Photo Minute: Beautiful Coastlines Of England

9 things you will not go to jail in Ireland for

Beata Schimd had been told to turn up in the High Court in Dublin and had packed for a trip to prison. An Garda Síochána has been told to make sure there are officers in court “with a view to conveying Ms Schmid to prison”.

Ms Schmid worked for a division of IBM Ireland and sees herself as a whistleblower. She told the court in her last appearance before Judge George Birmingham that she had discovered and reported “severe discrepancies” in sales records. She downloaded the data on to a memory stick which she took home. IBM then went to court and secured an order requiring her to hand over her laptop and the memory stick, which she did.

IBM then went back to court demanding the return of a second memory stick on to which it believes she made at least a partial copy of the data. She insists she does not have a second memory stick. The judge ordered her to produce it nonetheless and told her that she will go to prison today if she does not comply.

I make no comment on the rights and wrongs of this case. I don’t doubt at all that the court will apply the existing law fairly and with integrity. I merely draw attention to a certain poignancy – Beata Schmid, who rightly or wrongly sees herself as a corporate whistleblower, may well go to prison but here are nine things for which we can say with confidence that Beata Schmid almost certainly would not go to jail for:

1. Systematically paying workers a significant portion of their wages “under the counter”, without deducting tax and insurance. And regularly sourcing the cash for these from local banks using fraudulent cheques made out to nonexistent individuals. (Goodman beef processors, as concluded by the beef tribunal.)

2. Undermining the integrity of a key State commercial competition by exerting an “insidious and perverse” and “pervasive and abusive” influence on the process. (Michael Lowry} Moriarty tribunal report.)

3. Acting in a manner that was “profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking”. (Lowry and Ben Dunne, in relation to attempts to influence arbitration of rental payments to Dunne, Moriarty report.)

4. Making corruption “both systemic and endemic” at every level of Irish political life. (The Mahon tribunal)

5. Stealing money raised for a friend’s life-saving operation. The Moriarty tribunal found that Charles Haughty stole a “sizeable proportion” of Brian Lenihan’s medical fund.

6. Committing perjury. Charles Haughey lied to the McCracken tribunal, claiming that he had not received money from Ben Dunne but later conceding he had done so. The Bailey brothers “hindered and obstructed” the Flood tribunal in a number of ways, including making untrue statements under oath. Not only did Mick and Tom Bailey each give false evidence under oath, but the tribunal found that they had colluded to concoct that evidence.

7. Covering up and repeatedly facilitating sexual attacks on children by known predatory paedophiles. (Several Irish bishops, the Murphy report.)

8. Operating a massive and systematic tax fraud against the State. In 1993, the then huge sum of £2 billion was held in non-residential accounts the banks knew to be fraudulent. Allied Irish Bank alone had 88,000 “non-resident” accounts – the practice was highly organised throughout virtually all Irish banks. The public accounts committee found it to be “an industry-wide phenomenon”.

9. Manufacturing a therapeutic substance without a licence, not informing women that you knew had been infected with hepatitis C and not informing the Department of Health of the infection as you were obliged to do by law. (Senior management of the Blood Transfusion Service Board, Finlay report).

These are some of the socially destructive things you can do in Ireland, confident that there is a tiny chance you will be prosecuted, a tinier chance you will be convicted and a chance of going to jail that recedes towards vanishing point.

And this is not about the dark past: in the three years after the bank collapse, 2008, 2009 and 2010, the conviction rate for white-collar offences fell dramatically. In 2004, there were 467 convictions for white-collar crimes; in 2010, there were just 178. This is in spite of the fact that the number of recorded white-collar offences rose by 33 per cent in the same period.

A country that can’t enforce its own laws against acts that cause immense damage to citizens is not merely not a republic – it’s not even a functioning State. And only a dysfunctional State would be refusing to talk about the catastrophic failure of its legal system.

Fintan O’ Toole

Foul-mouthed people are the most honest

Temperate language has traditionally been considered a social virtue, but new research suggests that people who refrain from swearing are often the most devious and dishonest.

Those fond of effing and blinding, by contrast, are likely to be the most honest in any given group, according to academics at the University of Cambridge.

The study describes how 276 participants were asked to list their favourite swear words in order to gauge how fond they were of turning the air blue.

They were then given a survey asking them to agree or disagree with statements such as “I never lie” and “all my habits are good” to assess their propensity for dishonesty.

The researchers found that the most honest in the group were also the biggest swearers.

“At least people who swear are telling you what they really think”

Dr David Stillwell, one of the study's authors, said the correlation may stem from the constraints imposed by social convention.

“If you’re trying to follow the social norms rather than saying what you think, you are saying what people want to hear,” he said.

“In that respect you are not being very honest.

“We did not look at extreme dishonesty such as fraud, so from that experiment it’s an open question as to whether there would be a link.”

However, he said the findings corroborate research in the US which links states with a high level of swearing to low levels of honesty-related crime.

States such as New Jersey, where a lot of people use bad language, were found to rank highly on the State Integrity Index, whereas Utah and other places where bad language is a relative rarity saw higher levels of fraud or similar offences.

People who regularly posted short, simple messages on Facebook were found to be the least likely to swear, but also more dishonest

“At least people who swear are telling you what they really think,” said Dr Stillwell.

“Although if people said what they think all the time, would that really be a good thing?”

The researchers also examined the Facebook postings of 75,000 people, where a similar correlation was observed.

People who regularly posted short, simple messages were the least likely to swear.

Dr Sillwell said simple statements are already known to be associated with dishonesty, because liars find it hard to make up complicated sentences.

However, more nuanced language, evidenced by words such as “but” and “however”, as well as use of pronouns which associate the speaker with his or her statement, are commonly agreed to indicate honesty.

In the Facebook analysis, people who spoke in this style were also more likely to swear.

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Henry Bodkin

Your office job is literally aging you

Sitting for more than 10 hours a day means you are biologically eight years older, a study found.

Those who sat for extended periods and got little exercise had cells that were biologically older than the cells of people who moved around.

Researchers from the University of California at San Diego studied almost 1,500 women ages 64 to 95.

They found those who remained seated for more than 10 hours and completed less than 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day were most affected.

These women had shorter telomeres — tiny protective caps found on the ends of DNA strands that act like the plastic tips of shoelaces.

Telomeres guard against deterioration and progressively shorten and fray with age. Shortened telomeres are associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and major cancers.

Significantly, the shortening process can be accelerated by lifestyle factors such as obesity and smoking.

Study leader Dr. Aladdin Shadyab said people who spend long hours sitting at desks or in chairs at home could mitigate some of the damage by exercising.

He said, “Our study found cells age faster with a sedentary lifestyle.”

“Chronological age doesn’t always match biological age.”

“We found that women who sat longer did not have shorter telomere length if they exercised for at least 30 minutes a day.”

“Discussions about the benefits of exercise should start when we are young, and physical activity should continue to be part of our daily lives as we get older, even at 80 years old.”

National United Kingdom guidelines suggest adults should get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise each week.

Health chiefs suggest this can be achieved by doing 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five days a week.

They also advise: “All adults should minimize the amount of time spent being sedentary (sitting) for extended periods.”

Shadyab said his research team is the first to objectively measure how the combination of sedentary time and exercise can impact the aging of telomeres.

The participants completed questionnaires and wore an accelerometer on their right hip for seven consecutive days during waking and sleeping hours to track their movements.

The findings were published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Future studies will examine how exercise relates to telomere length in younger people and men.

Previous studies have suggested men who adopt a sedentary lifestyle may be less at risk of disease than women.

Shaun Wooler

Martin McGuinness' contribution to peace will have long legacy

He was the IRA commander who took arms against the British only to shake the hands of Queen Elizabeth as a political leader in Northern Ireland.

A former butcher from the Bogside in Derry, a man of action during the street fighting of the 1970s, he ended up toasting the Queen at Windsor Castle after a long career of peace-making.

The decision by Martin McGuinness to bow out of frontline politics in the North was not surprising but is a seismic event.

His journey from the streets of the Bogside to the office of Deputy First Minister in Stormont, the traditional home of Ulster Unionism, was by any standard, remarkable, as described by former President Mary McAleese last night.

Describing his departure from the political arena as “desperately sad”, Ms McAleese said McGuinness’ retirement represented a huge loss to politics in the North.

In 1972, the thought of the British monarch greeting the man who helped lead the Provisionals in a bloody campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland would have been unbelievable.

He turned to republicanism after witnessing the 1960s government repression of the nationalist community and its failure to prevent the escalating violence that destroyed the civil rights movement.

When the Provisional IRA began to emerge (albeit in small numbers) in key nationalist areas in 1969 and 1970, McGuinness joined and rose through its newly formed ranks.

In 1971, he became the 21-year-old commander of “Free Derry” and appeared at a Provisional IRA press conference where the new leadership offered to talk peace.

The Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday said he “probably” carried a sub-machine gun during the massacre of 14 unarmed civil rights protesters by soldiers in Derry.

Martin McGuinness in the 1980s — he was in contact with British intelligence indirectly during the hunger strikes in the early 1980s

Unlike others, McGuinness never denied his past. He admitted to being second-in-command of the IRA that day.

In 1973 he was convicted by the Republic of Ireland’s Special Criminal Court after being arrested near a car containing explosives and ammunition.

At his 1973 conviction, McGuinness said: “We have fought against the killing of our people. I am a member of Óglaigh na hÉireann (IRA) and very, very proud of it.”

After his release, and another conviction in the Republic for IRA membership, he became increasingly prominent in Sinn Fein, eventually becoming its best known face after Gerry Adams.

He was in contact with British intelligence indirectly during the hunger strikes in the early 1980s, and again in the early 1990s.

He became MP for Mid Ulster in 1997 but in line with Sinn Fein’s abstentionist policy from Westminster, he took his expenses but not the seat.

McGuinness was Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement which ended violence, secured IRA arms decommissioning in 2005 and shared government with former enemies in Belfast as deputy first minister.

Following election to the new Northern Ireland Assembly, Sinn Fein nominated McGuinness to become education minister. That sparked fury from some unionists, though Mr McGuinness insisted he would govern for all children.

Against the odds, McGuinness and the great enemy of republicanism Ian Paisley forged a decent working relationship and a warm bond developed between the two men.

They were dubbed “the Chuckle Brothers” but it is said the two never shook hands.

In December 2007, while visiting US president George W Bush at the White House with Paisley, McGuinness said: “Up until the 26th of March this year, Ian Paisley and I never had a conversation about anything — not even about the weather — and now we have worked very closely together over the last seven months and    there’s been no angry words between us “This shows we are set for a new course.”

Martin McGuinness enjoying an ice cream alongside Sinn Féin leader and Gerry Adams.

The Good Friday Agreement proved difficult to implement and was followed by the St Andrew’s Agreement in 2006.

Sinn Fein ambitions such as a bill of rights for Northern Ireland and an Irish language act are still unfulfilled.

After Paisley’s retirement, McGuinness endured a much tougher time with subsequent DUP leaders, Peter Robinson and more recently Arlene Foster at the top of the power-sharing executive in Stormont.

He unsuccessfully ran to be Irish President in 2011, but it was his attack on fellow candidate Sean Gallagher in a key television debate which saw the latter’s campaign capitulate and Michael D Higgins elected.

His IRA past dogged him throughout the campaign with then minister Phil Hogan asking the question: “Do we really want a terrorist in the Áras?”

Now in 2017, McGuinness has had his political journey ended by serious illness.

This became evident to most only 10 days ago when he resigned his position as deputy first minister over the Renewable Housing Incentive scandal.

The frail figure and weak voice that came out of our television screens shocked many who saw McGuinness, the icon, so familiar to so many for so long, diminished so dramatically.

Under the power-sharing arrangements, he took the first minister with him, ending a decade of testy coalition government with the DUP and forcing an election.

But his refusal at that stage to clarify his own intentions led many to conclude his time was coming to an end.

He confirmed those suspicions last night.

Martin McGuinness sharing a joke with former enemy Ian Paisely, with whom he worked closedly for years

“Last year, Gerry Adams and I confirmed that we had a plan in place for transition to a new leadership. For my part, it was my intention to step aside in May this year which would have marked 10 years since I entered government with Ian Paisley as joint leader of the northern Executive.

"Unfortunately, my health and the current crisis have overtaken this time-frame and I am stepping down from my role to make way for a new leader of Sinn Féin in the North,” he said.

He said his “obvious health issues” have forced him to be open and honest with his friends and colleagues in Sinn Féin, with the electorate of Foyle.

“Unfortunately, I am not physically able to continue in my current role and have therefore decided to make way for a new leader. This election is the right time for me to move aside so I will not seek re-election to the Assembly,” he said.

So as he exits stage left, McGuinness’ legacy will loom large over not just republicanism but Northern Ireland politics in general.

His rejection of the bomb in favour of the ballot was truly significant and his ability to work with bitter enemies like Paisley and Robinson illustrates the extent of his abilities.

Martin McGuinnessdoing what would have once been unthinkable, shaking hands with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

He retires without his dream of a united Ireland being fulfilled during his tenure and strong doubts remain among some republicans about what they have gained through entering Stormont.

But his contribution to peace on this island will be long remembered.

Daniel McConnell

Talking To A Therapist Can Literally Rewire Your Brain

These changes in brain connectivity may be responsible for a patient’s long-term recovery from mental illness.

If you can change the way you think, you can change your brain. 

That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that challenging unhealthy thought patterns with the help of a therapist can lead to measurable changes in brain activity.

In the study, psychologists at King’s College London show that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy strengthens certain healthy brain connections in patients with psychosis. This heightened connectivity was associated with long-term reductions in psychotic symptoms and recovery eight years later, according to the findings, which were published online on Tuesday in the Journal: Translational Psychiatry.

“Over six months of therapy, we found that connections between certain key brain regions became stronger,” Dr. Liam Mason, a clinical psychologist at King’s College and the study’s lead author, told The Huffington Post in an email. “What we are really excited about here is that these stronger connections lead to long-term improvements in people’s symptoms and overall recovery across the eight years that we followed them up.”

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT is a psychotherapy technique that was developed in the ‘70s and is commonly practiced today. CBT targets depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses by helping patients to identify dysfunctional thought patterns and beliefs, and ultimately to replace them with healthy ones.

In the case of schizophrenia and psychosis, CBT can help patients reframe their thinking around unusual perceptions or paranoid thoughts ― for instance, the belief that others are out to get them. 

“CBT helps people learn new ways of thinking about and responding to their difficulties,” Mason said. “What we think makes it effective is that people can take the tools they have learned and practiced in therapy, and then continue to use them long after the therapy has ended.” 

Rewriting Beliefs, Rewiring The Brain 

In rewriting their deeply-ingrained thought patterns, it seems that patients also quite literally rewire their brains. 

In a previous study, Mason and his team showed in a previous study that psychosis patients who received CBT had stronger connections between brain regions involved in accurate processing of social threats. The new findings reveal that these changes are enduring, and they may be critical to long-term recovery. 

In the original study, patients with psychosis underwent brain imaging both before and after three months of CBT. The patients’ brains were scanned while they looked at images of faces expressing different emotions. After undergoing CBT, the patients showed marked increases in brain activity. Specifically, the brain scans showed heightened connections between the amygdala, the brain region involved in fear and threat processing, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for reasoning and thinking rationally ― suggesting that the patients had an improved ability to accurately perceive social threats. 

“We think that this change may be important in allowing people to consciously re-think immediate emotional reactions,” Mason said. 

For their new research, Mason and his colleagues followed 15 of the original study participants, tracking their health over the course of eight years using medical records. At the end of the eight years, the participants also answered questions about their overall recovery and well-being. 

The researchers found that heightened connectivity between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex was associated with long-term recovery from psychosis. The exciting finding marks the first time scientists have been able to demonstrate that brain changes resulting from psychotherapy may be responsible for long-term recovery from mental illness. 

Overcoming Psychiatry’s “Brain Bias” 

There’s a good chance that similar brain changes also occur in CBT patients being treated for anxiety and depression, Mason said. 

“There is research showing that some of the same connections may also be strengthened by CBT for anxiety disorders,” he explained.

The findings challenge the “brain bias” in psychiatry, an institutional focus on physical brain differences over psychological factors in mental illness. Thanks to this common bias, many psychiatrists are prone to recommending medication to their clients rather than psychological treatments such as CBT.  

“Psychological therapy can lead to changes in the mechanics of the brain,” Mason said. “This is especially important for conditions like psychosis which have traditionally been viewed as ‘brain diseases’ that require medication or even surgery.” 

“This research challenges the notion that the existence of physical brain differences in mental health disorders somehow makes psychological factors or treatments less important,” Mason added in a statement.

Caroline Gregoire

Photo Minute: Photo Alignment Gone Wrong !!