I still had a job. Now my hair was falling out for no appreciable reason. The second time it happened, a little more than a year later, I was sure—not because of what was in the shower drain, but because of what was obviously no longer on my head. One day, after washing and drying my hair, I looked at my hairline in the mirror and it was thin enough that I could make out the curvature of my scalp beneath it.
When I looked at it, the panic became sharp. My best friend had gone through a tough divorce and was remarrying. I was thrilled for him. As a bonus, the wedding would take place in New Orleans, where my friend lives. New Orleans is a miraculous place, and my favorite city to visit in America. The notion of a trip there shone out of the fog and dreariness of this whole era of history. John Henry Ramirez is going to die. The state of Texas is going to kill him.
The question that came before the Supreme Court this week is whether Dana Moore, his longtime pastor, will be able to lay hands on him as he dies. Given the grand, even alarmed pronouncements about religious liberty made by the right-wing justices recently, you might think this would be an easy decision. Our fears about what other people think of us are overblown and rarely worth fretting over. Click here to listen to his new podcast series on all things happiness, How to Build a Happy Life.
Social media has opened up our heads so that just about any trespasser can wander in. If you tweet whatever crosses your mind about a celebrity, it could quite possibly reach the phone in her hand as she sits on her couch in her house. We are wired to care about what others think of us.
Doing work that is fulfilling has become ubiquitous career advice, but no one should depend on a single social institution to define their sense of self. Since the start of the pandemic, Americans have been talking seriously with friends, family, and themselves about the shortcomings of their modern-day work lives. According to my research, which draws on surveys and interviews with college students, graduates, and career coaches, more than 75 percent of college-educated workers believe that passion is an important factor in career decision making.
And 67 percent of them say they would prioritize meaningful work over job stability, high wages, and work-life balance. Believers in this idea trust that passion will inoculate them against the drudgery of working long hours on tasks that they have little personal connection to.
For many, following their passion is not only a path to a good job; it is the key to a good life. In , when it was released, the song spawned a new microeconomy of commentary denouncing it as a distillation of rape culture , or fretting over whether enjoying its jaunty hook was defensible.
In the video, directed by the veteran Diane Martel, three models dressed in transparent thongs peacock and pose with a baffling array of props a lamb, a banjo, a bicycle, a four-foot-long replica of a syringe while Thicke, the producer and one of the co-writers Pharrell Williams, and the rapper T. Mike Lee, the former Trump critic, and current Trump acolyte, may be vulnerable in An unusual coalition of opponents in Utah is trying to unseat him.
F or many Utahns, the Trump rally was the breaking point. But then he arrived at a novel line of flattery, pitched to his coreligionists: He compared Trump to a figure from the Book of Mormon. He seeks not the praise of the world or the fake news, but he seeks the well-being and the peace of the American people.
Red Notice has A-list actors, globe-trotting set pieces, and a notorious art thief. Why is it so boring? The star-laden blockbuster, which is dropping on Netflix this week, features three A-list names, all in familiar roles: Dwayne Johnson as a tough FBI agent, Ryan Reynolds as a motormouthed art thief, and Gal Gadot as a mysterious criminal who forces the two men to team up against her.
The work is complete with globe-trotting set pieces, self-aware jokes delivered straight to the camera, and constantly shifting loyalties as each character tries to stay ahead of the others on the quest for some glittery MacGuffin. Polls consistently show that a significant majority of Republican men, and even as many as half of Republican women, believe that amid the reassessment of gender relations sparked by the MeToo movement, men are being unfairly punished and discriminated against.
Skip to content. Sign in My Account Subscribe. The Atlantic Crossword. The Print Edition. Latest Issue Past Issues. Only through November Try subscriber newsletters for free. Chris Bodenner. Atlantic reader Genuine Realist , a retired public defender, explains the case through a critical lens: It had a strange procedural history. Scott K counters : You misunderstand. The last word, for now, goes to Turtles Run : The issue here the trampling of constitutional rights.
According to the most widely used definition of mental retardation, it is characterized by three criteria: significantly subaverage intellectual functioning; concurrent and related limitations in two or more adaptive skill areas; and manifestation before age eighteen. Subaverage intellectual functioning. Intelligence quotient I. The vast majority of people in the United States have I. To be diagnosed as having mental retardation, a person must have an I.
If a person scores below 70 on a properly administered and scored I. Although all persons with mental retardation have significantly impaired mental development, their intellectual level can vary considerably. An estimated 89 percent of all people with retardation have I.
For the lay person or non-specialist, the significance of a low I. That is, he cannot perform intellectual tasks beyond the capacity of a typical ten-year-old. According to a psychologist who evaluated Mata, "his ability to express himself and his ability to recognize the meaning of common words were at the level of a nine- to ten-year-old child He lacked basic understanding of familiar processes.
He did not know the function of the stomach, where the sun sets, nor why stamps are needed on letters Arithmetic abilities were limited to addition and subtraction with the help of concrete aids such as fingers. The threshold I. Limitations in adaptive skills. Mental retardation entails significant limitations in two or more of the basic skill areas necessary to cope with the requirements of everyday life, e. He or she may have trouble sitting or standing still, or may smile constantly and inappropriately.
Limitations in everyday coping skills may be more or less severe, ranging from individuals who can live alone with intermittent support, to individuals who require extensive hands-on assistance and guidance, to individuals who require constant supervision and care. For most people with mental retardation, limited adaptive skills make ordinary life extremely difficult unless a caring family or social support system exists to provide assistance and structure.
Offenders with mental retardation who have been convicted of committing capital crimes typically grew up poor and without networks of special support and services -- often without even a supportive, loving family.
They functioned as best they could without professional assistance, often required to fend for themselves while still teenagers. If they were able to work, it was at basic menial tasks. After being hired as a kitchen dishwasher he was fired when he could not learn to operate the dishwasher.
Family members reported that "if one told Billy exactly what to do and took him to the place where it was to be done [he] could do some work. If he were left on his own and not specifically guided, he could not do it. Manifestation before the age of eighteen. Mental retardation is present from childhood. It can be caused by any condition which impairs development of the brain before, during, or after birth.
The causes are numerous: hereditary factors; genetic abnormalities e. Down's syndrome ; poor prenatal care; infections during pregnancy; abnormal delivery; illness during infancy; toxic substances e. Regardless of the cause, part of the definition of mental retardation is that it manifests itself during an individual's developmental period, usually deemed to be birth through age eighteen.
Many psychiatrists argue that the age before which signs of retardation must become manifest should be raised from eighteen to twenty-two, to reflect the difficulties in obtaining accurate age records for many people with this disability and the differing rates at which people develop. An ordinary adult cannot suddenly "become" mentally retarded. An adult may, for reasons related to accident or illness, suffer a catastrophic loss in intellectual functioning and adaptive skills, but this would not make him or her "mentally retarded," since by definition mental retardation starts during childhood.
One implication of this is that mental retardation is virtually impossible for an adult to fake: when evaluating whether an adult is mentally retarded, testers look not only at I. Early diagnosis can help the person with mental retardation obtain access to appropriate special education, training, clinical programs, and social services during important developmental years -- as well as through life. With help from family, social workers, teachers, and friends, many mentally retarded people succeed in simple jobs, maintain their own households, marry, and give birth to children of normal intelligence.
There is no "cure" for mental retardation. Characteristics and Significance of Mental Retardation. Although mental retardation of any degree has profound implications for a person's cognitive and social development, it is a condition which in many cases is not readily apparent. While some of the mentally retarded, such as those whose retardation is caused by Down's syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome, have characteristically distinctive facial features, most cannot be identified by their physical appearance alone.
Unless their cognitive impairment is unusually severe e. Many capital offenders with mental retardation did not have their condition diagnosed until trial or during post-conviction proceedings.
A person with mental retardation, according to one expert, "is always the least smart person in any group. This leads to fear, dependence and an experience of terrible stigma and devaluation. They may wrap themselves in a "cloak of competence," hiding their disability even from those who want to help them, including their lawyers. At times, even competent lawyers who are anxious to help their clients may fail to identify their clients' retardation or may be unable to access funds for a psychological evaluation.
Cruz nonetheless insisted to reporters that, although he was perhaps "slow in reading, slow in learning," he was not mentally retarded. He had gone through much of his schooling allowing his younger sister to complete his homework for him. When he was given papers to read in connection to his case, he would carefully stare at them.
If he was asked a substantive question, he usually responded, "I don't recall. He lied about finishing high school.
He was actually in special education classes and did not finish the sixth grade. He was drafted into the army and discharged because of his mental retardation. He lied about his service record.
He often made things up so that people would not suspect mental retardation. The fact that many people with mental retardation can and do live relatively "normal" lives with their families or in the community, coupled with the fact that most of them do not look different from people with average intellectual capabilities, can make it difficult for the public to appreciate the significance of their condition.
But, as the late U. A person with mental retardation will have limitations of a greater or lesser extent in every aspect of cognitive functioning. He or she will have limited abilities to learn including reading, writing, and arithmetic and to reason, plan, understand, judge, and discriminate. Mental retardation truncates the capacity to think about intended actions, to consider their possible consequences, and to exercise restraint. One expert has summarized the attributes of mental retardation as follows:.
Almost uniformly, individuals with mental retardation have grave difficulties in language and communication. They have problems with attention, memory, intellectual rigidity, and in moral development or moral understanding. They are susceptible to suggestion and readily acquiesce to other adults or authority figures People with mental retardation have limited knowledge because their impaired intelligence has prevented them from learning very much.
They also have grave problems in logic, foresight, planning, strategic thinking, and understanding consequences. Many of these limitations, of course, characterize children. But while children will outgrow these limitations as their brains develop and mature, people with mental retardation will not. In limiting a person's cognitive development and ability to learn, mental retardation also limits the ability to understand abstract concepts, including moral concepts.
While most defendants with mental retardation who have committed a crime know they have done something wrong, they often cannot explain why the act was wrong. The inability to comprehend abstract concepts may include the inability to fully understand the meaning of "death" or "murder". Before his execution, Mason asked one of his legal advisors for advice on what to wear to his funeral.
At his clemency hearing, the chair of the Louisiana pardons board asked Sawyer if he knew what murder was. Sawyer responded, "That's when the breath leaves your body. Since they often face abuse, taunts, and rejection because of their low intelligence, people with mental retardation can be desperate for approval and friendship. Eager to be accepted and eager to please, people with mental retardation are characteristically highly suggestible.
Washington was so suggestible and eager to please, according to a former employer, that "you could get [him] to confess that he walked on the moon. L ow intelligence and limited adaptive skills also mean that people with mental retardation often miss social "cues" that other adults understand. Their inappropriate social responses can be misinterpreted by people who do not know they have mental retardation or who do not understand the nature of retardation.
They may act in ways that seem suspicious, even when they have done nothing wrong. When questioned by police or other authority figures, they often smile inappropriately, fail to remain still when ordered to do so, or act agitated and furtive when they should be calm and polite. Others may fall asleep at the wrong moment.
Welcome has mental retardation and, according to psychiatric testimony presented at his trial, has a mental age of eight. He smiled incessantly during his capital murder trial, an almost involuntary defense mechanism developed in response to a lifetime of taunts. As his defense attorney noted, "Many people with retardation smile a lot They are anxious for approval, and have learned that smiling is one way to get [it].
But they don't have the judgment to know when to smile. He was sentenced to death and remains today on death row. Trial counsel were not aware that they had mental retardation. But their tendency to sleep peacefully during their trials helped alert post-conviction lawyers to their mental disability. In the case of White, who snored loudly during the penalty phase of his trial, the prosecutor argued that his conduct indicated his lack of remorse for his crime and his lack of respect for the criminal justice system.
Both Fairchild and White were sentenced to death and executed. The vast majority of people with mental retardation never break the law. Although people with mental retardation constitute somewhere between 2.
0コメント