house and could not leave the Grand Ball Room. With an understanding shrug, he turned away from the door and walked further into the room to join the other apparitions. I stood back with my eyes closed, and a quiet smile on my face. By this time, the sky was a mass of teal and fuchsia. At first it looked like a kite-flying contest, the could over my mansion obstructed by swooping streaks of color that danced on the air currents, trailing multi-hued streamers behind them. Then I heard the chirping cacophonous twittering like an orchestra of xylophones. As I looked further through the skylights, I realized that the kites’ long tails were really feathers, and they were not tethered to the ground by strings. A flock of birds, what seemed like hundreds of them, painted the air with wings the color of the rainbow, dipping and soaring on air currents visible only to them. I could barely take my eyes off the flock. I wished the birds would stay forever: They were like an elaborately painted scene on a China teacup, and their chirping filled me with the kind of inexplicable joy that I had felt as a child, climbing onto my mother’s lap and smelling the faint scent of her jasmine perfume after a long day of play. The birds, as if acting on an invisible signal from above, formed two loose lines and soared higher, heading towards Heaven. I wished I could fly with them, borne along on whatever invisible breeze they had ridden in on. The birds had stirred something powerful in me, mysterious symphony of joy and emotion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

It must have been some kind of European sorcery and magic. And, there seemed to be something else in the atmosphere. Around 5.45 a.m., I heard what sounded like for all the World, a small child. It came from further down the hallway, and I walked curiously down towards where the sound seemed to be coming from, the sound moved into the living room. I followed, and it kept moving and cooing at a distance of what I estimated was about six feet in front of me. As I got to the living room, the cooing baby moved on into the next room, the kitchen. I stood in the living room and rationalized for a moment. The lights from outside the mansion were spilling into the room, and it slowly occurred to me that if the baby had been playing, I would surely have seen her cross the room between the hall and the kitchen. I listened to the cute baby sounds in the next room, and a chill went down my spine. I now had no idea what I was dealing with. The cooing faded within the next moment, and I backed down the hall, ducking into the Alice in Wonderland room and, of course, there was no one in the room, but the tiny rocking chair was swaying back and forth. A few nights later, I was up in the middle of the night. I was in complete darkness. No windows in the room, no light, just darkness. Suddenly, from the area to my left, which would have been the bathtub, I heard very clearly—sharp and loud enough to make me jump—a voice shout, “Belly Ache!” The voice was that of a little girl, but there was something sweet and warm about the voice, like the voice of an angel. I pushed the button to turn on the light. Nothing. Not that I found the matter unfathomable. Quite frequently, I saw the figure of a little girl moving up and down the hall past my bedroom door during the night. She has a soft, blue glow. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

For week, I lie awake at night, thinking this could be my beloved Annie. I waited and waited, night after night to see her again and perhaps talk with her, but she did not return. However, the bathtub faucet leaked and dripped fairly on occasion. I lay in bed, listening to the drip. It had developed a steady rhythm, as drips will. Suddenly, the rhythm changed. The drip sound changed in pitch, and it literally played a tune. It was the Highland Fairy Lullaby. The temperature in the room dropped, and I could clearly hear the sound of a little girl playing with her doll. She was singing a tuneless little song, the kind of melodic chat that was common among young children, especially little girls at play. From time to time, she would interrupt the humming of her sing-song to speak lovingly to her doll, and then she would call rather loudly to her mother that she had a tummy ache. However, there was no response from the mother, and she would return to playing with her doll and singing. I could almost see the little girl dressing her doll, combing its beautiful hair. From that night on, I would awake in the middle of the night or in the morning and hear the little girl calling for her mother. Once I had thoroughly searched the house and determined that it must be the sound of some lost and confused spirit-child, eternally singing and occasionally calling for her mother, or perhaps it was some kind of ethereal phonograph, eternally reproducing the sounds of a little girl. For some, this haunting might be considered a nightmare, but for me, it reminded me of the death of my six-week-old daughter, and it gave me hope that she was still near me, in my house growing and aging, even if she were only a spirit. I took these as signs from the spirit World and had a bird aviary constructed with exotic birds from all over the World, and invited my niece Daisy to live with me. Someone I could be a mother to. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

I invoke, conjure, and command thee, Spirit Botis, and your 60 Legions of Spirits to bring with you power armed from the Supreme Majesty, I do strongly command thee, by BERALANENSIS, BALDACHINENSIS, PAUMACHIA, and APOLOGIAE SEDES; by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Liachide, and Ministers of the Tartarean Abode; and by the Chief Prince of the Seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee, and by invocating conjure thee. Magic forces, black and white, reaching out through space and light, be he far or be he near, brings us the demon Balthazar here. Ancient powers, we summon thee, we the power of three and seek your help in finding the demons who are in the Winchester Mansion. Come thou peaceably, visibly, and affably, now, and without delay, manifesting that magic running through this estate, help us see with clarity, power that we have summoned here, protect us and we will have no fear. Throne having eyes before and behind, by the fire which is about the Throne, by Holy Angels of Heaven, by the Mighty Wisdom of God; by the Seal of Basdathea, by this name PRIMEMATUM, which Moses named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou make faithful answers unto all our demands and perform all our desires, so far as thine office shall permit. Come therefore peaceably and affably; come visibly and without delay; manifest that which we desire; speak with a clear and intelligible voice, that we may understand. TETRAGRAMMATON IEHOVAH, do I command three, at which being heard the elements are overthrown, the air is shaken, the sea runneth back, the fire is quenched, the Earth trembleth, and all the hosts of the celestials, terrestrials, and infernals do tremble together, and are troubled and confounded. Wherefore come thou, O Spirits Sarah, William, and Annie Winchester, forthwith, and without delay, from any or all parts of the World wherever thou mayest be, and make rational answers unto all things that we shall demand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

The Winchester Mystery House

A thin door indeed it is between life and death: one moment young and full of future, the next lying wounded in some stranger’s house in a small farm-town, the following instant forever lost and wandering in eternity. Could it be the vital spark, the spirit of not only souls killed by the Winchester rifle, but also members of the Winchester family that still search for the youth they lost, roaming the miles of hallways in the Winchester Mansion for all of eternity? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

And be sure to check out the Online Gift Store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

God, I Feel Like Hell Tonight, Tears of Rage I Cannot Lie

The overwhelming majority of rape/sexual assault offenses involve a single acquaintance forcing him or herself sexually onto a single unwilling victim. Victims’ reports indicate that almost all (98 percent) rape/sexual assault incidents involve a lone victim. Similarly, 92 percent of the cases involve a single perpetrator. We use the term gang rape to describe rape events with three or more perpetrators present. While multiple offenders are present, the crime tends to take place within some organizational context and often times involves perverse and prolonged forms of sexual deviance. Multiple offenders are often the hallmark of prison rapes, athlete-perpetrated offenses, and fraternity rapes. Gang rape cases account for only about 1 percent of all violent sex crimes reported by victims each year. In addition to being crimes of violence, most rapes/sexual assaults incorporate an element of betrayal. Roughly 70 percent of all single-offender rape/sexual assaults occur in 2022 were committed by an individual who was known to the victim. A full 32 percent of victims described their attackers to be close friends. An additional 28 percent of the attackers were said to be casual acquaintances. Almost one in twenty said that their attacker was a spouse or blood relative. No other form of violent crime involves such high proportions of offenders who were related to or acquainted with the victim. The presence of drugs and/or alcohol seem to play an important part in the violent sexual transaction. Victim reports indicate that nearly one half (45 percent) of all rape/sexual assault victims believed that their attacker was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the offense. This figure corresponds closely with the percentage that are derived from self-report studies involving convicted rapist. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

A full 47 percent of the state prison inmates surveyed admit that they were using drugs or alcohol in the hours preceding their violent sex offense. A new trend has emerged whereby rapists enlist the help of potent prescriptions medicines (exempli gratia Rohypnol, GHB), termed “date rape drugs,” to unknowingly intoxicate and incapacitate their victims. Most violent sexual attacks occur at night in private settings. The majority take place after 6 p.m. Furthermore, victim reports indicate that nearly two thirds of the transgressions occur in or near a private residence. No other form of crime posts such high numbers in this regard. The remainder of violent sex crimes occur in commercial establishments or open-air, public environments. Rapes and sexual assault are principally committed by young, men while the victims are disproportionately young, minority women. Gender is the most telling variable in the rape/sexual assault equation. Almost all violent sex crimes are intergendered (id est, male on female) offenses. Nearly 99 percent of the individuals arrested on rape charges in 2022 were men. That same year, victim reports indicated that 90 percent of the rape and sexual assault victims were women and more than 93 percent of the offenders were men. This translate into a female rape/sexual assault victimization rate that is ten times the rare that is observed among males. Age is another noteworthy variable in the rape and sexual assault equation. Better than for in tend (46 percent) individuals arrested for forcible rape in 2022 were under the age of 25. Victim accounts support this claim, as 60 percent of rape victims that year estimated that their attacker(s) were under the age of 30. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

Young people are clearly at the highest risk of experiencing a violent sexual attack. This makes rape an intra-aged from. The victimization rate for individuals under the age of 25 was five times greater than that experienced among individuals above this age threshold. It is well established that the majority of rape/sexual assault offenders are men. A full 63 percent of the individuals who were arrested on forcible rape charges in 2022 where white (other races may fail to report). Almost identical percentages of whites were observed in that year’s victimization reports. Things are not so cute and dried for the African American population. While African Americans comprised more than one third of all rape arrests in 2022, victim attributed only slightly more than one fifth of the rapes that year to black perpetrator. In 2022, the victimization rate of African Americas was 1.1 per 1,000 persons or households. This was similar to the rates experienced by Hispanics and whites (1.1 and 1.0, respectively). Collectively, the data suggest an intraracial patterning of violence sex crimes. Certain demographic segments of the U.S.A. population can face vastly increased chances of being the target of a violent sex crime. Take, for example, that the average U.S.A. adult faced a rape/sexual assault victimization rate of 1.7 per 1,000 persons of households. However, the victimization rate for black women (4.6) was nearly twice that of white or Hispanic women (2.7 and 2.5, respectively). These figures are significantly higher than the Hispanic male (1.3), white male (0.4) and black male (0.2) victimization rates. Note that these pronounced racial/gender disparities have subsided in recent years. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

Noticeable fluctuations can be observed when the age/race/gender analysis is further specified. The 2022 rape/sexual assault victimization rate was observed to be 1.1 per 1,000. Noticeable high victimization rates are observed for African Americans between the ages of 12 and 15 (3.4), white ages 16 to 19 (4.0), and African Americans ages 20 to 24 (3.9). Females in the 12 to 15 (3.5) and 20 to 24 (4.2) age groups also face noticeable high victimization rates. Still, no other segment of the American population is more at risk than 16- to 19-year-old-females—this particular group’s victimization rate is 6 times the national average or 6.9 per 1,000 persons or households. The disturbing age/race/gender-based trends have prompted the systematic study of rape victimization among college-aged women. The findings are even more disheartening. Nearly 3 percent of all the 4,000+ college women surveyed had been the victim of an attempted or completed rape during the previous school year. This translates to a victimization rate of 27.7 per 1,000 women attending U.S.A. colleges. Most violent criminal events take on an unmistakably fast and furious quality. Rape and sexual assault offenses are somewhat different. While intense levels of violence are generally a cornerstone of the rape event, the assault and corresponding struggle takes some time to run its course. Interview-based accounts reveal that rape victims are subject to prolonged trauma as the offender uses a forceful and drawn-out sex act as a vehicle for power, degradation, and dominance. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

The onset of the rape transaction generally leaves little room for misinterpretation on the part of the victim. Faced with the reality that they are about to be forced into a prolonged and nonconsensual sex act, rape victims almost always seek to resist the aggressive advances of the attacker. Recent data shows that seven of ten rape/sexual assault victims take self-protective measures against attackers. Most women try to flee, while some opt to fight back. The majority of victims contend that their countermeasure served to improve the situation. Resistance, especially violent forms of resistance, serves as effective means of (1) preventing rape completion, and (2) reducing the level of injuries sustained by the victim. The criminal career of the rapist is decidedly different than it is for other violent offenders. While other violent predators are known for their propensity to accumulate long, diverse criminal histories, the violent sex offender tends to stay more focused. Compared to other violent offenders, convicted rapists and sexual assaulters tend to amass shorter rape sheets and post lower violent and property recidivism rates. In fact, 42 percent of the rape defendants in the study had a prior felony arrest recorded, 21 percent had been felony arrested five or more times, and 29 percent had a prior felony conviction. Forty two percent of the released rapist that were tracked were rearrested within 3 years. As alarming as that number may be, it is worthy nothing that only murders posted lower overall recidivism rates. The bad news is that, relative to other types of offenders, rapists return to sex crimes at a disproportion rate. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

A recidivism study estimates that one in ten rapists will be rearrested for a similar charge at some time in the future. Extrapolating further, it has been discovered that a released rapist’s odds of committing a new rape are 3.2 times greater than a non-rapist’s odds of rape. This level of specialized recidivism is unusual among criminals. This observation has prompted many local and state jurisdictions to mandate that convicted serial sex offenders register with local law enforcement agencies upon moving into a neighborhood. In fact, there is in place a national data base that allows for the cross-jurisdictional monitoring of convicted serial sex offenders. Repeat sex offending takes on one of two forms. Some rapists, commonly referred to as serial rapists, target numerous victims over an extended period of time. Other habitual rapists repeatedly assault the same individual. This pattern almost exclusively manifests itself in established intimate relationships. Eight percent of the 8,000 randomly sampled respondents surveyed had been raped by an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime. Repeat victimization was common among these cases. Demonical “doctrines” have been generally calculated as either belonging to the Church of Rome—because of the two specific results of demon teaching mentioned by Paul which characterize that Church—or to later “cults” and skewed “movements” of the twenty-first century, with their omission of the fact of sin and the need of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the divine Saviour. However, there is a vast realm of doctrinal deception by deceiving spirits penetrating and interpenetrating evangelical Christendom also. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Yes, evil spirits, in more or less degree, influence the lives even of Christian men, and bring them under their power. Even spiritual Christians can be thus affected on the plane described by the apostle, where believers united to the risen Christ meet “spiritual wickedness” in “Heavenly places.” For the satanic forces described in Ephesians 6.12 are shown to be divided into (1) “Principalities”—demonic officers dealing with nations and governments; (2) “Powers”—those having authority and power of action in certain special spheres open to them; (3) “World-rulers”—spirits governing the darkness and blindness of the World at large. All of these are wicked spirits operating from celestial realms, directing their forces against the Church of Jesus Christ, using “wiles,” “fiery darts,” sly onslaughts, and every conceivable deception about “doctrines” which they are capable of planning. This peril assails the Church from the supernatural World. It comes from supernatural spirit-beings who are persons (Mark 1.25) having the power of intelligence to plan (Matt. 12.44-45) and devise strategy (Eph. 6.11), resulting in the deception of those who “give heed” to them. What is truth? “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; and whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 93.24-25. We must ask the right questions; we must seek the right places and knock on the right doors. That sometimes is very difficult to do. However, we must prepare our hearts and our minds with a sincere desire to know the truth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

We must accept our feelings to build ourselves, and as one does that it may become apparent that one is not in contact with one’s own feelings. Many people can lose themselves early in life and may be living dead while alive. This may lead one to lose one’s own feelings and need making nothing seem worthwhile about one’s self, nor accepting praise from others. Often times, the slightest criticism may send an individual into despair for days. As a result, some individuals may hide true value and strengths from themselves because it is too painful to assume any responsibility for one’s self. The whole dependency-hostility depression then permeates one’s life for year and years. This can cause an individual to become stuck in self-hatred and contemplate and long for suicide for many years to come. Depression may deepen and deepen. And some will make themselves more and more miserable by desperately hoping someone will notice and plead with them to change for their sake. However, no matter what a depressed individual may do or say, others will often refuse to accept this responsibility. This often results in an emotional explosion within a person. Some will feel absolutely abandoned and alone because others are not living up to the expectation of being a hero. The grief one feels will be crushing as it will seem there is no one at all who cares for you. The anguish one feels will be hard to covey for there are so many layers of emotions, misunderstandings, and stories. One may even suffer their being as deadened. This paralysis will affect not just the mind, but the arms and legs can become laden, and the mind will feel like scrambled eggs. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

This type of anguish will lead many to believe that some problems are caused by demonic possession like people in the Victorian ages believed because one is possession by a whirling torment of loneliness. Finally when an individual is able to break free and express one’s self, there will come from the individual an eerie, animalistic moaning. A noise that is the only way some can break through the suffocating horror one feels. One may hear this voice coming from inside of them, but may not feel like it is them expressing it—it is a searing, anguished, guttural growl that seems bigger than all of life and yet at the same time so expressive of all human sadness and loneliness. Those bottled-up emotions and feelings are what make that sound. It is important to realize that there is no one else, but you. If you do not care for yourself, then no one can. Whether or not someone cares for you will never change you. Reluctantly, oh, so reluctantly, one has to admit that one has a self. It is often when an individual reaches their lowest point that lo and behold, there one finds one’s self. Some may fight against self-discovery for too long, but eventually, begrudgingly, fearfully, whole heartedly one must began to accept it, and amazingly enough, one will begin to feel a soaring freedom. At that point is when the painful trek upward starts. All the anger one then directed towards others becomes clear. It is likely that individuals have been projecting all of their lives and that is what causes them to become lost. As one becomes stronger, and less afraid of being alone, if one acts according to the needs of one’s self, one is able to like that self more and more. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Every day, one learns to trust this new stable self and like that self more and more, and will become aware of joy. Defenses an individual has in place for a life time can be the same mechanisms that make one lonely. However, also keep in mind that not everyone lives in Mayberry with the Cleaver’s as neighbours, so be rational about your self-evaluation and please trust your instincts. But as along as you are true to yourself, true community and companionship with others will eventually flourish, as you accept the love you inspire in others. A right attitude towards a subject is the result of right thinking about that definite subject. For instance, many people live only on objections; they only think themselves clever when they find an objection to something. When they do not find any objection, they do not feel themselves to be working or thinking or anything. Again, nearly all our personal negative emotion are based upon accusations, and upon the assumptions that somebody else is guilty. If, by persistent thinking, we realize that nobody can be guilty in relation to us and that we are the cause of everything that happens to us, our attitude towards those emotions of accusation will begin to change. Eventually this right thinking, this creation of a right attitude or point of view may become a permanent process, and then negative emotions will only appear occasionally. Exactly by being permanent this process of right thinking has power over negative emotions; it checks them right at the beginning. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

We can learn to refuse some points of view and to accept other points of view. From one point of view we are so mechanical and we can do nothing, while from another point of view there re in us—perhaps not many but several—things which we can begin to do. We have certain possibilities in us which we do not use. It is true that you cannot do anything, in the sense that you cannot change what you feel at any given moment, but you can make yourself think about a subject at a given moment. This is the beginning. You must know what is possible and begin from that, because the possibility to do something instead of letting something happen will increase quickly. You can make yourself think about a subject in a certain way, and—when it is necessary—you can make yourself not think. You do not realize what enormous power lies in thinking. That is not meant as a philosophical explanation of power. The power lies in the fact that, if you always think rightly about certain things, you can make that thought permanent and it will grow into a permanent attitude. If you find yourself an inclination to a wrong emotional manifestation of some kind, you can do nothing about it just at that moment because you have educated in yourself the capacity for this kind of reaction by wrong thinking; but after some time of right thinking, you may educate in yourself the capacity for a different reaction. Only, this method has to be understood and this understanding must be quite deep. You can apply this method to many different things. This is really the one thing you can do. You can do nothing else. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

There is no direct way to struggle with negative manifestations because you cannot catch them; and there is no way to prevent them except by being prepared beforehand for them. A passing realization that they are wrong will not help; it must be very deep, otherwise you will again have an equally difficult process to prepare the ground for another manifestation. You have to realize how much you lose by these spontaneous manifestations of a negative character. They make so many desirable things impossible, and you lose exactly what you want to get. Situational improprieties may also be employed as a means of expressing resentment that the offender may feel toward something more circumscribed than a class or a community, for example, the social establishment or institution in which one finds oneself. Here, the “milieu” approach to institutional psychiatry has provided us with much data. It would appear from the utilization of the unconventional incontinent response in the aforementioned situations that this response is a symbolic and obscure gesture on the part of the patients who have difficulty in expressing themselves at all or in expressing themselves clearly and directly. They utilize this response as a form of communication to convey the “unsatisfactory” character of their surrounding social milieu and their participation in it and the fact that certain important requirements are not being fulfilled. However, the more careful examination of the nature and meaning of patients’ acts indicated that much of the grossly distributed and disturbing behaviour was more a manner of participating in an excessively restrictive and depriving hospital environment than an inherent part of psychotic illness. Most emotional outbursts appeared to be temporary, impulsive reactions of fear, anger, or overactivity, and were essentially self-limited when not aggravated by intervention of personnel. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

In mental hospitals, one of the most dramatic instances of establishment alienation is provided by the patient who is appropriately oriented in the situation in all visible ways whole calmly doing a single thing that sets one quite outside the present reality. If deviant use of the involvement idiom provides a means of symbolizing alienation from the situation, these isolated incongruities seem to provide symbols of symbols—a kind of gesture or proclamation of alienation. Thus, at Central Hospital I have observed an otherwise well-demeaned (albeit mute) youth walking down the ward halls with a reasonably thoughtful look on his face and two pipes in his mouth; another conducted himself with similar nicety while chewing toothpaste; another, with soap on his shaved head; another, while smilingly walking backwards with a neatly folded towel on her head; another, with a ball of paper screwed into his right eye as a monocle; another, with a foot-long strip of woven newspaper dangling from his pocket. One patient would graciously accept tobacco for his pipe and then pop the offering into his mouth with a continued artful gesture of gratefulness for the smoke; another would quietly enter the cafeteria and eat his meals peacefully, departing when told to, and manage all this compliant behaviour with a dinner-roll balanced on his head. Still another patient would act as if he were approaching a member of the staff for purposes of intelligent conversation, and would then mutter something in an affected English accent while showing that he had a cigarette butt stick into his ear. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

And frequently patients would lie on benches in an ordinary relaxed manner while keeping a few fingers or an arm extended and stiff, showing that they were not giving in to actual relaxation. Sometimes these proclamations were made with a sly look on the patient’s face, so that it appeared that he was more than ordinarily aware of the implications of his act and was performing them with these implications in mind. This self-sabotage often seems to represent one statement in an equation of defense. It seems that the patient sometimes feels that life on the ward is so degrading, so unjust, and so inhuman that the only self-respecting response is to treat ward life as if it were contemptibly beyond reality and beyond seriousness. This is done (it appears) by projecting a self that is correspondingly crazy and, as far as the actor is concerned, patently not his real self. Thereby the patient demonstrates, at least to himself, that his true self is not to be judged by its current setting and has not been subjugated or contaminated by it. On the same grounds, he implies that the conduct that was responsible for getting him into the hospital is equally not a valid representation of his real self. In short, the patient may pointedly act crazy in the hospital to make it clear to all decent people that he is obviously sane. This would account for the very knowing looks that such patients sometimes give sympathetic outsiders, which often seem to imply, “It is a ridiculous hideous World here, is it not?” #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

The aim, then, of some of these bizarre acts is, no doubt, to demonstrate some kind of distance and insulation from the setting, and behind this, alienation from the establishment. And the means consist of communications about the allocation of one’s involvement. There is another type of attack on the establishment that might be mentioned; it is more clear cut, involving less self-destructiveness and more of nose-thumbing. Again Central Hospital provides examples, as seen when a patient pushes back his chair and, one nostril at a time, methodically blows out mucus in a wide arc, or spits in the same parabolic manner, or flicks a lighted butt halfway across the dayroom while keeping a disdainful look on his face. In effect, if not by intent, these “malicious” offenses are all gestures of contempt for the gathering and for the social organizations in which it is housed. While proclamations of alienation and gestures of situational contempt are certainly means by which the individual places some unapproved distance between himself and he establishment in which he finds himself, there is still the paradoxical fact that these acts may be symptomatic of deep concern about the establishment. For these are strategies by which the individual resolves the conflict between his presence in the gathering, and the reasons he has for showing alienation from it. If such solutions to the conflict were not found, the individual might well be forced to do something even more drastically improper. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

The individual, in other words, is bothering to do something about his situational obligations, even though he is intentionally doing what is felt to be wrong. When an individual displays his alienation from a gathering by leafing through a magazine or pouring a drink when he should be listening to the talkers, the offensive act is at least keeping him from leaving the room entirely. There is a sense, then, in which those who actively dispute the proprieties governing a gathering show the gathering (and hence the encompassing establishment) more respect than do those who give no attention to it at all. It might be added that one underestimated difference between those who actively resist the demands in situations and those who fit in, is that resisters are likely to become consciously aware of social gatherings as an area of life in their own right, whereas conventional persons often maintain the rules consistently enough to remain unaware of the situational obligations their conduct sustains. A further basis for alienation from the gathering is illustrated by those who seem so fearful of what is likely to happen to them, and so anxious about what the situation may bring, that they cannot properly immerse themselves within the situation—they cannot give themselves up to the gathering appropriately. This occurs, of course, in any circle of persons at moments of social embarrassment. Extreme examples have already been cited in regard to mental patients who have difficult in containing themselves in a legitimate main involvement; other instances of this kind can be given. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Thus, a paranoid patient may be so distrustful of the setting as to carry on a hallucinatory conversation by whispering behind his hand, not trusting himself to speak openly even to someone not there. One patient observed had apparently felt at ease during the last eight years only when crouched in the deep-walled doorways leading from the sleeping rooms into the dayroom. When the ward was getting its daily mopping, the patient would scuttle from one doorway to the next, staying ahead of the cleaners but not trusting himself to the dayroom situation as such. Another patient would constantly attempt to withdraw from the situation by anxiously hiding her nose and ears behind her hand. These patients gave the impression that something dangerous, like a plague or a small Balkan war, was going on in the dayroom. While the fears of these patients seem unrealistic, their responses nevertheless tell us something about what would happen if their concern were well founded. And this, in turn, tells us something about the kind of trustful relation one must have to those present if one is to sustain ordinary situational proprieties. When it comes to looking at naïve voting, the most commonly used election procedure is simple majority voting. And yet the results of the majority-rule system have paradoxical properties, as was first recognized over two hundred years ago by French Revolution hero the Marquis de Condorcet. In his honour, we will illustrate his fundamental paradox of majority rule using revolutionary France as the setting. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

After the fall of the Bastille, who would be the new populist leader France? Suppose three candidates, Mr. Robespierre, Mr. Danton, and Madame Lafarge, are competing for the position. The population is divided into three equally sized groups, left, middle, and right, with the following preferences: Left’s Ranking: 1st Danton, 2nd Lafarge, 3rd Robespierre. Middle’s Ranking: 1st Lafarge, 2nd Robespierre, 3rd Danton. Right’s Ranking: 1st Robespierre, 2nd Danton, 3rd Lafarge. In a vote of Robespierre against Danton, Robespierre wins two to one. Then in a vote of Robespierre against Lafarge, Lafarge beats Robespierre two to one. However, then in a vote of Lafarge against Danton, Danton wins two to one. This there is no overall winner. Who ends up on top depends on which vote was the last taken. More generally, this possibility of endless cycles makes it impossible to specify any of the alternatives as representing the will of the people. Things become even more insidious when voting cycles are embedded in a larger problem. The will of the majority can leave everyone worse off. To show this problem, we update and expand the preferences above. Suppose the Seven Dwarfs are candidates in an election. (Any similarity between this story and the early stages of the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries is purely coincidental.) The voters are split into three equal factions—call them Left, Middle, and Right. The rankings of the groups are as follows. Left’s Ranking: 1st Happy, 2nd Sneezy, 3rd Grumpy, 4th Dopey, 5th Doc, 6th Bashful, 7th Sleepy. Middle’s Ranking: 1st Grumpy, 2nd, Dopey, 3rd Happy, 4th Bashful, 5th Sleepy, 6th Sneezy, 7th Doc. Right’s Ranking: 1st Dopey, 2nd Happy, 3rd Sleepy, 4th Sneezy, 5th Grumpy, 6th Doc, 7th Bashful. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Note that the cyclic ordering over Happy, Dopey, and Grumpy is equivalent to the cyclic ordering of Robespierre, Danton, and Madame Lafarge above. If we start with Happy versus Dopey, Dopey winds. Then Grumpy beats Dopey. And sneezy beats Grumpy. Next Sleepy beats Sneezy. Then Bashful beats Sleepy, and Doc beats Bashful. This is remarkable. A sequence of majority votes has taken us from Happy, Dopey, and Grumpy all the way to Doc, when every voter agrees that any one of Happy, Dopey, and Grumpy is better than Doc. How did this happen? The elections were all decided by two-thirds majorities. Those on the winning side gained by two-thirds majorities. Those on the winning side gained a position, while those on the losing end went down four slots on average. All voters had four wins and two losses, which on net puts them four places worse than where they started. At this point you would be justified in objecting that these voters were responsible for their own misfortunes; they voted in a shortsighted way. Each pairwise contest was decided as if it were the only one, instead of being a part of a chain of votes. If the voter had only looked ahead and reasoned backward they never would have allowed themselves to end up with Doc. That is true. However, the presence of a voting cycle makes the outcome highly sensitive to the voting procedure. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

While the de-massification of the media began earliest in the United States of America, Europe is now catching up. In the United States of America broadcasting has been a private industry, while in most European countries radio and, especially, television were for many years either government-run or financed by special taxes paid by listeners and viewers. As a result, Europeans had even less choice of programming than Americans had when the big networks dominated. Today’s changes are remarkable. There are now more than fifty satellite TV services in Europe. Sky Television, which is a British media and telecommunications conglomerate, has three satellites, 23 million subscribers and more than 31,000 employees. And Satellite TV is supported by $1.3 billion in advertising revenues. British viewers, who at one time were limited to two BBC channels and who got their fourth network only in 1982. However, in the United Kingdom, there are available from digital terrestrial, satellite, cable, and IPTV providers, more than 480 channels. France, in a politically explosive move, ended its monopoly control of television in 1986, when La Cinq (Channel 5) went into service with a glitzy grand opening that featured singer-actor Charles Aznavour cutting the ribbon. In a short time France went from a country with three government-run networks to one with six networks, of which four are private. Pay-TV channels like Canal Plus in France are growing in Switzerland and the Low Countries as well. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

In Italy, RAI, the state radio and television corporation, now faces competition from at least four networks. Rome boasts perhaps of twenty-five channels of television. West Germany has added two new commercial channels and has been busy cabling up since 1985, when its first private cable channel went on the air to the strains of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Today 6 million West German homes are already cabled. And Spain, not to be outraced, is opening three new private networks to compete with its state networks. The situation is changing so swiftly that these estimates be out of date by the time they see print. And no one knows for sure how many more new channels Europe will add in the years to come, doubling or perhaps tripling its total. And this is without  the explosion of television and radio likely to occur in the Eastern European countries freed of their communist governments. There, multiple networks will spring up like dandelions. Japan, meanwhile, which had pioneered high-definition television, has been much slower, so far, to spread cable or to multiply channels. If, however, it remains true to historical precedent, when it finally makes the decision to do so, it will move with blinding speed. Two seemingly contradictory things are happening, therefore. At the financial level: consolidation. At the actual level of what audiences get to see: increasing diversity fed by a dizzying variety of new channels and media. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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Did You Know, When Go, it’s the Perfect Ending to the Bad Day I Was Just Beginning?

Aside from murder, the crimes of rape and sexual assault occur with less regularity than any other for of violent crime. In 2021, there were approximately 144,240 reported cases of rape in the United States of America. There are more than 106,010 reported cases of sexual assault. Only about half the victims of rape or attempted rape surveyed stated that the crime had been reported to the police. Two-thirds of all rapes and rape attempts occurred at night, with the largest proportion occurring between 6 p.m. and midnight. Most victims of rape or attempted rape where white and young; the ages with the highest victimization rates for rape and attempted rape were 16 to 24. More than half of all victims had never been married and most were members of low-income families. The most frightening form of rape, an assault by a total stranger, was the most common. More than 75 percent of all rapes involved one victim and one offender, and most offenders were unarmed. Most victims offered some form of resistance. The most common responses to the situation were trying to get help; resisting physically; to threatening, arguing, or reasoning with the offender; or resisting without force. The total cost of the medical expenses reported was almost $72 million. The FBI estimated that a new rape occurred every 5.8 minutes. Over a ten-year period, there were 1.5 million victims of rape. There were more than 120 million crimes committed in the United States of America in 2017 (including 24 million violent crimes), amounting to a financial impact of $2.6 trillion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21  

Given the high levels of trauma and betrayal that often accompany rape, it should come to no surprise that a considerable number of rapes go unreported to police. With only 139,815 rapes (excluding sexual assaults) being reported to law enforcement agencies in 2019, it is safe to say that this form of crime goes without official detection more often than any other type of violent offense. We know from victim reports that a little over one third (39 percent) of the persons who were raped and/or sexually assaulted in 2021 chose to inform the police about the incident. Roughly 40 percent stated that they sustained physical injuries in the attack. A study of violence-related injuries treated at hospital emergency rooms found that 63,800 rape or sexual assault received medical care that year. Nationwide, 81 percent of women and 43 percent of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. The highest rates of rape and sexual assault victimization are experienced in the western and southern regions of the United States of America. Slightly lower rape/sexual assault rates have traditionally existed in the Midwest and Northeast. Uniform Crime Reports data indicate that the offending rate (per 100,000 residents) for the crime of forcible rape was highest in Alaska (68.6), Delaware (67.1), New Mexico (55.1), Nevada (52.1), and Michigan (50.4). That same year, residents from Montana (17.8), Maine (18.1), West Virginia (18.7), Wisconsin (19.9), and New Jersey (20.0) exhibited the lowest offending rates. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

Rape and sexual assault rates are clearly related to population density. There is a composite rape/sexual assault rate of 1.9 in urban environments. This figure is more than twice the victimization rates experienced in suburban and rural areas (0.9 and 0.5, respectively). Among the sixty-six cities with a population exceeding 250,000 residents, the highest rates of forcible rape (known offenses per 100,000 residents) were observed in Minneapolis (126.7), Memphis (112.8), Cleveland (101.6), Columbus (94.7), and Nashville (88). Conversely data rank New York City (22.9), Louisville (24.1), Virginia Beach (24.4), and San Francisco (25.5) as the most rape-free cities. America appears to be the violent sex crime capitol of the World. The U.S. rape rate of 36 (per 100,000 inhabitants) was more than double tht of its nearest rivals: Israel (14.3), England and Wales (14.7), and France (13.4). Moreover, U.S.A. rape rates were exponentially higher than those observed in Germany (9.6), Spain (3.2), and Japan (1.5). This raises the obvious question of why rape rates are so much higher in this country. There are four relevant theoretical perspectives of rape that is believed to provide some much needed insight in this area. First of all, gender inequality theory, a favorite of many feminists. Scholars who take this position believe that rape and the fear of rape enable men to assert their power over women and maintain the existing system of gender stratification.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

These rape motivations need not be an overt and malicious feature of societal gender norms. Instead, subtle forms of gender oppression, such as the objectification of women are inferior to men and are misinterpreted by some violent individuals to indicate that sexualized violence is one way of protecting their manhood. The gender equality theory of rape predicts that rape rates will be highest in patriarchal societies where women are considered to be the sexual servants of men. The advertising imagery and gender biases that limit women’s status attainment in contemporary America are held as evidence that the tenets of this theory are readily applicable to U.S.A. culture. Other feminist scholars prefer to gravitate toward the pornography theory. These scholars content that pornographic imagery depicting the domination and degradation of women sends the wrong cultural message—the images convey an implicit message that all women want sex and lead men to expect it from women. Repeated exposure to this imagery serves to reinforce and condone violet sexual behavior in men. Although the evidence of the pornography theory is inconclusive, rape rates are highest in those states that experienced the most sizeable circulation rate for adult monthly periodicals such as Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse. Many mainstream sociologist endorse the social disorganization theory of rape. These scholars theorize that crime rates will increase as social disorganization increases and the institutional infrastructure of society breaks down. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Factors such as widespread poverty, the collapse of the traditional nuclear family unit, racial tension, and decreased religiosity are thought to breed a sense of alienation and desperation among the effected parties. This, in turn, produces a frustration rection. Criminal behavior in general, and rape in particular, are thus said to represent prime examples of the reaction formation concept. Clearly there is no shortage of these types of structural instabilities in contemporary American society. Rape rates are highest in those states that experience elevated levels of social disorganization as one such measure of support for the theory. The legitimation of violence theory offers a more social, psychologically oriented take on rape causation. Scholars who endorse this perspective view rape as a little more than a specialized form of violent behavior. Forms of sexual violence are said to represent a “spillover effect” in cultures that glorify or condone the use of physical problem solving. The legitimation of violence seems to work hand in hand with gender inequality to produce higher rates of sexual violence. Namely, states with a volatile mix of high gender inequality and an established culture of violence consistently experience the highest rape rates. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

In general, violent sex crimes take shape as unskilled, technically simple acts. Victimization data indicate that nearly 70 percent of all rapes and sexual assaults are committed by someone who is known to the offender (acquaintance, intimate partner, family member). These forms of violent betrayals are referred to under the heading of acquaintance or date rape. It was found the coercion, intimidation, and brute strength—more so than weaponry or props (rope, handcuffs, tape, et cetera)—serve as the tools of the trade for the average date rapist. The term stranger rape is used to describe those acts where the offender and victim have no previous relationship. The cold and calculating nature of this rape dynamic oftentimes translates into a heightened reliance on weapons and props on the part of the offender. Victims report that weapons were present in 7.6 percent of all rapes and sexual assaults. This peril concerns every professing Christian. The prophecy of the Holy Spirit declares that (1) “some” shall fall away from the faith. (2) The reason for the fall will be a “giving heed to seducing spirits.” The nature of this working is not the promotion of obvious evil, but deception, which is a covert working. The essence of deception is that the operation is looked upon as sincere and pure. (3) The nature of the deception will be in doctrines of demons id est, the deception will be in a doctrinal sphere. (4) The way of deception will be that the “doctrines” are delivered with “hypocrisy,” id est, spoken as if true. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

(5) Two instances of the effect of these evil spirit doctrines are given: (a) the forbidding of marriage, and (b) abstaining from meat. However, both of these common activities—marrying and the eating of meat—are, said Paul, divinely ordained—“created by God.” Therefore their prohibition is a mark of opposition to God, even in His work as Creator. Silence and reserve and isolation are often indirectly related to the way in which some communicate when they are engaged in a kind of self-consciousness and awareness that one has not known before. It is a process of inner searching that grows out of questions and issues that are confronting one at the moment. It may seem that one is interested only in finding one’s own private way, that one is looking for a life of freedom and independence but this may not be the basis of one’s loneliness. What one is searching for is a life fully rooted in truth and in authenticity, yet one is living with contradictions and dishonesty that leave one feeling helpless and alone. Sometimes people feel confused, misinformed, unreal. They may feel totally alone and keenly conscious of one’s isolation, not belonging on this Earth of normal people. For the first time, some are becoming aware of how ridiculous their values are, aware of the solitary nature of their actions. There sometimes is no other way but to become numb to the lie that was there before one, in the presence of people who do not have the guts to speak openly, whose fear of consequences is more powerful than their commitment to the truth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

This may cause some to suddenly walk out of their friends, after only reuniting with them for a short time. One may consider every relationship in terms of moral principles. What may begin to surface can be opposing wishes and wills glossed over and actions that challenge their dedication to honesty. If an individual feels lonely, must one pretend social interests? If one feels placid or unalive, must one feign excitement? Many everyday activities came into view. And one could develop  self-consciousness, checking to determine if what one is saying and doing are consistent with what one is feeling and who one is. Everyone knows this is a painful process, not only in one’s own suffering but in the grief it brings to others. Some may trust this solitary struggle and believe that ultimately a more fully honest life with others will emerge. Is the individual searching for something that does not exist? Will one finally admit that an absolutely moral life is impossible? No one can be certain. Furthermore  many on this path do not even know where one is going—only that one must retain with this struggle and let it take one where it will. These individuals are aware that something extreme is happening to one and that one is suffering because their withdrawal strikes at the heart of their relationships and their friends are unable to reach them. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Many deeply regret the pain their loneliness brings their loved ones and they bear something of that suffering within themselves. These individuals feel a tenderness and love for their relationships but in this search for a truthful way to live in all one’s moments must, it must take its own course before the individual will again feel the joy of life and beauty of being with others. When it comes to this search for meaning, it is necessary to repeat that first of all you must understand how wrong negative emotions are, how useless they are, and then you must understand that they cannot exist without identification. It will take you a long time to realize this, but when you have done so, you must try to divide your negative emotions into three categories. First, the more or less ordinary everyday negative emotions which happen often, and are always connected with identification. Certainly, you must observe them and you must already have a certain control over the expression of them. Then you must start dealing with them by trying not to identify, by avoiding identification as often as you can, not only in relation to these emotions but in relation to everything. If you create in yourself the capacity of not identifying, that will affect these emotions and you will notice how they begin to disappear. The second category do not appear every day. They are the more difficult, more complicated emotions depending on some mental process—suspicion, hurt feelings and many things like that. They are more difficult to conquer. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

You candela with them by creating a right mental attitude, by thinking—not at the time when you are in the negative emotion, but in between, when you are quiet. Try to find the right attitude, the right point of view, and make it permanent. If you create right thinking, that will take all power from these negative emotions. Then there is a third category, much more intense, much more difficult, and very rare. Against them you can do nothing. These two methods—struggle with identification and creating right attitudes—do not help. When such emotions come you can do only one thing: you must try to remember yourself; to remember yourself with the help of the emotion. That will change them after some time. However, for this you have to be prepared; it is quite a special thing. It is a fact that the individual’s relationship to gatherings and social occasion sometimes tell us something about one’s relationships to broader units of social life. Thus, in Utah, the few men who did not bother to shave regularly were also the ones who refused to keep a tidy front yard, even in cases where their holdings were where visitors to the community would see the untidiness. The same individuals also declined to support the local socials in any regular way, and one of them sometimes worked on Sundays, thus showing civic as well as situational insensitivity. Similarly, in a study of urban lower-class ceremonial life, it is reported that members of the community defined “respectability” in terms of not borrowing money, not applying for unemployment assistance, and not making free with the neighbor’s front door, and that this civic decorum was reflected in situational proprieties also. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

One of the outstanding characteristics of the respectable people is that they are “particular,” which implies that they try hard to maintain their standards in spite of all adversities and difficulties. While unemployment or other adversity enforces a limitation of expenditure, this does not, among the respectable, result in the complete abandonment of standards, for as they say, “it’s  not how much you get, but what you do with it that matter.” The notion of “being particular” applies especially to children and to cleanliness. In hard times before the pandemic, the children might have had to forego school clothes shopping, but at least, the women insisted, it was clean. “Every child is rough and ready some part of the day, but you can be particular.” In another context, one informant who was commenting on the poor condition of her house, pointed out that she had at least tried to “cover up,” by putting newspaper over the fireplace and a curtain over the gap where the cupboard door should have been. “But the rough ones,” she said, “don’t even care about covering things up. You can’t help having a poor or a broken-down house, but you can help keeping it looking nice.” And certainly this tie-in between situational and other deviations is found among mental “prepatients”; an individual who ruminates all day on the sofa often turns out to be one who also offends by, for example, not keeping appointments or not bothering to put air in his car tires. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

Further, as has already been discussed, an institutional role having its primary locus in one place may require the performer to carry marks of one’s membership wherever one goes, thereby setting one apart from the public at large, though often through no fault of one’s own. A more serious question was debated; though, according to the newspaper accounts, obliquely, when a high-level conference in Utah discussed at considerable length, whether clergymen of Church should wear laymen’s clothing publicly at any time except when playing lawn-tennis or other approved games. Here is an example of the belief, held tacitly by many people, and recently state in the case of an officer, that holds offices ought to be regarded as never off duty: that a publicly assigned role overshadows all others. There are echoes of this in the assumption in some schools, implied rather than states, that a schoolboy outside the school premises, not wearing his school cap, is—or is about to be—up to no good. In the Army, “other ranks,” but not officers, have “walking-out” dress; the implication that a pretty nurse-maid awaits the soldier is delightfully Victorian and West-end. The “civvies” of some National Service “other ranks” are carefully censored by the authorities, who justify it with understandable rationalizations about “Teddy-boys.” Where the individual employs such insignia not because of institutional regulation but because of personal election, the link between civic and situational alienation would seem to be especially evident. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

The insignia then become a kind of proclamation of distance from the ordinary course of social life, and of some sort of skewing of relationship to the public at large. Note, for instance, the self-imposed uniform worn by members of erupting social movements, such as the early European fascist groups. Something similar is seen among sailors who express their life-experience solidarity and their alienation from land society by placing a tattoo between themselves and the appearance-proprieties of the host culture. Something of the same effect is obtained by college students and beatniks (and their fellow-travelers) who express distance from the employed adult population by a full beard, or a two-day growth, and by bedraggled clothes. And although the dress pattern of young, male urban drug users may not be collegiate, this attire, too, seems to be linked to the maintenance of expressed distance. The tabooed creature releases that usually provide evidence of insufficient situational presence seem to provide a favorite idiom for expressing some kind of disregard for broad elements of conventional society, pointing to the voluntary elaborations that can be made of acts that are supposedly involuntary. College students, for example, sometimes compete with each other in belching prowess, conveying something about their relation to the adult World in doing so. Preadolescent boys have a special game built around flatulence, which manages both to penalize the offender and to bypass civilian standards at the same time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

When it comes to voting, our emphasis has been on pairwise elections. In such cases there is little strategy other than whether or not to vote. If you vote, you should always vote for the candidate whom you most prefer. Because your vote matters most when it breaks a tie, you want your vote to reflect your preferences honestly. For elections with more than two alternative, the decision is both whether or not to vote and what to vote for. It is no loner true that one should always vote for one’s favorite candidate. In the 1984 Democratic party primary, supporters of Jesse Jackson had the problem of trying to send a signal with their vote. They could predict that Mr. Jackson was unlikely to win. The polls told them that Gary Hart and Walter Mondale were the clear front-runners. There was a great incentive to vote for those at the head of the pack in order not to waste one’s vote. This became an even bigger problem when there were seven candidates competing for the 1988 Democratic party presidential nomination. Supporters did not want to waste their vote or campaign contributions on a nonviable candidate. Thus polls and media characterizations that pronounced front-runners had the real potential to become self-fulfilling prophecies. There is another reason why votes may not reflect preferences. One way to help keep your vote from getting lost in the crowd is to make it stand out: take an extreme position away from the crowd. Someone who thinks that the country is too liberal could vote for a moderately conservative candidate. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Or one could go all the way to the extreme right and support Donald Trump. To the extent that candidates compromise by taking central positions, it may be in some voters’ interests by taking central positions, it may be in some voters’ interests to appear more extreme than they are. This tactic is effective only up to a point. If you go overboard, you are thought of as a crackpot, and the result is that your opinion is ignored. The trick is to take the most extreme stand consistent with appearing rational. To make this a little more precise, imagine that we can align all the candidates on a 0 to 100 scale of liberal to conservative. The Young Spartacus League is way on the left, around), while Donald Trump takes the most conservative stance, somewhere near 100. Voters express their preference by picking some point along the spectrum. Suppose the winner of the election is the candidate whose position is the average of all voters’ positions. The way you might think of this happenings is that through negotiations and compromises, the leading candidate’s position is chosen to reflect the average position of the electorate. The parallel in bargaining is to settle disputes by offering to “split the different.” Consider yourself a middle-of-the-roader: if it were in your hands, you would prefer a candidate who stands at the position 50 on our scale. However, it may turn out that the country is a bit more conservative than that. Without you, the average is 60. For concreteness, you are one of a hundred voters polled to determine the average position. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

If you state your actual preference, the candidate will move to [99 x 60 + 50]/100 = 59.9. If, instead, you exaggerate and claim to want 0, then final outcome will be at 59.4. By exaggerating your claim, you are six times as effective as effective in influencing the candidate’s position. Here, extremism in the defense of liberalism is no vice. Of course, you will not be the only one doing this. All those more liberal than 60 will be claiming to be at 0, while those more conservative will be arguing for 100. In the end, everyone will appear to be polarized, although the candidate will still take some central position. The extent of the compromise will depend on the relative numbers pushing in each direction. The problem with this averaging approach is that it tries to take into account both intensity and direction of preferences. People have an incentive to tell the truth about direction but exaggerate when it comes to intensity. The same problem arises with “split the difference”: if that is the rile for settling disputes, everyone will begin with an extreme position. One solution to this problem dates back to the twenties and Columbia University economist Harold Hotelling. Instead of taking the mean or average position, the candidate chooses the median position, the platform where there are exactly as many voters who want the candidate to move left as to move right. Unlike the mean, the median position does not depend on the intensity of the voters’ preference, only their preferred direction. To find the median point, a candidate could start at 0 and keep moving to the right as long as a majority supports this change. At the median, the support for any further rightward move is exactly balanced by the equal number of voters who prefer a shift left. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

When a candidate adopts the media position, no voter has an incentive to distort her preferences. Why? There are only three cases to consider: (i) a voter to the left of the median, (ii) a voter exactly at the median, and (iii) a voter to the right of the median. In the first case, exaggerating preferences leftward does not alter the median, and therefore the position adopted, at all. The only way that this voter can change the outcome is to support a move rightward. However, this is exactly counter to one’s interest. In the second case, the voter’s ideal position is being adopted anyway, and there is nothing to gain by a distortion of preferences. The third case parallels the first. Moving more to the right has no effect on the median, whole voting for a move left is counter to the voter’s interests. The way the argument was phrased suggested that the voter knows the median point for the voting population, and whether one is to the right or the left of it. Yet the incentive to tell the truth had nothing to do with which of those outcomes occurred. You can think about all three of the above cases as possibilities and then realize that whichever outcome materializes, the voter will want to reveal one’s position honestly. The advantage of the rule that adopts the median position is that no voter has an incentive to distort one’s preferences; truthful voting is the dominant strategy for everyone. The only problem with adopting the median voter’s position is its limited applicability. This option is available only when everything can be reduced to a one-dimensional choice, as in liberal versus conservative. However, not all issues are so easily classified. One’s voters’ preferences are more than one-dimensional, there will not be a median. At that point, the possibility of manipulating the system becomes real. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

The main producers of imagery until recently were the major broadcast networks. Today, in the United States of America, where de-massification is most advanced, their power is plummeting. Where ABC, NBC, and CBS once stood virtually alone, there are now seventy-two national services of various kinds, with more coming online and streaming services, which offer cool programs not shown on TV and with more leeway in their scripts and content. A new crop of networks serving “niche” markets and digital stream are big news. And on cable there is comedy network, consumer business news network, and a science-fiction network. In addition, Channel One pipes programs into school classrooms, and National College Television uses satellite to target special programs to university students. Cable of some type is available in nearly 90 percent of American homes. The average cable user has more than fifty channels to choose from and that will soon be up to seventy five. In a small town like Rochester, Minnesota, viewers can choose from more then sixty different channels offering a wide range of material, from the Black Entertainment Network and programs in Spanish, to specialized medical training programs aimed at the larger medical community around the famed Mayo Clinic. Cable was the first to begin fractionalzing the mass audience. Videocassette and direct broadcast satellite (delivering signals not only to cable stations but into the home itself) fractionalize the fractions. Thus videocassette offers viewers a choice of thousands of movies and programs. And recently four major companies banded together to deliver 108 channels of standard and high-definition TV to American viewers by shooting signals from the World’s most powerful commercial satellite to “napkin-size” receiver dishes in the home.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Furthermore, the number of stations operating independently of the three big networks has quadrupled since the late 1970s. Many have formed themselves into syndicates or temporary groupings that compete with the majors for top-rated programming. The impact of all these de-massifying forces on the once-mighty networks has been a little short of catastrophic. The key words in all this are choice and alternative. It is what people did not have back in 1980. It is what they do have today. However, these are precisely what the main stream networks were designed to prevent. For CBS, ABC, and NBC were Second Wave smokestack companies, accustomed to dealing with masses, not heterogenous micro-markets, and are having as much difficulty adapting to the post-smokestack Third Wave economy as are interest rates and wages. A measure of the networks’ concern was the decision of NBC to join in the direct broadcasting satellite venture. Wonder what will happen to the Big Three? Well, once upon a time there were three big radio networks too. Today hardly anyone even remembered they existed. Adjusting to nanotechnology is also something we are going to have to deal with, so the World is rapidly changing. People within existing organizations can nudge them toward evaluating nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing. A good start is to introduce others in the organization to the concepts, and talk through some of their implications. Follow-up activities will depend on the group, its resources, and its purposes. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

For the time being, drafting of new regulations, lobbying of Congress, and the like all seem premature. Getting nanotechnology into the planning process, though, seems overdue. We invite existing organizations with concerns regarding medicine, the economy, the environment, and other issues of public policy to put nanotechnology on their agendas, and to join in debating and ultimately implementing sensible policies. Some groups are doing relevant research work. Many could bias their choice of projects to favor goals in the direction of molecular systems engineering. For nanotechnology to be taken really seriously, some research group will have to build a reasonably capable molecular manipulator or a primitive assembler. This will require an interdisciplinary team, years of work, and a total cost unlikely to exceed one tenth that of a single U.S.A. Space Shuttle. Other researchers can help by providing further theoretical studies of what advanced molecular manufacturing and nanotechnology will make possible. These studies can help groups know what to anticipate in their planning. Some scientists and engineers will want to steer their careers into the field of nanotechnology. More students will want to study a combination of physics, chemistry, and engineering that will prepare them to contribute. We encourage people of common sense and goodwill to become involved in developing nanotechnology. For those who have—or can gain—the necessary technical backgrounds, becoming involved with its development is an excellent way to influence how it is used. For better or for worse, technical experts in a field have a disproportionate influence over related policies. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

During these years, there will be a growing need for grass-roots organizations aimed at public education and building a base for political action. Having  a few thousand people ready to write five letters to Congress in some crucial year could make the difference between a World that works and a World destroyed by the long-term effects of a shortsighted bill. What happens will depend on what people do, and what people do will depend on what they believe. The World is overwhelmingly shaped by the state of opinion: people’s opinion about what will and will not happen, what will and will not work, what will and will not prove profitable or beneficial for themselves, for their families, for their businesses, for their communities, for the World. This state of opinion—as expressed in what people say to each other, and whether their actions conform to their words—shapes decisions day to day. During these years, it will matter greatly what people are saying to one another about the future, and how to make it work. With help from new technologies, we can renew the World—not make it perfect, not eliminate conflict, not achieve every imaginable dream, yet clear away many afflictions, both ancient and modern. With good preparation, we can perhaps even avoid creating too many new afflictions to take their place. Who is responsible for trying to bring this about? Those who want to fight poverty, to earn their share of the benefits to come, to join in a great adventure, to meet people who care about the future, to save species, to heal the Earth, to heal the sick, to be at the cutting edge, to build international cooperation, to learn about technology, to fight dangers, to change the World—not necessarily all together, or all at once. To help deal with the main problem today, lack of knowledge, you can encourage friends to read up on the subject. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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Good-by; You’ll Never Know What This Has Cost Me

Mr. Hansen had never been able to understand why there was any harm in giving people a little encouragement when they needed it. Sitting back in my comfortable armchair by the fire, I thought to myself, “You would be surprised to find how discouraged the grand people get, in these big houses with all the help, and silver dinner plates, and a bell always handy if the fire wants poking, or the pet dog asks for a drink.” It was then that I first became aware of a disturbance in the air. A kind of restlessness. I looked sharply around the front parlor, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The room was deserted. No one had come along for some time. Yet there was a suggestion of movement nonetheless, a shifting of the light from the chandelier. The drapes loomed more menacingly and the fire appeared even closer, as I glanced out of window, my yard looked like an ancient forest of evergreen. What secrets did they contain within their shadows?  My heart skipped a beat. I opened the window. The silence surged around me. Again, nothing. And inside—no telltale footsteps or voices. Only later, did it occur to me that the silence was peculiar. I should have been able to hear something. The roar of the furnaces, or the belching chimneys. The sound of the carpenters hammering. The servants washing dishes in one of the kitchens. However, I was only aware of the silence. Silence, as if I were the only one left alive on my estate. Then I heard it. No, not heard. I sensed it. A whispering, almost like a singing. The others have slipped away into darkness. I caught my breath. “Who’s there?” #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

I heard the ghost of Mr. Winchester’s voice inside my head, though it was growing fainter with the passing years. However, this was different, a lighter sound, gentle and exquisite, carried on the cold air. A reverberation, and echo of words once spoken in this place? And what of the crimson mist on arising from the floor? On these cold winter nights, it was not unusual to hear the clanking like a bucket, and the shuffling of feet. When I looked over toward the kitchen, there was a man—or something—dressed in a long white coat, all bent over like he was tired or something, slowly walking toward the door-to-nowhere. He was filling up the buckets using the exterior water faucets on the second floor that were used to water my flower boxes. He seemed to walk right out the door and to the front of the house, but there was nothing supporting him. Then he watered the flowers and walked slowly back into the house, real tired- like. And almost suddenly vanished. There were spirits caught forever in the never-ending labor to keep this estate operating. Perhaps these were visions out of time making their journey into the eternal flame as well as into Eternity itself. However, every July 2, officers could be frequently seen in the dim moonlight, in the Victorian garden, dressed in their gray tunics and gold stars and wreath, gathering around the fountains, mixing fine bourbon with the clear water, and toasting to the next day’s victory or death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Summer nights always tended to be a little eerie. In the dark, the estate at best, is an uncomfortable place to be. The tragic memories and sorrows of a nation’s struggle defending the hour of the country with their Winchester Rifle’s hanged heavily and seemed magnified in the night. There is always something moving in the fruit orchards or the grass just off the unlighted portions of the estate. It all makes the Other World all that much closer. Sometimes one could even hear the strange military noises emanating from the 740 acres of land I own, and the fallen faces of the slaughtered. Desperate orders shouted…steel rammers ringing in muskets…the clicking of hammers cocked…the hoarse trill of a bugle…the clacking of artillery chains…a roar…shrieks…men gagging, crying, screaming, moaning, moaning, moaning….and there is often heard the funeral call, mounrful apologies of a heartsick, dying warrior to a lost friend bemoaning a fateful decision to be regretted down the ages. Although we had transitioned into summer, there was just an endless expanse of cold on these nights. Memories would seep into my mind. My Daisy Bedroom. Candles burned out. Me crying in the dark, jolted awake by bad dreams and calling out for my infant daughter who passed away long too soon. Then Mr. Winchester, sitting at the end of my bed, opening the curtains to let the silver moon in, saying there was nothing to be afraid of. How nothing could hard me. Not even a curse. How I was a Winchester, invincible and courageous. Nothing could get me as long as I kept building. And with William by my side, I believed it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

So I talked to myself to keep my spirit up. I was in no actual physical danger, I said. It was just a matter holding on to my nerved. Still, fragments of life flashed into my mind and out. Broken images of my husband and daughter, photographs of our happy days. Memories of Mr. Winchester. And I wondered if he had seen death, like a shadow coming to meet him. Had he recognized the moment for what it was? Whispering, I could hear whispering, voices slipping between the walls. “She is the last, the last, the heiress.” Heard howling from the walls. Sometimes far away, sometimes closer, so close I imagined I could feel breath upon my cheek. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” Then the sound of sobbing, a desperate scratching on the floors, and a terrible weeping. I worked hard to turn this mansion into something beautiful. Having evergreen trees planted and a variety of flowers. I even remodeled a room with attractive redwood walls, and another with floor to ceiling glass panels that provided a 180-degree view of the estate. I smiled when I saw the perennials that I had planted. However, a number of other peculiar incidents began to convince me that I was being visited by discarnate entities. I always knew I was being haunted. But now I was catching fleeting glimpses of fast-moving shadows from time to time when I would least expect to see such a thing. There would often be smells of delicate perfume. Mr. Hansen thought it was closer to a man’s cologne. Sometimes we encountered the scent together, but in every instance it came and drifted away after only a few minutes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

Once, when I was outside tending the flowers growing under the front windows, and I was suddenly enveloped in an invisible puff of strong cigar smoke. Then I was choking, coughing. I could feel the pump and hiss of my heart beneath my ribs, rattling  like a snare drum. I swallowed hard. When I put my hand up to brush the smoke away from my cheek, I saw that the tips of my gloves were red. And when I looked down, I saw the daisies with drops of blood on them, glittering and yet dull at the same time. I propelled myself into a standing position, and walked towards the front doors. The wind boxed my ears so hard that I struggled to keep my balance, but I managed finally to get those doors shut. When I looked in the mirror, I was not injured at all. That night while I was falling asleep, I sensed a large, dark presence in the bedroom. It glided over me and seemed to hover just over my head, and I was the recipient of a telepathic command: “I want to know your thoughts!” After I fell asleep, I experienced horrific nightmares. I was awakened by the sounds of terrific crashes, as though something huge had fallen over somewhere in the house, causing terrible damage. Thanks to the stocks I owned and the ones I bought in Con Edison, I was able to keep building rooms to evade the ghosts. Do you know how it is, sometimes when you are doing a bit of fine darning, sitting by the window in the afternoon; and one minute it is full daylight, and your needle seems to find the way of itself; and the next minute you say: “Is it my eyes? because the work seems blurred; and presently you see it is the daylight going, stealing away, softlike, from your corner, though there is plenty left overheard. Well—it is the way it is with these ghosts around.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

Most nights, screaks could be heard emanating from within the walls. Then everything would be stripped of color, an absence and shade. Fog hovered motionless from the ceiling. And it would come again, over the whistling of the wind, the same indistinct whispering. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” “Who are you?” I cried. “What do you want from me?” But the fog, the apparition, had vanished. After the Spanish-America War, all the fine ladies took to running to the mediums and the clairvoyants, or whatever the stylish folk call them. The women had to have news of their men; and they were maid to pay high enough for it…Oh, the stories I used to hear—and the price paid was not only money, either! There was a fair lot of swindlers and blackmailers in the business, there was. I always had a way of seeing things; from the cradle, even. I do not mean reading the tea leaves, or dealing the cards. No, no; I mean, feeling there are things about you, behind you, whispering over your shoulder. I felt more and more sorry for those women that the soothsaying swindlers were dragging the money out of for a pack of lies; and one day I could not stand it any longer, and though I knew the Church was against it, when I saw one lady nearly crazy, because for months she had no news of her boy at the front, I said to her: “If you will come over to my place tomorrow, I might have a word for you.” And the wonder of it was that I had! For that night I dreamt a message came saying there was good news for her, and the next day, sure enough, she had a telegram telling her her son was coming home. And that August, the war ended. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

Winchester Mystery House

One is confronted finally with the metaphysics of time: is it merely linear; are we moving along it like riding a train on a track and all that happens, once it occurs, is forever gone? Or can that time be bent, as some prominent theoretical physicists of the late 19th and 20th centuries have said, so that we may run into it again? Or, can an event go out in more directions than just backward, carried on time like ripples from a stone throw in a pond, occasionally under very special circumstances in very special places, returning like a faint echo? Is it possible that the bigger the event the larger the ripples and the more likely they are to return? Or perhaps is it possible, if time can be bent, or the ripples move slowly enough, to catch up with events again, and again, and again? Come tour the Winchester Mystery House and perhaps you will find some hidden clues. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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I Made Up the Bed We Sleep in, I Looked at the Clock When You Creep in

In many ways similar to ecstatic destructiveness is the chronic dedication of a person’s whole life to hate and destructiveness. Not a momentary state as in ecstasis, it has nevertheless the function of taking hold of the whole person, of unifying him in the worship of one goal: to destroy. This state is a permanent idolatry of the god of destruction; his devotee has, as it were, given over his life to him. As rationalizations give way to perceptions of victimization, of woman’s feelings about herself, her spouse, and her situation change. These feelings are imbedded in a cultural, political, and interactional structure. Initially, abuse is contrary to a woman’s cultural expectations of behavior between intimates, and therefore engenders feelings of betrayal, however, is balanced by the husband’s efforts to explain his behavior, and by the woman’s reluctance to abandon faith. Additionally, the political dominance of men within and outside the family mediate women’s ability to question the validity of their husband’s actions. At the interpersonal level, psychological abuse accompanying violence often invokes feelings of guilt and shame in the battered victim. Men define violence as a response to their wive’s inadequacies or provocations, which leads battered women to feel that they have failed. Such character assaults are devastating, and create long-lasting feelings of inferiority. The emotional career of battered women consists of movement from guilt, shame, and depression to fear and despair, to anger, exhilaration, and confusion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Women who escape violent relationships must deal with strong, sometimes conflicting, feelings in attempting to build new lives for themselves free of violence. The kind of response women receive when they seek help largely determines the effects these feelings have on subsequent decisions. The process of victimization is not synonymous with experiencing violent attacks from a spouse. Rationalizing the violence inhibits a sense of outrage and efforts to escape abuse. Only after rationalizations are rejected, through the impact of one or more catalysts, does the victimization process begin. When previously rationalized violence is reinterpreted as dangerous, unjustified assault, battered women actively seek alternatives. The success of their efforts to seek help depends on available resources, external supports, reactions of husbands and children, and their own adaptation to the situation. Victimization includes not only cognitive interpretations, but feelings and physiological responses. Creating a satisfying, peaceful environment after being battered involves emotional confusion and ambiguity, as well as enormous practical and economic obstacles. It may take years of struggle and aborted attempts before a battered woman is able to establish a safe and stable lifestyle; for some, this goal is never achieved. The victimization process which we have described refers to the interpretations of a specific violent events within a particular relationship. It is important t emphasize that this victimization is limited to those violent events and does not encompass a more global perspective on the woman’s life. #RadolphHarris 2 of 20

Individuals working with battered women have pointed out the importance of helping battered women to distinguish between being a victim of an assault and assuming the identity of the victim. The first involves rejecting the responsibility for being beaten; the second involves giving up the responsibility for one’s life. The role of victim is contradictory to the assertive and creative action necessary to establish a life free of violence To accomplish the latter goal, women must quickly overcome the feelings of helplessness and self-pity that accompany victimization. They must confidently assume responsibility for making decisions and working towards the goals they set, and reject identification with the role of victim. It is well established that sexual assault has a significant effect on the daily thoughts and behaviours of American women. Let us begin with a sampling of the statistical evidence. Eight one percent of women reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. In 2020, 298,626 women were sexually assaulted or raped. It is estimated that some sort of sexually assaultive action is present in every ten violent crimes involving a female victim. As disconcerting as these numbers are, they do not tell the whole story. Women clearly live in fear of being raped and this preoccupation has a profound effect on their overall sense of personal security. Anxiety about being raped serves as the most direct and formidable predictor of a women’s overall fear of criminal victimization. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

The first- and secondhand accounts of real-life sexual assaults go a long way to shape this perceived vulnerability. These are the stories of women who suffer long-lasting physical and psychological traumas, and they produce a broad-reaching impact. For this reason, the personal and societal impact of rape may exceed even that of murder. We as a society have slowly come to respect this orientation and have thus assigned a special status to violence sex crimes. The criminal law has evolved from a limited treatment of sexual misconduct to a much more broad legal orientation. Early common law included only rape (forced heterosexual penetrations) and sodomy (consensual homosexual conduct) under the heading of sex crimes. This conservative treatment prevailed well into the 1960s. For example, the Model Penal Code (American Law Institute, 1962) restricted the definition of rape to those acts of violent sexual penetration between male offender and female victim who were not presently married. Contemporary criminal codes take on a more gender and relationship neutral tone and this include an expansive list of offense, ranging from forced sexual intercourse to forms of sexual touching that are devoid of violence. The present discussion turns to a contemporary source for an up-to-date legal definition of violent sex crimes. Most jurisdictions delineate three generic offenses categories: rape, statutory rape, and sexual assault. An individual is guilty of rape if he or she specifically intends to achieve nonconsensual sexual penetration against another by force of the threatened use of force. This definition subsumes all form of sexual penetration regardless of its duration or degree. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Statutory rape encompasses all forms of sexual penetration committed against an individual under the specific age of consent (id est minors). The specific age of consent varies across jurisdiction, but the vast majority of states invoke a standard between 16 and 18 years of age. This age-graded offense is considered a strict liability offense and thus does not require that the mens reus (guilt mind) element of “intentional force” be present. Sexual assault is a broader offense category that covers all forms of forceful or coercive unwanted sexual contact. Indeed, if the Earth had been created as a paradise where man would not be bound by the stubbornness of material reality, his reasons might have been a sufficient condition to create the proper environment for his unimpeded growth, with enough for all to ear, and, simultaneously, the possibility of freedom. However, to speak in terms of the biblical myth, mans was expelled from Paradise and cannot return. He was saddled with the curse of the conflict between himself and nature. The World was not made for man; he is thrown into it, and only by his own activity and reason can he create a World which is conductive to his full development, which is his human home. His rulers themselves were executors of historical necessity, even though they were often evil men who followed their whims and failed to execute their historical task. Irrationality and personal evil became decisive factors only in those periods when the external conditions were such that they would have permitted human progress and when this progress was impeded by the character deformation of the rulers—and the ruled. Nevertheless, there have always been visionaries who clearly recognized the goals for man’s social and individual evolution. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

The Lord  Jesus spoke in general terms about the dangers which would encompass His people at the time of end, and Paul wrote to the Thessalonians more fully about the apostasy and the wicked deceptions of the lawless one in the last days, but the passage in Timothy is the only one which explicitly shows the special cause of the peril of the Church in it closing days on Earth, and how the wicked spirit of Satan would break in upon her members and by deception beguile some away from their purity of faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit, in this brief message given to Paul, describes the character and work of the evil spirits so that we might recognize (1) their existence, and (2) their efforts directed towards believer to deceive them and draw them away from the path of simple faith in Christ—all that is included in “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). That the character of the spirits is described in 1 Timothy 1-3 and not the men they sometimes use in the work of deception, may be understood from the Greek original. (Pember says that verse 2 refers to the character of the deceiving spirits and should be read thus: “…direct teaching of unclean spirits, who, though bearing a brand on their own conscience—as a criminal is disfigured—would pretend to sanctity [id est, holiness] to gain credence for their lies…”) The peril of the Church at the close of the age is therefore from supernatural beings who are “hypocrites”—who pretend to be what they are not—who give “teaching” which appear to make for greater holiness by producing ascetic severity to the “flesh,” but who themselves are wicked and unclean and bring those they deceive into contact with the foulness of their own presence. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Through loneliness, many people find out that they do not need drugs anymore to keep themselves going. However, anyone who takes drugs may need guidance and really to find one’s self before it is too late; everybody is better than they think they are. They could do it if they really want to. All it takes is a little understanding in one’s self and willpower and also guidance to lead such a person to take a good look at one’s self, and ask one’s self does one really need these drugs to get where one wants to be? I do not think so. People face childbirth, child illness, at the moment of decision concerning one’s belief, or lack of it, in the divine. And then more frequently, with similar impact strangely enough, yet with less intensity, during the “little” moments of our existence—knowing, for a feeling moment, that differences exist without the need for making comparisons, knowing our own touchings of the other. All this we can only know alone. Some of us can express them, as you have, some of us keep them locked in our hearts. And this is even more painful, because it is only with the occasional comings out of our loneliness that we can be with it at all—even if this means just our knowing it ourselves. It is like the to-and-fro of living. There must be this movement, for one moment alone would be incompatible with life, physical or otherwise. It is necessary to repeat that first of all you must understandhow wrong negative emotions are, how unless they are, and then you must understand that they cannot exist without identification. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

It will take you a long time to realize this, but when you have done so, you must try to divide your negative emotions into three categories. First, the more or less ordinary everyday negative emotions which happen often, and are always connected with identification. Certainly, you must observe them and you must already have a certain control over the expression of them. Then you must start dealing with them by trying not to identify, by avoiding identification as often as you can, not only in relation to these emotions but in relation to everything. If you create in yourself the capacity of not identifying, that will affect these emotions and you will notice how they begin to disappear. The second category do not appear every day. They are the more difficult, more complicated emotions depending on some mental process—suspicion, hurt feelings and many things like that. They are more difficult to conquer. You can deal with them by creating a right mental attitude, by thinking—not at the time when you are in the negative emotion, but in between, when you are quite. Try to find the right attitude, the right point of view, and make it permanent. If you create right thinking, that will take all power from these negative emotions. Then there is a third category, much more intense, much more difficult, and very rare. Against them you can do nothing. These two methods—struggle with identification and creating right attitudes—do not help. When such emotions come you can do only one thing: you must try to remember yourself; to remember yourself with the help of the emotions. That will change them after some time. However, for this you have to be prepared; it is quite a special thing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

There is a class of offenses sometimes called acts of malice or spite. These often imply arrogance, disdain, and deep hostility, as when a middle-class person yawns directly before others in a slow and elaborate manner. Maliciously offensive acts give the following impression: they are easily controllable; their significance can be and is appreciated by the offender; the offender would not modify one’s conduct at the time even if given a second chance, and seems to have no reason for the act other than what one can convey by it to those one offends. Quite similar to malicious offenses are “contingent” ones, which have the same qualities as spiteful acts except that the offender has reasons for his act outside of the occasion and its participants. Here we have the individual who inconsiderably laughs out loud over something one is reading, not out of malice, but because one is genuinely amused. The more “legitimate” the offender’s reasons, of course, the more these contingent offenses are viewed as fully excusable, and the less intentionality is imputed to them. Malicious acts represent some kind of extreme of intentionality. At the other extreme, that of complete unintentionality, is the delict of the individua perceived as having an organic brain injury: one’s offense is not controllable by one, sometimes one cannot and hence does not appreciate its significance, and one may not be amenable to correction. Somewhere in between these extremes is the individual who offends because one is accustomed to a different idiom and structure of involvement from the ones sanctioned by those in the situation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

 One’s offensive act is one that one controls; one might be willing to alter one’s conduct if one appreciated its current significance, and of such appreciation one is fully capable. There is also the case of the withdrawn individual who could, if one wished, withdraw from one’s withdrawal, and who, in that sense, controls one’s act. One may not appreciate the significance of one’s act for others, since one has no interest in discovering it, although presumably one could discover it if one wanted to; and one is not currently amenable to changing one’s conduct. Then, of course, there is the individual who is too preoccupied, too nervous, or too self-conscious to fit in, the basis of one’s uneasiness being one that others consider temporary, natural, and understandable. Such an individual can appreciated the difficulty one is causing and may well do so; indeed, one mat actively desire to correct one’s conduct but be unable to do so at the moment. The creature release known as a “tic” is an example, this misconduct sometimes evoking pity and contempt for the tiqueur’s incapacity to sustain the image that one’s other means self-control claim for one. A similar instance is the individual whose repertoire of clothing  provides dress that is either too formal or too informal for the occasion one must attend, thus forcing one to be out of place. Finally, there is the individual who accidentally and uncharacteristically intrudes upon a situation in which one cannot fit, thereby committing an offense one wishes one had not committed and would have been fully capable of avoiding had one know in advance what was to happen. Note that in all these examples with witness would be just in conceiving of the offender as someone who was alienated from the gathering and its rulings, although there is some realization that in no two cases are the bases for alienation the same. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Because the significance of an offense is dependent on whether or not the act was intentional, and because so many different kinds of intentionality and unintentionally exist, we can see that an offense as such tells us very little about the offender. All those who exhibit alienation from a gathering may share nothing but their alienation. With this understanding, then, one can proceed carefully to try to list some of the things that a situational impropriety can tell us about the person who commits it, aside from the fact that one is in some sense alienated from the gathering. What this amounts to is an isolation of the types of social unit, other than social occasions, that can be the object of alienation. We study ourselves not from the point of view od what we are but of what we may become, so that when we have studied certain things sufficiently, we work to change them. Sufficiently serious study, in itself, produces some change, but all the results of this change may be spoiled by certain negative emotions. If you start this work to change yourself without conquering negative emotions, one side of you will work and another side will spoil your work, so that after a time, you may find yourself in a worse state than before. It has already happened several times to people who wished to keep their negative emotions that continuation of this work become impossible for them. There were moments when they realized the danger of their negative emotions but they failed to make sufficient efforts during those moments and the negative emotions became stronger. It has been explained already that a right attitude towards negative emotions destroys most of them. If we are to avoid spoiling the result of our work, it is important that we learn to cultivate this attitude from the beginning. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

When the World is in the process of assimilating molecular manufacturing, years from now, it would be best if people were ready and if the World situation favored peaceful, cooperative applications. Balanced international progress would be better than dominance by any nation. Cooperative development would be better than technological rivalry. A focus on civilian goals would be better than a focus on military goals. A well-informed public supporting sound policies would be better than a startled public supporting half-baked schemes. All these goals will be best served if politicians are not forced to act like idiots—that is, if the state of public opinion permits them to make the right decisions, and perhaps even make bad decision politically costly. The basic objective is straightforward: a World in which as many people as possible have a basic understanding of what is happening, a picture of how it can lead to a better future, and a broad understanding of what to do (and not to do) to reach that future. The outlines of a beneficial scenario would then look something like this: Environmental groups and agencies have thought through the issues raised by nanotechnology, and know what applications they want to promote and what abuses they want to prevent. Likewise, medical associations, associations of retired persons, and the Social Security Administration have thought through the issues raised by dramatically improved medical care and economic productivity, and are ready with policy recommendations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Business groups have done likewise with economic issues, and business watchdog groups are ready to expose policies that merely serve special interests. Labor groups have considered the impact of a deep, global economic restructuring on the jobs and income of their members, and have proposals for cushioning the shock without holding down productivity. Religious leaders have considered the moral dimensions of many applications, and are ready with advice. Military analysts and arms-control analysts have done the painstaking work of thinking through strategic scenarios, and have developed an agreed-on core of policies for maintaining stability. International committees and agencies have made the new technologies a focus of discussion and planning, and backed by a healthy climate of opinion, they make international cooperation work. Overall, supported by a framework of sensible public opinion and sensible politics, the complex process of adapting to change is working rather well. In field after field, group after group has put in the hard work needed to come up with polices that would advance their real interests without wrecking someone else’s interest. This is possibly more often that most would have expected, because molecular manufacturing makes possible so many beneficial-sum choices. There are still big battles, but there is also a large core of agreement. In this time of transition, some people are actively involved in developing and guiding the technologies, but most people act as citizens, consumers, workers, friends, and family members. They shape what happens in the broader World by their votes, contributions, and purchases. They shape what happens in their families and communities by what they say, what they do, and specially be the educational investments they have made or supported. By their choices, they determine what nanotechnology means for daily life. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The basic direction of change in the media since at least 1970, when the de-massification of the airwaves was foreshadowed, has been toward the breakup of mass audiences into segments and subgroup, each receiving a different configuration of programs and messages. Along with this has come a vast expansion of the sheer amount of imagery transmitted by television in the form of both new and entertainment. There is a reason for this image-explosion. Humans, of course, have always exchanged symbolic images of reality. That is what language is all about. It is what knowledge is based on. However, different societies require either more or less symbolic exchange. The transition to a knowledge-based economy sharply increases the demand for communication and swamps the old image-delivery systems. Advanced economies require a labor force with high levels of symbolic sophistication. This work forces needs instant and largely free access to all sorts of information hitherto considered irrelevant to its productivity. It needs workers who can quickly adapt to, and even anticipate, repeated changes in work methods, organizations, and daily life. The very best workers are Worldly, alert to new ideas and fashions, customer preferences, economic and political changes, aware of competitive pressures, cultural shifts, and many other things previously regarded as pertinent only to managerial elites. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

This wide-scan knowledge does not come out of classrooms or from technical manuals alone, but from exposure to a constant barrage of news delivered by TV, newspapers, magazine, and radio. It also comes indirectly from “entertainment”—much of which unintentionally delivers information about new life styles, interpersonal relationships, social problems, and even foreign customs and markets. Some shows, like All American, which stars the actress Monet Mazur, deliberately build drama or comedy around current news and current events. However, even when this is not the case, television shows, sometimes despite themselves, convey images of reality. It is true that the intentional content of a television show—the plot and the behavior of the principal characters—often paints a false picture of social reality. However, there is in all television programs and commercials, as well as in movies, an additional layer of what we might call “inadvertent content.” This consists of background detail—landscape, cars, street scenes, architecture, telephones, answering machines, as well as barely noticed behavior, like the banter between a waitress and a customer as the hero seats himself at a lunch counter. In contrast with the intended content, the inadvertent detail frequently provides a quite accurate picture of quotidian reality. Moreover, even the tritest “police shows” picture current fads and fashions, and express popular attitudes toward pleasures of the flesh, religion, money, and politics. None of this is ignored or forgotten by the viewer. It is filed away in the mind, forming part of a person’s general bank of knowledge about the World. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Thus, good and bad alike, it influences the bag of assumptions brought to the Workplace. (Ironically, much of the worker’s image of the World, which increasingly affects economic productivity, is thus absorbed during “leisure” hours.) For this reason, “mere entertainment” is no longer “mere.” The new economy is tightly tied not only to formal knowledge and technical skills but even to popular culture and the expanding market for imagery. This seething market is not only growing, but is simultaneously being restructured. Its very categories are re-forming. For better or worse, the old lines between show business and politics, leisure and work, news and entertainment, are all crashing, and we are exposed to a hurricane of often fragmented, kaleidoscopic images. The foundation of a democratic government is that it respects the will of the people as expressed through the ballot box. Unfortunately, these lofty ideals are not so easily implemented. Strategic issues arise in voting, jut as in any other multiperson game. Voters will often has an incentive to misrepresent their true preferences. Neither majority rule nor any other voting scheme can solve this problem, for there does not exist any one perfect system for aggregating up individuals’ preferences into a will of the people. What this means is that the structure of the game matters. For example, when Congress has to choose between many competing bills, the order in which votes are taken can have a great influence on the final outcome. We begin by looking at the voting process more carefully, figuring out just when an individual’s vote matters. Recent presidential elections have emphasized the importance of the selection of the vice resident. This person will be just a heartbeat away from the residency. However, most candidates for president spurn the suggestion of the second sport on the ticket, and most vice presidents do not seem to enjoy the experience. The prospect of twiddling one’s thumbs for four or eight years, waiting for the boss to die, is hardly a fit occupation for anyone. (No doubt they console themselves by thinking of the even worse plight of Britain’s Prince Charles.) John Nance Garner, FDR’s first VP, expressed this succinctly: “The vice-presidency ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spirt.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Only one clause of the Constitution of the United States of America specifies any actual activity for the vice president. Article I, Section 3.4 says: “The Vice-President of the United States of America shall be President of the Senate, but shall have n vote, unless they be equally divided.” The presiding is “ceremony, idle ceremony,” and most of the time the vice present delegates this responsibility to a rotation of junior senators chosen by the senate majority leader. Is the tiebreaking vote important, or is it just more ceremony? At first glance, both logic and evidence seem to support the ceremonial viewpoint. The vice president’s vote just does not seem important. The change of a tie vote is small. The most favourable circumstances for  tie arise when each senator is just as likely to vote one way as the other, and an even number of senators vote. The result will be roughly one tie vote in twelve. Of course senators’ votes are far from random. Only when the two parties are roughly equal or when there is an especially divisive issues that splits some of the party lines does the vice president’s vote get counted. The most active tiebreaking vice president was our first, John Adams. He cast 29 tiebreaking votes during his eight years. This is not surprising, since his Senate consisted of only 20 members, and a tie was almost three times more likely than it is today, with our 100-member Senate. In fact, over the first 200 years, there have been only 222 occasions for the vice president to vote. More recently, Richard Nixon, under Eisenhower, was the most active vice president, casting a total of 8 tiebreaking votes—out of 1,229 decisions reached by the Senate during the period 1953-61. This fall in tiebreaking votes also reflects the fact that the two-party system is much more entrenched, so that fewer issues are likely to cross party lines. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

However, this ceremonial picture of the vice president’s vote is misleading. More important than how often the vice president votes is the impact of the vote. Measured correctly, the vice president’s vote I roughly equal in important to tht of any senator. One reason that the vice president’s vote matters is that it tends to decide only the most important and divisive issues. For example, George Bush, as vice president, voted to save both the administration’s chemical weapons program (twice) and the MX missile program. This suggest that we should look more closely at just when it is that a vote matters. A vote can have one of two effects. It can be instrumental in determining the outcome, or it can be a “voice” that influences the margin of victory or defeat without altering the outcome. In a decision-making body like the Senate, the first aspect is the more important one. To demonstrate the importance of the vice president’s current position, imagine tht the vice president is given a regular vote as President of the Senate. When does this have any additional impact? For important issues, all 100 senators will try to be present. (Or senators on opposite sides of the issue will try to pair off their absences.) If the 100 senators are split 51-49 or more lopsidedly, then the outcome is the same no matter which way the vice president votes. The only time the outcome hinges on the vice president’s 101st vote is when the Senate is split 50-50, just the same as now, when the vice president has only a tiebreaking vote. We recognize that our account of a vice president’s voting power leaves out aspects of reality. Some of these imply less power for the vice president; others, more. Much of a senator’s power comes from the work in committees, in which the vice president does not partake. On the other hand, the vice president has the veto power of the president on his side. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Our illustration of the vice president’s vote leads to an important moral of wider applicability: anyone’s vote affects the outcome only when it creates or breaks a tie. Think how important your own vote is in different contexts. How influential can you be in a presidential election? Your town’s mayoral election? You club’s secretarial selection? As with the Senate, the change that the rest f the electorate reaches a tie, leaving you decisive, is at a maximum when each voter is just as likely to vote on one way as the other. Mathematical calculation shows that the chances of a tie are proportional to the square root of the number of voters: increasing the electorate a millionfold reduces the chances of a tie by a factor of a thousand. In the Senate, with 100 voters, we saw that the chance of  tie in the most favorable circumstances was 1 in 12. In a presidential election with 100 million voters, it drops to 1 in 12,000. Because of the electoral college system, there is a greater chance that you will be decisive in affecting the electoral votes in your state. However, the fact that the population is rarely split so evenly works the other way, and even a slight advantage for one candidate or the other reduces the chances of a tie drastically. So you might take 1 in 12,000 as an optimistic estimate of your influence in presidential election. Considering these odds, is it worth your while to vote? To explore this question, let us take a concrete example. Suppose one candidate, Mr. Soft Heart, has promised to raise the minimum wage from $13.50 to $15.00, and the other, Mr. Hard Head, is opposed to any increase. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

If you hold a minimum-wage job when the wage rises, Mr. Heart will mean $3,000 more a year in your pocket than Mr. Head. Over the four years, this will amount to $12,000. However, the chance that your vote will bring this is only 1 in 12,000. The expected advantage to you from your vote is only a dollar. It is not worth your while to vote if to do so is your must sacrifice even 20 minutes of paid working time. Surveys find that most people value their leisure time at about half their wage rate. Therefore voting is not worth 40 minutes of your leisure time. Even if you are unlikely to change the outcome, you can still add your voice to the crowd. However, will it be heard? While it is clear that 100 million to 0 is a landslide, there is no apparent line where the change in one vote causes a landslide to become a simple victory. And yet if enough people change their vote, the landslide in the other direction. This absence of a “bright line” dates back to the Greek philosopher Zeno, who tells the paradox in terms of creating a mound from grains can turn a non-mound into a mound. And yet, enough grains will turn a molehill into a mountain. A vote is much like a grain of sand. It is hard to imagine how one additional vote will change anyone’s perception of the outcomes. (Even though any single individual’s opinion of the outcome is ever so slightly changes, a small impact on a large number of people may still add up to something.” What this tells us is that calculations of personal gains and costs cannot be decisive in motivating people to vote. For the proper functioning of democracy, however, it is very important that people do so. That is why we need social conditioning. From civics classes in elementary school to election-eve appeals to one’s patriotic duty, societies work to get out the vote—even if individual voters do not have any major impact on the election. The theory of statistics tells us that if the vote from a random sample of 10,000 give one candidate a 5 percent edge (5,250 or more voters), then there is a less than one-in-a-million chance the outcomes will be reversed, even if 100 million people vote. If the vote is closer we have to continue expanding the survey size. While this process could greatly reduce the cost of voting, the potential for abuse is also great. The selection of a random voter is subject to a nightmare of problems. Where patriotic duty is found insufficient, people are sometimes legally required to vote, as is the case in several countries, including Australia. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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And the Cold Was Back—Much Worse than Before!

I strolled through my pretty garden, bleak in winter, which perfectly matched my mood. I paused, as I always did, at the Cupid fountain. Just behind the fountain, a corridor of gaunt fir and black pine led to the wrought-iron gate. The stone tips of carved angels’ wings and Christian crosses guarded my estate and the peaks of my thirteen palm trees were just visible above the high walls. I thought to myself, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.” It was one of my favorite lines from Macbeth Act V, Scene ix. In this World, people purposefully create life’s counterfeit realities, and that is where so many feel most at home…where humans may transfigure themselves convincingly into characters who live only when the play’s on in their mind, and they act it out a daily life. I hesitated to go inside as I fancied the damp Earth. I started to walk around from my beautiful garden, but I was too slow. I saw him. For a fraction of a second, a shadow in the diminishing light or a trick of my unreliable eyes, I saw him standing on the stone steps directly to my front door. I felt a jolt of happiness and raised my hand to wave. Like the old days. “William?” His name dropped into the silent air. Then I felt my ribs tighten a notch, cracking like the tired winding mechanism on our old grandfather clock, and my arm fell back to my side in despair. There was nobody there. Though he did often come from the spirit World to visit me. I always felt a rush of joy, elation, and for a moment was able to believe he was still alive. But ghosts frequently float ephemerally around my mansion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

My family’s wealth and my home seemed to always being the long dead back, not just to entertain the living, but also to shed some light on life…from a rather unique point of view. It is after all a remarkable structure, the nine-story observational tower, the medieval-style turrets, and the high, gabled wood-clad interior ceiling complete with flying buttresses. Inside, because of its alteration there are bricked-up windows, stone walls that seal off rooms, lattice work light-wells which lead up to the turrets, false entrances and stairways, trap doors, dark, labyrinthine passageways, and a long stairway that dips into the depths of the catacombs and up into the bell tower. Where ghost, demons, and angels walked the boards for the ancient rites proclaiming life after death. Even in the daytime, with the subtle interior lighting, shadows and forms are seen to float across the walls. This is where it all started. This is where I cried and screamed. I am convinced that my home was constructed on the site of a graveyard. One night, when I was having a conversation with the housemaid, I saw a cloud form past the foot of the sofa, gathering like a white mist. Gertrude’s view was obstructed because she was facing me, but I could see the cloud take shape like a small person. It then put its hands on the arm of the sofa and pulled itself up by its hands, peeking at the housemaid for a moment, then lowering itself, holding on, and peeking again at her from the side of the sofa. Almost suddenly as she started to turn around it was gone. I had stopped talking and just watched the apparition for about a minute. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

Gertrude asked, “Mrs. Winchester, did you just see something?” I answered tht I had and asked what she had seen. She replied that she thought she caught a glimpse of something small looking t her. I asked Gertrude if it had scared her. She answered no, because it resembled a young person, maybe a child. I agreed and that was that. The mansion always seemed haunted, and there were many instances of odd happenings. The Catacombs, darkly reminiscent of early Christian burial chambers. From the hayloft, there is an angled passageway. The servant use it to move through the mansion so they do not disturb anyone or anything, they frequently bump into someone in that narrow, twisted passageway. Bout no one else is there—or at least, no one who can be seen. Mrs. Nellie Maynard lived nearby, and during her carriage ride to my estate, she imagined that every advancing figure was her husband, Edward Maynard, who had passed away. As she pulled onto the estate, she felt her nervousness gaining on her. I came out to greet her and ushered her into my home. A sudden chill raced through her and she crossed into the hallway. “There is something here,” she said, looking down towards the door and bathroom off the hall. “I can feel a coldness creeping over my legs. Is it just my overactive imagination or are the forces in the house reaching out to us?” I felt it, too. That cold comes from no place, yet everywhere. Mrs. Maynard, now shaken, moved to the bathroom. “This is where he is,” she said. “There is a young man, a boy, and a woman.” Mrs. Maynard did not know that the hallway was the center of the disturbances in the house. I often felt as if I were being watched when I showered in that room. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

The feelings that we were being observed by an unseen presence continued up the stairs and even to the Daisy bedroom, where a shadowy arm had materialized, only to vanish. After carefully searching the entire house, we retired to the living room. Mrs. Maynard sat, frozen on the sofa, in a trancelike state. I called to her, growing more and more uncomfortable at her motionless, seemingly sightless state. She remained for several moments, perhaps as long as a full minute, unaware of anything but what transfixed her at the time and unable to break away from the forced, temporary captivity of her mind. When I asked her what was the matter? She said, “Look behind you.” There, seated on arm chair and relaxed as if to the manner born, was an elderly gentleman, replete in his uniform of a general officer of the Civil War. Mrs. Maynard and I looked at each other in disbelief, and when we looked back, only an empty chair remined. The General, as he is known to the servants, has been seen before and since. Occasionally I would notice an ethereal figure peering from the arched windows on the eastern side of the mansion—windows which were covered over from the inside years ago when the fourth floor was built. It is almost commonplace to hear footsteps crossing the floor. Almost every night the doors in the house would rattle violently, and we often hard the sound of children running alongside footsteps that sounded as if they were made by a large man wearing heavy work boots. One evening, we even heard the voice of a woman saying, “I’ve got mine.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

The meaning of these words remains unknown. The house is a mysterious place. One night, I had turned into the library. I switched on the electric light and shut the door. I immediately got a cold, eerie feeling and jumped to my feet. I was suddenly hugged from behind by a small child. It was such a loving hug that I turned around. There was no one there. The next day, in a bedroom on the third floor, rolls of lincrusta-Walton wall paper had been unrolled and the window shades had been pulled down generally making a mess. As I was reading in the days that followed, I could hear feet running back and forth upstairs. Tools were missing, and many of the carpenters left the job unfinished because of these strange happenings. They said they could not seem to complete their work. They kept getting gooseflesh and felt strange sensations of happiness, loneliness, and love. One calm autumn night, Gertrude had been working in the back kitchen on the second floor, preparing for a dinner party. Gertrude, the housemaid, had almost caught her breath from carrying the turkey to the oven when her eye was attracted to the electrical cord dangling from the ceiling. A day or two before she had accidentally knocked the chandelier from the ceiling while cleaning it and had made a mental note to replace it. As she stood up from putting the turkey into the oven, the coiled cord was nearly at eye-level, hanging about six feet from the ceiling. As she watched, slowly the coil began to swing, back and forth, in an arc about three feet, side to side. Her first thought was the wind, but she noticed that it was calm. The loop swung even, eight, maybe nine time, then gradually slowed until it wrapped around her neck, leaving her suspended from the ceiling. The next morning, we smelled the turkey and went to check on her. As she hung from the ceiling, there was a figure level with her, moving in a circular pattern around her body. The auxiliary lights went out and started blinking, flashing, dimming at seemingly their own whim. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

My lovely home, my retreat from the bleak past, was becoming the focus of an evil presence. And it would announce itself in an all-too-familiar way. The chilling coldness that had plagued the mansion started to creep into my bedroom. It was September and still very mild outside, but inside the house it was near freezing. Sometimes I kept the fireplaces burning all day, but it was to no effect. At night I piled my bed with extra wool blankets. It was the only way I could get to sleep. I could not run. I could not hide. I feld from room to room every night and it would find me again. I felt helpless in the face of encroaching evil. Prophetic dreams also followed and daytime visions. The manifestations of these forced would manifest at any time, without warning. One day I was working on a quilt. I could feel the color draining out of my face as I got an eerie feeling and looked over my shoulder and saw an old woman standing at the base of the stairs. I figured she was a new housemaid. I said “hi” and asked her if she needed anything. She just shook her head “no” and smiled. I went about my business. Then I felt the same eerie feeling. I looked over my shoulder and, there she was, about five feet from me. I got up from the arm chair and said, “Can I help you?” She smiled and, once again, shook her head “no.” Just then I heard the carpenters drawing near in a carriage. I turned to see where the new housemaid was and she was already at the base of the stairs, about 60 feet away. I said, “Are you sure you don’t need anything?” She just looked at me and motioned with her finger for me to come with her. Then I heard the carpenters enter the house on the first floor. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

The old woman again motioned for me to follow her. She was backing toward a crawl space just under the stairs. I took my eyes off her for a second to try to figure out where my friend was and when I looked back, I saw the most horrifying old woman motioning me with a bony, leather finger. This time she said, “Get over here!” I watched her disappear into the crawl space. I felt sick and hot and the voices were deafening…I began to scream and scream. That was the worst thing to do, because the fear became too much and I did not know to do. I was held by an unseen force and I was burned with heated skewers. I felt so guilty because the spirits said everything they did, they said it was for me. My hands started trembling and the burning stopped. I gazed intently out the window as if in some dreadful shock. It took me several hours to shake off the effect. I felt the blood in my temples, and my hand began to tremble again. In deep silence, there was an icy chill emanating from the walls, it sounded like a human cry. My sight must have blurred, or else dazzled by the reflection of the lamplight on the smooth surface of the table. I rested my two hands on the table, and drew a deep breath, as I felt the contagion of my whiteness. Reflecting on what depths of the unknow lurk in my home, I felt a flash of wholesome anger. Now the spirits seemed to wear a look of fear and hatred, of incredulous dismay and almost cringing defiance. It was as if they were warring. The bare walls cried out, “Don’t you see that we are everywhere in this house, and the closer you get to him, the more visible we will become. I dropped into a chair and cover my face with my hands. A turmoil of sobbing shook me from head to foot. At length a touch on my shoulder made me look up, and I saw my late husband being over me. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

I beseech Thee, O Grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to please be propitious unto me and endow the Winchester Mansion with the power and virtue of the rob of Jacob and Moses, and of the mighty Joshua! I also beseech Thee, O Grand of Jacob, of Moses, and of the mighty Joshua! I also beseech Thee, O Grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to infuse into the Winchester Mansion the whole strength of Samson, the righteous wrath of EMANUEL, and the thunders of mighty Sariatnatmik, who will avenge the crimes of men at the Day of Judgment! By the grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. I bid thee join with and attract all substances which I desire, by the power of the sublime ABONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. I command thee, by the opposition of fire and water to separate all substances as they were separated on the day of the World’s creation. We praise you with honor and glory, sublime Adonay, as we are convinced that we are in possession of a most priceless Treasure of the light. By the mystery of this holy Winchester Mansion, I will clothe it with the armor of salvation in the strength of the Most High, ANCOR, AMICAR, AMIDES, THEODONIAS, ANITOR, that so the end which I desire may be effected, O ADONAL, through Thy strength, to whom be praised and glory for ever and ever. I invoke and conjure thee, O Spirit William Wirt Winchester, and, fortified with the power of the Supreme Majesty, I strongly command thee by BARALAMENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMA-CHIE, APOLORESEDES, and the most potent princes GENIO, LIACHIDE, Ministers of the Tartarean Seat, chief princes of the seat of APOLOGIA in the ninth region; I invoke ADONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ELOHE, ZEBAOTH, ELION, ESCHERCE, JAH,TETRGRAMMATON, SADAI, do thou forthwith appear and show thyself unto me, here before this mansion, in fair and human shape, without any deformity or horror; do thou come forthwith, from whatever part of the World and make rational answers to my questions. Come fulfil my desires. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8

The Winchester Mystery House

It will be seen with sufficient research, investigation and documentation of the state of witchcraft, occultism, and satanism as World movements, no exaggeration, overstatement or silly claims were necessary. The facts speak for themselves. It exists. It is growing. And certain aspects are indeed very, very real. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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I Woke Up and Called this Morning, the Tone of Your Voice Was a Warning

Half our mistakes in life arise from feeling when we ought to think, and thinking when we ought to feel. Many people are content to allow authority figures to call the shots. If someone with an impressive array of credentials or degrees or a well-known name speaks out on a matter, of if a social institution or a book makes a statement on a matter, or if a social institution or a book makes a statement, the matter is “settled.” However, authority figures are subject to error, just as any of us are. If I do not keep my mind open to this possibility, then I may ignore my own feelings on a subject. Rationalization is a way of coping with a situation in which, for either practical or emotional reasons, or both, a battered woman is stuck. For some women, the situation and the beliefs that rationalize it, may continue for a lifetime. For others, changes may occur within the relationship, within individuals, or in available resources which serve as catalysts for redefining the violence. When battered women reject prior rationalizations and begin to view themselves as true victims of abuse, the victimization process begins. There are a variety of catalysts for redefining abuse; we discuss six: (1) a change in the level of violence; (2) a change in the resources; (3) a change in the relationship; (4) despair; (5) a change in the visibility of violence; and (6) external definitions of the relationship. The traditional ideal of many societies is to hold back strong or unpleasant emotions for the sake of others. However, feelings held in are likely to come out in some way—often an inappropriate one. So we are really not doing the other person much of a favor by trying to cover up feelings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

A change in the level of violence: the severity of abuse is an important factor in women’s decisions to leave violent situations. There is no significant correlation between the number of years spent cohabiting with an abuser and the severity of abuse. On the contrary: the longer women lived with an abuser, the more severe the violence they endured, since violence increased in severity over time. What doe seem to serve as a catalyst is a sudden change in the relative level of violence. Women who suddenly realize that battering may be fatal may reject rationalizations in order to save their lives. One woman who had been severely beaten by an alcoholic husband for many years explained her decision to leave on the basis of a direct threat to her life: “It was like a pendulum. He’s swing to the extremes both ways. He’d get drunk and beat me up, then he’d get sober and treat me like a queen. One day he put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. It wasn’t loaded. But that’s when I decided I’d had it. I sued for separation of property. I knew what was coming again, so I got out. I didn’t want to. I still loved the guy, but I knew I had to for my own sanity.” A change in resources: Although some women rationalize cohabiting with an abuser by claiming they have no options, others begin reinterpreting violence when the resources necessary for escape become available. The emergence of safe homes or shelters since 1970 has produced a new resource for battered women, but they are not always safe places. While not completely adequate or satisfactory, the mere existence of a place to go alters the situation in which battering is experienced. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Public support of shelters is a statement to battered women that abuse need not be tolerated. Conversely, political trends which limit resources available to women, such as cutbacks in government funding to social programs, increase fears that life outside a violent marriage is economically impossible. One 25-year-old woman discussed this catalyst: “I stayed with him because I didn’t want my kids to have the same life I did. My parents were divorced, and I was always so ashamed of that. Yes, they’re all on their own now, so there’s no reason left to stay.” A change in the relationship: In the stages of a battering relationship, violent incidents are usually followed by periods of remorse and solicitude. Such phases deepen the emotional bonds, and make rejection of an abuser more difficult. However, as battering progresses, periods of remorse may shorten, or disappear, eliminating the basis for maintaining a positive outlook on the marriage. After a number of episodes of violence, a man may realize that this victim will not retaliate or escape, and thus feel no need to express remorse. Extended periods devoid of kindness or love may alter a woman’s feelings toward her partner so much so that she eventually begins to define herself as a victim of abuse. One woman recalled: “At first, you know, we used to have so much fun together. He was kind’ve, you know, a magnetic personality; he can be really charming. But it isn’t fun anymore. Since the baby came, it’s changed completely. He just wants me to stay home, while he goes out with his friends. He doesn’t even talk to me, most of the time….No, I don’t really love him anymore, not like I did. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Despair: Changes in the relationship may result in a loss of hope that “things will get better.” When hope is destroyed and replaced by despair, rationalizations of violence may give way to the recognition of victimization. Feelings of hopelessness or despair are the basis for some efforts to assist battered women, such as Al-Anon. The director of an Al-Anon organized shelter explained the concept of “hitting bottom”: Before the Al-Anon program can really be of benefit, a woman has to hit bottom. When you hit bottom, you realize that all of your own efforts to control the situation have failed; you feel helpless and lost and worthless and completely disenchanted with the World. Women cannot really be helped unless they are ready for it and want it. Some women come here when things get bad, but they are not really ready to be committed to Al-Anon. Things have not gotten bad enough for them, and they go right back. We see this all the time. A change in the visibility of violence: Creating a web of rationalizations to overlook violence is accomplished more easily if no intruders are present to question their validity. Since most violence between couples occurs in private, there are seldom conflicting interpretations of the event from outsiders. Only 7 percent of the respondents in our study who discussed spatial location of violence indicted events which took place outside the home, but all reported incidents within the home. Other report similar findings. If violence does occur in the presence of others, it may trigger a reinterpretation process. Battering in private is degrading, but battering in public is humiliating, for it is a statement of subordination and powerlessness. Having others witness abuse may create intolerable feeling of shame which undermine prior rationalizations. (And the thing about self-defense, the person who throws the first blow is usually the offender, but how do you prove it?) #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

“He never hit me in public before—it was always at home. But the Saturday I got back [returned to husband from shelter], we went Christmas shopping and he slapped me in the store because of some stupid joke I made. People saw it, I know, I felt so stupid, like, they must all think what a jerk I am, what a sick couple, and I thought, ‘God, I must be crazy to let him do this.’ Then one time at a party on a yacht, he jumped on me and my dad just watched and let him beat me. Then another time, he beat me and dragged me down the hallway by my hair, saying he was going to pull my wig off, but it was my real hair in a ponytail. I was screaming for help, but no one came. I thought he was going to pull all of my hair out.” External definitions of the relationship: A change in visibility is usually accomplished by the interjection of external definitions of abuse. External definitions vary depending on their source and the situation; they either reinforce or undermine rationalizations. Battered women who request help frequently find others—and especially officials—do not believe their story or are unsympathetic. Experimental research supports these reports. Observers usually fail to respond when a woman is attacked by a man, and justify nonintervention on the grounds that they assume the victim and offender were married. One young woman discussed how lack of support from her family left her without hope: “It wouldn’t be so bad if my own family gave a damn about me…Yeah, they know I’m here, and they don’t care. They didn’t care about me when I was a kid, so why should they care now? I got raped and beat as a kid, and now I get beat as an adult. Life is a big joke.” Clearly, such responses from family members contribute to the belief among battered women that there are no alternatives and that they just tolerate the abuse. However, when outsiders respond with unqualified support of the victim and condemnation of violent men, their definitions can be potent catalyst toward victimization. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Friends and relatives who show genuine concern for a woman’s well-being may initiate an awareness of danger which contradicts previous rationalizations. “My mother-in-law knew what was going on, but she wouldn’t it…I said, ‘Mom, what do you think these bruises are?’ and she said ‘Well, some people just bruise easy. I do it al the time, bumping into things.’ …And he just denied it, pretended like nothing happened, and if I’d said I wanted to talk about it, he’d say, ‘life goes on, you can’t just dwell on things.’…But this time, my neighbor knew what happened, she saw it, and when he denied it, she said, ‘I can’t believe it! You know that’s not true!’ …and I was so happy that finally, somebody else saw what was goin’ on, and I just told him then tht this time I wasn’t gonna’ come home! You can call the police, file police reports and go to the doctor with obvious signs of abuse, and sometimes the abuser never leaves. Even when the police say that they have handled the situation, he would just be quietly waiting in another room to beat me again for reporting him. One time him and one of the girls he was cheating with jumped me and he slammed my head into the wall and busted my lip. They bragged about. One night, he was hanging out with my dad and I would not come pick him up because he was drunk and I did not want him to beat me, and he my dad let him drive his car to my mother’s house, and when I opened the door, he started beating me and ripped my new silk blouse. My baby brother and his friend had to pull him off of me and he left. Victim’s f domestic violence should qualify as disabled because we truly are. ” The song Never No More by Aaliyah was meant to be a theme song for women not to put up with domestic violence anymore. Unfortunately, she was killed in a plane crash before they got a chance to launch the campaign. Shelters for battered women serve not only as material resources, but as source of external definitions which contribute to the victimization process. They offer refuge from a violent situation in which a woman may contemplate her circumstances and what she wants to do bout them. Within a shelter, women meet counselors and other battered women who are familiar with rationalizations of violence and the reluctance to give up commitment to a spouse. In counseling sessions, and informal conversations with other residents, women hear horror stories from others who have already defined themselves as victims. They are supported for expressing anger and rejecting responsibility for the abuse. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

The goal of many shelters is to overcome feelings of guilt and inadequacy so that women can make choices in their best interest. In this atmosphere, violent incidents are reexamined and redefined as assaults in which the woman was victimized. The relevance of these catalysts to a woman’ interpretation of violence vary with her own situation and personality. The process of rejecting rationalizations and becoming a victim is ambiguous, confusing, and emotional. Prison is not a mere physical horror. It is using a pickaxe to no purpose that makes a prison; the horror resides in the failure to enlist all those who swing the pick in the community of mankind. True love is not blind. A person who loves you wants to see you doing well, not be blind to the abuse he or she is inflicting. This special form of deception is pointedly said to be in connection with spiritual rather than Worldly things. This surely shows that people of God, at the time of the end, will be expecting the coming of the Lord, and we can infer that they will be keenly awake to all movements from the supernatural World, in such a measure that deceiving spirits will be able to take advantage of it and anticipate the Lord’s appearing by “false Christs” and false signs and wonders. They mix their counterfeits with the true manifestations of the Spirit of God. The Lord says that men will be deceived (1) concerning Christ and His Parousia (appearing); (2) concerning prophecy—teachings regarding the future, from the spiritual World through inspired messengers: and (3) concerning the giving of proofs that the “teachings” are truly of God, by “signs” and “wonders” so Godlike as to be indistinguishable from the true even by those described as “the elect”—who will need to possess some other test than the judging by appearances of a “sign” being from God if they are to be able to discern the false from the true. The Apostles Paul’ words to Timothy, containing the special prophecy given to him by the Holy Spirit for the Church of Christ in the last days of the dispensation, exactly coincide with the words of the Lord recorded by Matthew. These two letters of Paul to Timothy are the last epistles that he wrote before his departure to be with Christ. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Both were written in prison, and Paul’s prison was to him what Patmos was to John—a time when he was “in the Spirit” (Rev. 1.10) and shown things to come. Paul was giving his last directions to Timothy for the ordering of the Church of God right on to the end of her time on Earth—giving rules to guide not only Timothy but all God’s servants “in dealing with God’s household.” In the midst of all these detailed instructions, his keen seer’s vision looks on to the “later times”; and by express command of the Spirit of God he depict in a few brief sentences the peril of the Church in those times, in the same way that the Spirit of God gave the prophets of the Old Testament some pregnant prophecy only to be fully understood after the events had come to pass. The apostle said: “The Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, seared in their own conscience as with a hot iron…” (1 Tim. 4;1-2).  I have wondered whether anyone has considered or indeed is already involved in making the experience of loneliness, especially for prisoners in solitary confinement for long periods, a meaningful experience of personal inner growth, enlargement of mental and spiritual horizons, and the discovery that limitations such as cement wall, iron bars, hostile “keepers,” and isolation can indeed be the challenge to discover the richness of the World within? If no one in your knowledge has as yet considered this kind of contribution may I suggest it as a most terribly needed one? It is necessary for you to understand that the stopping of the expression of negative emotions and the struggle with negative emotions themselves are two quite different practices. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Trying to stop the expression comes first. You can do nothing about negative emotions and the struggle with negative emotions are two quite different practices. Trying to stop the expression comes first. You can do nothing about negative emotions themselves until you have learned to stop the expression of them. When you have acquired a certain control over the expression of negative emotions, you can begin to study negative emotions in themselves. You can make an effort to classify your negative emotions. You can find which negative emotions you have chiefly; why they come, what brings them, and so on. You must understand that your only control over emotions is through your mind, but the control does not come immediately. If you think rightly for six months, then negative emotions will be affected because they are based on wrong thinking. If you begin to think rightly today, negative emotions will not be changed tomorrow; but negative emotions may be changed in six months’ time, if you start to think rightly now. The ground has to be prepared beforehand. If you can learn to create a right attitude toward your irritability, bad temper, suspicion or whatever unpleasant emotion you experience most frequently, then—after some time—that attitude will help you to stop the negative emotion at the beginning. Once it has been allowed to start you cannot stop it. Once you begin to express it, you are in its power. The struggle must begin in your mind, and you must find your way of thinking on a definite subject. You cannot control your temper when it has already begun to appear. It is already too late; it has already jumped out. You can control such things as manifestations of temper, for instance only in one way. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Suppose you have to meet a certain man, and suppose he irritates you. Whenever you meet him your temper is liable to show itself. You do not like that but how can you stop it? You must begin with the study of your thinking. What you think about this man—not what do you feel when you are irritated, but what do you think about him at quiet moments? You may find that in your mind you argue with him; you prove to him that he is wrong; you tell him all his mistakes; you find that, generally, he behaves wrongly towards you. This is where you are wrong. You must learn to think rightly; you must find the way to think rightly. Then, if you do, it will happen like this: although emotion I much quicker than thought, emotion is a temporary thing, but thought can be made continuous; so whenever emotion jumps out, it hits against this continuous thought and cannot go on and manifest itself. So you can struggle with the expression of negative emotions, as in this example, only by creating continuous right thinking. Contrary to an assumption that some sociologist make, there seems to be little doubt that improper behavior in one situation can sometimes tell us a great deal about the offender’s reception in other situations. In any given society, different situations will be the scene of many of the same normative assumptions regarding conduct and of the same situational rulings. An individual who is remiss in one way in one situation, then, can be remiss in this same way whenever one shows one’s face to man. Thus, a person with senile deterioration who drools spoil his participation in all his situations in the same way and for the same reason. A person who is hard of hearing or who is near-blind will not be able to maintain the communication niceties that have here been considered at length; one will be forced to be all thumbs in all one’s situations. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Thus, improper conduct in one situation can bespeak a general disenfranchisement in face-to-face interaction. Such conduct need not arise from a psychopathological condition; presumably it can, however, give rise to one through the response the individual may make to his excommunication. Some offenses, then, tell us about the price the offender must pay for one’s offensiveness, and the price one may pay for one’s price. Granting the occurrence of widely relevant offensiveness, the general procedure in this study has been to try to learn what this offensiveness costs the gathering in which it occurs, rather than what it means to and about the offender in the first place. When an individual intentionally or unintentionally conducts oneself in a way that others consider situationally improper, and shows thereby that one is either alienated from, or an alien to, the gathering, what other information can this provide them about one’s current conditions—apart from what one’s impropriety tells them about one’s likely fate? The meaning that offended personas impute to an offensive act is partly determined by whether they feel the act was intentional or unintentional. However, the complexity and ambiguity of this dichotomy, and the shifting but intimate relevance of its bearing, prevent any simple discussion of the actual or imputed meaning of situational offenses. In actual use, the dichotomy does not so much refer to a physiological factor of volition or control accountable by reference to the distinction between stripped and smooth muscles, the cerebrospinal and the autonomic nervous systems, but rather to the kind of responsibility of the act. The undesired acts in themselves need not be characteristically voluntary or involuntary from the physiological point of view. For example, to fail to appear at a social party because of one’s disapproval of the host is considered to be an intentional act; the same failure due to the sudden death of a kinsman may be considered aa fully warranted, excusable reason for staying away. In the first case we speak of the individual staying away voluntarily, in the second case, involuntarily. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Of any situationally offensive act and of any offender the following questions can be asked, taking the point of view of the others present: Does the actor have the capacity and training to appreciate the meaning of one’s offense, and if so, does he in fact appreciate its meaning? Is the act within the physical control of the actor, and if so, would one be willing to change one’s conduct if one were apprised of its meaning and given the opportunity to do so? Does the actor have extenuating reasons, external to the participants in the situation, for committing the offense? These factors, in various, combinations, provide so many concrete possibilities that little implication can be drawn from the mere presence or absence of one sense or another of intentionality. Living in the city or in the countryside are considered equally attractive. The choice is based solely on financial considerations—they will go where they will earn the most money. Like the commuters between Berkeley and San Francisco, the decision is made selfishly. For instance, dentists want to maximize their individual payoffs. Since there are many rural areas without enough dentists, this suggests that there is room for an increased number of dentists to practice in rural areas without causing any congestion. Thus rural dentistry is not quite as lucrative as having a large city practice, but it is a more certain route to an above-average income. Both the incomes and the value to society of rural dentists stays roughly constant as their numbers grow. Being a city practitioner is more kin to driving over the Oakland Bay Bridge—it is wonderful when you are alone and not so great when the city gets too crowded. The first dentist in an area can be extremely valuable, and maintain a very large practice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

However, with too many dentists around, there is the potential for congestion and price competition. If the number increases too far, city dentists will be competing for the same patient pool, and their talents will be underutilized. If the population of city dentists grows even further, they may end up earning less than their rural counterparts. In short, as the number of city practices increase, the value of the marginal service that they perform falls, as does their income. As in the case of the commuters, the equilibrium does not maximize the combined income of dentists. But society cares about the consumers of dentistry as well as the practitioners. The reason is that there are two side effect created when one more person decided to be a city dentist. The additional city dentist lowers all other dentists’ incomes, imposing a cost on the existing city dentists. However, this reduction in price is a benefit to consumers. The two sides effects exactly cancel each other out. The difference between this story and our commuting example from the past is that no one benefited from the extra commuting time when the Oakland Bay Bridge became congested. When the side effect is a change in price (or income), then the purchasers benefit at the producers’ cost. There is zero net effect. From society’s viewpoint, a dentist should not worry about lowering colleagues’ incomes. Each dentist should pursue the highest-paying practice. As each person makes a selfish choice, we are invisibly led to the right distribution of dentist between city and rural areas. And, the two careers will have equal incomes. Or, to the extent that living in a city is worth more than living in a rural area, this differential will be reflected in income differences. Of course, the American Dental Association may look at this differently. It may place more weight on the loss to city dentists’ incomes than on the saving consumer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

From the dental profession’s perspective there is indeed a misallocation, with too many dentists practicing in the city. If more dentist took rural practices, then the potential advantages of a city practice would not be “wasted” by competition and congestion. Taken as a whole, the income of dentists would rise if it were possible to keep the number of city dentists below the free market level. Although dentist cannot place a toll on those who want to practice in the city, it is in the profession’s self-interest to create a fund that subsidizes dental students who commit to establish a rural practice. The human race is approaching the great historical transition to thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter, with all that implies for medicine, the environment, and our way of life. What happens before and during that transition will shape its direction, and with it the future. Is worth getting excited about? Look at some of the concerns that bring people together for action: Poverty, weapons systems, deforestation, toxic waste, social security, housing, global warming, deadly viruses, Alzheimers disease, heart disease, lung disease, cancer, endangered species, freedom, jobs, nuclear power, life extension, space development, acid rain. Each of these issues mobilizes great effort. Each will be utterly transformed by nanotechnology and its applications. For many of these issues, nanotechnology offers tools that can be used to achieve what people have been striving to accomplish. For many of these same issues, the abuse of nanotechnology could obliterate everything that has been achieved. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

A good companion to the precept “Think globally, act locally” is “Think of the future, act in the present.” If everyone were to abandon short-term problems and today’s popular causes, the results would be disastrous. However, there is no danger of that. The more likely danger is the opposite. The World is heading straight for a disruptive transition with everything at stake, yet 99.9 percent of human effort and attention is going into either short-term concerns or long-term strategies based on a fantasy future of lumbering twenty first-century technology. What is to be done? For people more concerned with feeling good than with doing good, the answer is simple: Go for the warm feeling that comes from adding one more bit of support to an already-popular cause. The gratification is immediate, even if the contribution is small. For people more concerned with doing good—who can feel good only if they live up to their potential—the answer is less simple: To do the most good, find an important cause that is not already buoyed up by a cheering multitude, a project where one person’s contribution almost automatically makes a big difference. There is, today, an obvious choice for where to look. The potential benefits and drawbacks of nanotechnology generate a thousand areas for research, discussion, education, entrepreneuring, lobbying, development, regulation, and the rest—for preparation and for action. A person’s contributions can range from career commitment to verbal support. Both can make a difference in where the World ends up. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Benjamin Day was a twenty-three-year-old printer with wild ideas when he changed the history of what we now call the media. This was 1833 and New York had grown to a population of 218,000. However, the largest daily newspaper in the city claimed only 4,500 subscribers. At a time when the average urban worker in American earned 75 cents a day, a New York newspaper cost 6 cents, and not many people could afford them. The papers were printed on handpresses capable of turning out no more than a few hundred copies an hour. Day took a crazy chance. On September 3, 1833, he launched the New York Sun and sold it for only one penny a copy. Mr. Day unleashed a horde of newsboys into the streets to sell his paper—an innovation at the time. For $4 a week he hired another printer to go to the courthouse and cover police cases. It was one of the earliest uses of a “reporter.” Within four months the Sun had the biggest readership in the city. In 1835 he bought the latest technology—a steam driven press—and the Sun reached the unheard-of circulation of 20,000 daily. Day had invented the popular press, crime stories and all. His innovations were paralleled at about the same time by other “wild men”—Henry Hetherington with his Twopenny Dispatch in England and Emile de Girardin with La Presse in France. The down-scale “penny paper”—called the “pauper press” in England—was more than just a commercial affair. It had lasting political effects. Along with the early trade unions and the beginnings of mass education, it helped bring the less affluent classes into the political life of nations. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

By the 1870s something called “opinion” had to be take into account by politicians of every stripe. “There is, now,” wrote one French thinker, “no European government which does not reckon with opinion, which does not feel obliged to give account of its acts and to show how closely they conform to the national interest, or to put forward the interest of the people as the justification for any increase in its prerogatives.” A century and a half after Benjamin Day, another wild, feral man, feeling as guilty as a criminal, came up with an idea sure to bankrupt him. Tall, gusty, impatient, and brilliant Ted Turner had inherited a billboard company when his father died from death by suicide. Mr. Turner built it, acquired radio and television stations, as was wondering what to do next when he noticed something odd. Cable television stations were springing up around the United States of America, but they were starving for programs and advertising. Meanwhile, up in the Heavens were things called “satellites.” Mr. Turner put two and two together and turned it into five. He beamed the programming from his Atlanta station up to a satellite and down to the program-hungry cable stations. At the same time, he offered a “one-buy” national market for advertisers who wouldn’t trouble to purchase time on scores of small individual cable systems. His Atlanta “superstation” because the cornerstone of a growing empire. On June 1, 1980, Mr. Turner took the next, even loonier step. He formed what critics labeled the “Chicken Noodle Network”—for CNN, or Cable News Network. CNN became the laughingstock of every media pundit from the canyons of Manhattan to the studies in Los Angeles. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Wall Street was sure CNN would collapse, probably taking Mr. Turner’s other businesses down with it. No one had ever even tried to create a twenty-four-hour news network. CNN today is the opiate of the mass. Perhaps, the most influential broadcast news source in the United States of America. TV monitors are constantly tuned to CNN in the White House, in the Pentagon, in foreign embassies, as well as in millions of homes all over America. However, Mr. Turner’s wild dreams went far beyond the United States of America, and today CNN operates in over 100 countries, making it the most global of all television networks, mesmerizing the Middle East skeiks, European journalists, and Latin America politicians with its extended firsthand coverage of such events as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the antics of President Biden as he seems dazed and confused, or the conflict in Ukraine. CNN is carried over the air, or over cable, into hotel rooms, offices, homes, even staterooms on the Queen Elizabeth II. Although many people believe FOXNews is more balanced and convers the invasion at the southern border, which America tries to suppress. One of Mr. Turner’s little-known prize possessions is a videotape of his private meeting with Cuba’ Fidel Castro. In the course of the visit, Mr. Castro mentions that he, too, routinely watches CNN for the big news. Mr. Turner, never shy about promoting his companies, asks Mr. Castro if he would be willing to say as much on camera for a commercial. Mr. Castro puffs on his cigar and says, in effect, why not? The commercial has never run on air, but Mr. Turner hauls it out to show his visiting friends now and then. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Mr. Turner is one of a kind. Handsome, raucous, funny, erratic, he owns a buffalo ranch, the Atlanta Braves baseball team, and MGM’s library of old movies. A fierce exemplar of free enterprise, he was also a peace activist long before he and actress Jane Fonda began a highly-publicized romance. He launched the “Goodwill Games” in Moscow at a time when it took political, as well as financial, courage to do so. His networks also run a heavy schedule of pro-ecology programming. Today, Mr. Turner is by far the most visionary of a dozen or so hard-driving media barons who are revolutionizing the media even more deeply than Benjamin Day—and whose collective efforts will, over the long run, shift power in many countries. What people do depends on what they believe. The path to a World prepared to handle nanotechnology begins with the recognition that nanotechnology is a real prospect. What would be the response to a new idea as broad as nanotechnology, if it were true? Since it does not fall into any existing technical specialty, it would not be anyone’s job to provide an official, authoritative evaluation. Advanced molecular manufacturing cannot be worked on in the lab today, so it would not matter to scientists playing the standard careers-and-funding game. Still, some scientists and engineers would become interested, thinking about it, and lend support. Science News, covering the first major conference on the subject, would announce that “Sooner or later, the Age of Nanotechnology will arrive.” This is, in fact, what happened. However, what is the idea were false? Some curious scientists or engineer would soon point out a fatal error in the idea. Since the sweeping implications of nanotechnology make many people uncomfortable, a good counterargument would spread fast, and would soon be on the lips of everyone who would prefer to dismiss the whole thing. No such counterargument has been heard. The most likely reason is that nanotechnology is a sound idea. Reactions has been changing from “That’s ridiculous” to “That’s obvious.” The basic recognition of the issue is almost in place. When nanotechnology emerges from the World of ideas to the World of physical reality, we will need to be prepared. However, what does this require? To understand what needs to be done today, it is best to begin with the long term and then work back to the present. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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