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Thursday, March 31, 2016

A crack den where my trips had a hit in the shooting gallery - As Russell Brand reported it


Russell Brand BBC documentary:

 'I took drugs every day'



crack den

 noun
a place where people go to buy and use the illegal drug crack

drug czar

 noun
an official employed by a national government to try to stop the trade in illegal drugs

fix

 noun
an amount of a drug that someone feels they need to take regularly

high

 noun
feeling produced by drugs or alcohol

hit

 noun
the effect that an illegal drug has on someone who uses it

hookah

 noun
pipe for smoking tobacco or drugs that has a    long tube and pulls the smoke through    small container of water

joint

 noun
informal
 a cigarette that contains cannabis

mule

 noun
informal
 someone who is paid to bring illegal drugs into a country by hiding them on or in their body

rush

 noun
informal
 a strong feeling of pleasure that people get after taking some types of drugs

shooting gallery

 noun
mainly american
informal
 a place where people use illegal drugs by injecting them

spliff

 noun
very informal
 a cigarette made with cannabis (=an illegal drug)

toke

 noun
informal
 an act of breathing in smoke from a cigarette or pipe containing cannabis

tracks

 noun
marks left by a needle on the skin of someone who uses illegal drugs

trip

 noun
very informal
 a strange experience that someone has because they have taken a powerful illegal drug

withdrawal

 noun
a period during which someone feels ill because they have stopped taking a drug or other substance that they are addicted to

GROUP DISCUSSION: DRUGS

1. Do you think there are any legal drugs that should be illegal? What about illegal ones that should be legal?

2. Do you consider alcohol a drug?

3. Should doctors be allowed to prescribe marijuana (grass/pot)? If so, to whom and for what reasons?

4. Do you think men are more likely to use illegal drugs than women? Why or why not? What about legal ones?

5. What should happen to a person who is caught using illegal drugs? What about selling them?

6. Why do you think so many famous people take drugs?

7. Can a person become addicted to prescription drugs? Which ones? Are there any illegal drugs that a person can't become addicted to?
10 August 2012

GUARDIAN

“I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple. It actually is simple but it isn’t easy: it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. Not to mention that the whole infrastructure of abstinence based recovery is shrouded in necessary secrecy. There are support fellowships that are easy to find and open to anyone who needs them but they eschew promotion of any kind in order to preserve the purity of their purpose, which is for people with alcoholism and addiction to help one another stay clean and sober. Without these fellowships I would take drugs. Because, even now, the condition persists. Drugs and alcohol are not my problem, reality is my problem, drugs and alcohol are my solution. If this seems odd to you it is because you are not an alcoholic or a drug addict. You are likely one of the 90% of people who can drink and use drugs safely. I have friends who can smoke weed, swill gin, even do crack and then merrily get on with their lives. For me, this is not an option. I will relinquish all else to ride that buzz to oblivion.” 

- See more at: 
Read Russell Brand’s recent editorial in the Guardian here: Russell Brand: My life without drugs http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/mar/09/russell-brand-life-without-drugs
Russell Brand will be performing in Coral Springs, Florida on Sunday, September 22 2013 at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts. http://www.ticketmaster.com/Russell-Brand-tickets/artist/1206095?tm_link=edp_Artist_Name#artist_table_focus

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

dud moore


List 9. Literature in our lives:

We are glad Kim Parcerises from Vich, gladly contributed to the unit!

Visiting Dr. Braintree (sketch) 

GOAL. To enjoy the verbal performance of the actors, understanding the little nuances ot the text.
for the transcript go to unit9
here




STRESS PATTERNS PRACTICE 
 A: TRY twice:
INTRO 1- Dr B: Would you like to sit down, or would you prefer to lie. 

 B. TRY  number 2 twice:
2- R: Yes, it’s funny really, you know if anybody had told me that talking to psychiatrists would’ve help me at all, I would’ve laughed in their faces, you know. 
 C. Now in pairs read this part below:
3- R: But I can honestly say that our little chats together have ... have really been a tremendous benefit to me.
4- Dr B: Well, this is wonderful news, Roger – you’re in love. With a woman?
Dr B: Well, love is a wonderful thing, I’ve been there myself. It’s a wonderful thing.
5- R: ... I-I seem to be saddled with this tremendous burning sense of guilt.
6- Dr B: You have guilt as well as love. You know, sex is the most natural, healthy thing in the world. 

  D. Now in pairs read this last part below:
7- Dr B: Well, begin at the beginning, that’s always the best place. What’s the girl’s name? 
                              = = = =
8- R: Yes, it’s ... it’s Stephanie, it’s your wife, Stephanie.
9- Dr B: Oh, you’re in love with my wife, Stephanie.
10- R: Yes.
11- Dr B: Well, this is a perfectly understandable thing, Roger. She’s a very attractive woman,  I married her myself.
12- R: You’re so reasonable, aren’t you?

                                       ***


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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

a milligram of the X-treme zone - aka Gaming death for an audience

                 DEBATE
Have YOU ever wondered this: 

 Can TV turn us into potential executioners?

limits  -  power  -  
morality  -  obedience

A TV channel is stirring controversy with a documentary about a game show in which contestants obey orders to deliver increasingly powerful electric shocks to a man. 
The producers of "The Game of Death," wanted to examine both what they call TV's mind-numbing power to suspend morality, and the striking human willingness to obey orders. 

"Television is a power. We know it, but it's theoretical," producer Christophe Nick told the daily Le Parisien. "I wondered: Is it so important that it can turn us into potential executioners?"
In the end, some "players" gave the maximum jolt.
"People never would have obeyed if they didn't have trust," Nick was quoted as saying in the paper's Wednesday edition. 
The experience, he said, continued to effect participants even after it was over. Some grew bolder about standing up to their bosses, or admitted their homosexuality to their families, he said."For many, it changed their lives," Nick said.



Watch these two videos:

1)  Sky news  (01:17) - 

French TV 'Torture Game Show' Condemned




2) YOUTUBE  ( 02:20 )https://youtu.be/ZCamiWs-KMs

Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death) is a television documentary that was broadcast by the French state-run television channel. The documentary was presented as a social commentary  on the effects of humiliation in reality television and obeying orders, and its broadcast was followed by a studio discussion on the programme. 
The documentary focused on a conduction of the Milgram experiment, but with the additional factor of the popularity and influence of reality television on the general public. The experiment was performed under the guise of a television show known as La Zone XtrĆŖme.  
Volunteers were given €xxxx to take part as contestants in a "pilot" for the fictitious show, where they had to administer increasingly stronger electric shocks to trained actors posing as players as punishment for incorrect answers, as encouraged to do so by the host and audience.
Only xxx of 80 "contestants" chose to end the game before delivering the highest voltage punishment.

  __ bit 1__

A disturbing French TV documentary has tried to demonstrate how well-meaning people can be manipulated into becoming torturers or even executioners. 
The hugely controversial Game of Death was broadcast in prime-time on a major terrestrial channel, France 2, on Wednesday.
It showed 80 people taking part in what they thought was a game show pilot. 
As it was only a trial, they were told they wouldn't win anything, but they were given a nominal 40 euro fee.
Before the show, they signed contracts agreeing to inflict electric shocks on other contestants.
One by one, they were put in a studio resembling the sets of popular game shows.
They were then asked to zap a man they believed was another contestant whenever he failed to answer a question correctly - with increasingly powerful shocks of up to 460 volts.

Blind obedience 
Egged on by a glamorous presenter, cries of "punishment" from a studio audience and dramatic music, the overwhelming majority of the participants obeyed orders to continue delivering the shocks - despite the man's screams of agony and pleas for them to stop.
Screen grab from The Game of Death
 This programme denounces manipulation by authority but at the same time it manipulates people 
Marie-France Hirigoyen
Psychiatrist

Eventually he fell silent, presumably because he had died or lost consciousness.
The contestants didn't know that the man, strapped in a chair inside a cubicle so they couldn't see him, was really an actor. There were no shocks and it was all an experiment to see how far they would go. 
Only xxx of the 80 participants stopped before the ultimate, potentially lethal shock. 
"No one expected this result," intoned a commentary. "some candidates went to the very end." 
The show was billed as a warning against blindly obeying authority - and a critique of reality TV shows in which participants are humiliated or hurt.  
Psychiatrist Marie-France Hirigoyen, who had no part in the documentary, said she accepted that it could help viewers understand the importance of standing up to an abusive authority, but she was concerned about its effect on participants. 
"This programme denounces manipulation by authority but at the same time it manipulates people," she told the BBC.
"I wouldn't have accepted this show because I think it inflicts unnecessary trauma on people, but on the other hand, to get this message across, you probably need to be sensationalist."



  __ bit  2__

Fake TV Game Show 'Tortures' Man, Shocks France
The documentary makers say reality television relies increasingly on violent, humiliating and cruel acts to boost ratings. They say they simply wanted to see if we would go so far as to kill someone for entertainment.
Christophe Nick produced the documentary, The Game of Death, with a group of scientists and researchers.
"Most of us think we have free thinking and so we are responsible for our acts," Nick says. "This experience shows that in certain circumstances, a power — the TV in this case — is able to make you do something you don't want to do."
The idea that something deeply rooted in the human psyche makes most of us unable to resist authority is not new. The French documentary was based on an American experiment carried out in the 1960s by psychologist Stanley Milgram.
Milgram had participants delivering what they believed were electric shocks to a man every time he answered a question incorrectly. In that experiment, 60 percent of participants obeyed the sadistic orders until the end.
The French documentary, which was broadcast in France on Wednesday night, included footage of the Milgram experiment.
Sociologist Jean Claude Kaufmann says the French version combines Milgram's use of authority with the power of live television. He says the result in the French experiment — a higher percentage of participants willing to shock the subject — shows that the manipulative power of television further increases people's willingness to obey.

     )=======(   
doc complete (01:31:20) - in FRENCH -youtube

CODA:  wikipedia - Replications
File:A-Virtual-Reprise-of-the-Stanley-Milgram-Obedience-Experiments-pone.0000039.s011.ogv
A virtual replication of the experiment, with an avatar serving as the learner.
Around the time of the release of Obedience to Authority in 1973–74, a version of the experiment was conducted at La Trobe University in Australia. As reported by Perry in her 2012 book Behind the Shock Machine, some of the participants experienced long-lasting psychological effects, possibly due to the lack of proper debriefing by the experimenter.[26]
In 2002, the British artist Rod Dickinson created The Milgram Re-enactment, an exact reconstruction of parts of the original experiment, including the uniforms, lighting, and rooms used. An audience watched the four-hour performance through one-way glass windows.[27][28] A video of this performance was first shown at the CCA Gallery in Glasgowin 2002.
A partial replication of the experiment was staged by British illusionist Derren Brown and broadcast on UK's Channel 4 in The Heist (2006).[29]
Another partial replication of the experiment was conducted by Jerry M. Burger in 2006 and broadcast on the Primetime series Basic Instincts. Burger noted that "current standards for the ethical treatment of participants clearly place Milgram's studies out of bounds." In 2009, Burger was able to receive approval from the institutional review board by modifying several of the experimental protocols.[30] Burger found obedience rates virtually identical to those reported by Milgram found in 1961–62, even while meeting current ethical regulations of informing participants. In addition, half the replication participants were female, and their rate of obedience was virtually identical to that of the male participants. Burger also included a condition in which participants first saw another participant refuse to continue. However, participants in this condition obeyed at the same rate as participants in the base condition.[31]
In the 2010 French documentary Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death), researchers recreated the Milgram experiment with an added critique of reality television by presenting the scenario as a game show pilot. Volunteers were given €40 and told they would not win any money from the game, as this was only a trial. Only 16 of 80 "contestants" (teachers) chose to end the game before delivering the highest-voltage punishment.[32][33]
The experiment was performed on Dateline NBC on an episode airing April 25, 2010.
The Discovery Channel aired the "How Evil are You" segment of Curiosity on October 30, 2011. The episode was hosted by Eli Roth, who produced results similar to the original Milgram experiment, though the highest-voltage punishment used was 165 volts, rather than 450 volts.[34]
Due to increasingly widespread knowledge of the experiment, recent replications of the procedure have had to ensure that participants were not previously aware of it.[citation needed]