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Introduction by James E. Reibman
Fredric Wertham's ideas on the harmful effects created by media-induced violence, first set out in the late 1940s, resonate with those who are concerned by the searing of our cultural fabric. Many now decry a pervasive lack of civility and attenuated mores that reveal a profound failure to agree on what constitutes acceptable moral and social behavior. Our common distress has led us to revisit the debate on the origins of human aggression and the extent to which one's environment contributes to the development of personality. Although technological changes have introduced videos, cable television channels, and computer networks to the issues raised by crime comic books, the fundamental elements of concern remain the same: rape and sexual abuse, gender bias, racial prejudice, and anti-social behavior. Moreover, constitutionally protected rights to free speech, economic power, and industrial self-regulation all continue to contribute to the problem of violence in mass media.
Of course, these issues have a long history on the transforming power of art in Western Culture. Although the debate centers on Plato's argument in The Republic that recognizes the dangers of the mimesis (imitation): "For the fact that it succeeds in maiming even the decent men, except for a certain few, is surely terrible ... ," [1] alerts us to ambiguity of a powerful image. Certainly, Plato's fear of the unintended consequences of poetry is challenged by Aristotle's notion of cathersis in the Poetics that allows one to " ... thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place ... "and then "to effect a proper purgation of these emotions .... " [2] These competing ideas frame the argument that Wertham considers the locus classicus of the attraction of violence. This is set out clearly in the episode of Alypius in The Confessiones (397-401) written by St. Augustine of Hippo. Alypius, a young student, refuses his friends' entreaties to join them as they view the spectacles in the Colosseum in Rome. One day, when his friends drag Alypius to the Colosseum, he sits in the stands but covers his eyes so that he will not see what is taking place. Nevertheless, Alypius hears the shouts and slowly peers through his fingers to view the action. The spectacle is so riveting that Alypius lowers his hands. As he becomes engrossed in the violence and gore, his eyes become so full of desire, concupiscentia oculorum, that he cannot turn away and he joins in the blood lust himself. [3] "The effect of mass seduction by public spectacles on an immature mind, especially in the direction of unconscious fascination by sadism and violence" and the "role of social temptation" are first credited by Wertham to St. Augustine, whom Wertham calls "the first modern psychologist." [4] The power that draws one into viewing violence is neither redeeming nor edifying, but it is real and often harmful to young minds.
In Seduction of the Innocent (1954), which sums up his early work on comic book violence and addresses the commercial forces driving popular culture, Fredric Wertham directly confronts the issue of censorship raised by those who maintain that his efforts to control crime comic books subvert constitutional protections of freedom of speech:
What is censorship? The industry has observed that by claiming that the publisher exercises a censorship over himself. That is not what censorship means. It means control of one agency by another. When Freud speaks of an internal censor in the human mind, he does not mean that instinctive behavior can control itself. He specifically postulates another agency, the superego, which functions as a censor.
Comic books for children have no censorship. The contrast between censorship for adults and the lack of it for children leads to such fantastic incongruities as the arrest of a girl in a nightclub for obscenity because she wrestles with a stuffed gorilla, when any six-year old, for ten cents, can pore for hours or days over jungle books where real gorillas do much more exciting things with half-undressed girls than just wrestling. It is a widely held fallacy that civil liberties are endangered or could be curtailed via children's books. But freedom to publish comic books has nothing to do with civil liberties.
In crime comic books, murder, violence and rape are the themes. There seems to be a widely held belief that democracy demands leaving the regulation of children's reading to the individual. Leaving everything to the individual is actually not democracy; it is anarchy. And it is a pity that children should suffer from the anarchistic trends in our society. [5]
Wertham's argument is that the pernicious influence crime comic books wield on the minds of children constitutes primarily a public health issue, not a fundamental issue of censorship. While he does find moral bankruptcy in publishers hiding behind the veil of freedom of speech to cover the lucrative industry they have created, as a psychiatrist, Wertham's contention rests on the interpretation of clinical research. [6]
Alarmed by what he had discovered from his teenage patients at the Lafargue Clinic, Wertham set up a Hooky Club and a Comic Book Reader's Club, based on a group therapy model, to gain a better understanding of the relationship between juvenile crime and the patterns of behavior that were imitated from scenarios set forth in particular crime comic books they read. Soon, Wertham realized that he had misunderstood the nature of comics. At first Wertham paid little attention to the notion that comics influenced behavior, since he had assumed that most comics were essentially harmless, like those appearing in newspaper strips; however, he quickly realized his mistake. These patients provided testimony revealing the inspiration and method for their crimes came from comic books. This anecdotal evidence of patterning crimes from comics persuaded Wertham to investigate not only crime comic books, but also how these comic books shaped the moral and social universe of these patients. Wertham neither readily understood the influence crime comic books were exerting on impressionable young minds, nor did he fully appreciate the economic forces behind the proliferation of these books. His analysis of the publishing industry and their methods of distribution led him to focus on the power of the mass media and to argue that violence in the culture, if not challenged, would precipitate a public health epidemic affecting children.
At a symposium, The Psychopathology of Comic Books, which he organized, held 19 March 1948 at the New York Academy of Medicine, Wertham made the following introductory remarks:
Psychiatry was practiced intramurally in institutions originally, and only gradually concerned itself with the mental hygiene problems outside. In the same way psychotherapy was originally confined to the consultation room and is only now beginning to overcome its own claustrophilia and take an interest in the social forces that come to bear on the individual. It is, therefore, in the best scientific tradition to consider a social phenomenon so enormously widespread as comic books. The idea of this symposium originated in researches first carried out by the Lafargue Clinic. This is the first exhibition of comic books. You see here examples of about one-third of all the comic book titles. This is also the first report on scientific research about comic books which is not under the auspices of the comic book industry itself. It was carried out in clinics, in schools and in private practice.[7]
Wertham and his colleagues discovered from their clinical studies of children evaluated at the Lafargue Clinic [8] that the most benign influences that comics had on these patients include reading problems (which he labeled "linear dyslexia") and manifestations of inchoate sexual impulses or physical aggression. Their research indicated that more severe crimes of murder, robbery, and torture were accomplished by imitating story lines outlined in comic book scripts. Since many of these patients were committed to Wertham's clinic by either the New York courts or the Juvenile Aid Bureau, these children already evidenced hostile behavior and social dysfunction. Moreover, this pool of patients was increasing and their actions were becoming so egregious that Wertham, as a physician, felt impelled to act. Functioning as both a psychiatrist and an epidemiologist, [9] Wertham organized this first symposium ever held to discuss the social and psychological effect of comic books. This research attracted widespread national attention, opening additional fora for Wertham to publicize his studies on the enigma of preventable violence. [10] The quest to understand and to prevent violence, the core of Wertham's psychiatric practice, shaped his thinking on how the mass media create a climate permitting, indeed encouraging violent, anti-social acts. [11]
Fredric Wertham is remembered today, primarily as the author of Seduction of the Innocent, an incisive, blistering attack on the violence and horror purveyed by the comic book industry. This is ironic, for Wertham was in fact a distinguished psychiatrist of wide and deeply humane interests, an advocate of social reform, and a defender of civil liberties. His experience as a forensic psychiatrist in the 1920s led to a fascination with the ways in which violence shaped society and controlled human behavior. He insisted that "the power of human violence is very great, not only on the direct victims but in its influence on the orientation of a whole society as well. That is why the control of violence-producing factors occupies such a key position in the power structure of any society." [12] Wertham's professional career and personal actions were in part a dedication to understanding the nature of violence in society, the impact of violence on the individual, and the function of violence in determining the direction and the shaping of culture. From our vantage point today -- with our mass media filled with violence provoking rock videos and movies celebrating the exploits of characters like Rambo and Freddy Krugger, while drug related and youth gang violence fills the newspapers and television news -- Wertham's studies seem especially prescient.
Wertham's research took him through this era of crime comic books to the culture violent movies and television created. [13] Writing in 1966 Wertham clearly analyzed a problem still extant:
Television represents one of the greatest technological advances and is an entirely new, potent method of communication. Unfortunately as it is presently used, it does have something in common with crime comic books: the devotion to violence. In the School for Violence, television represents the classical course. Many of the movies being shown increasingly on the TV screen also have a lot of violence in them and so merge with the overall picture. [14]
At this time, however, both television and movies were mild in comparison to what appears today on network and cable channels. The climate of violence developing since this observation has, if anything, increased and become more dangerous. Competition for audience share, demand for advertising revenue, and misguided applications of First Amendment rights have all encouraged aggressive displays of violent behavior to be broadcast. [15] The proliferation of music videos with their vignettes of racial, sexual, and social violence has attenuated social restraints, actually making such behaviors acceptable. These media have legitimized for many young people amoral conduct as it defines, indeed privileges, a discourse celebrating victimization of the individual. The acceptability of brutality and brutish behavior has now become the norm, not something to be abhorred. Wertham's observations prophetic in the 1940s are relevant today. Like Cassandra, Wertham was often ignored or scorned by those social scientists who sought to chart a new, more advanced civilization in a celebration of modernity. Unfortunately, the drive to broaden the culture neglected the substantial intellectual principles developed in the humanistic heritage of Western civilization and instead focused on cleansing what are now labeled elitist notions, ones that once provided stability. What emerged, however, is this current ahistorical climate in which an ill-conceived marriage of pop psychology and pop culture are supported by sophisticated developments in communications. Our advanced technical age allows unevaluated ideas and images to predominate.
Of course, the irony in all this is that Fredric Wertham, a traditional left-wing European intellectual and product of the Enlightenment tradition, continues to be both castigated and characterized as a reactionary. In addition to this calumny, his ideas on violence in the mass media once embraced by either mainstream intellectuals or appropriated, to his chagrin, by the extreme right are now quoted by Susan Brownmiller among current social theoreticians [16] who want to restrain a culture they maintain portrays women in a degraded and hostile fashion. Certainly Wertham recognized such intellectual imperialism and decried hostile images of women. However, Wertham was not a Cato-like Censor, but a responsible physician who believed that children need protection from such violent images and activity: nevertheless, adults were free and capable to evaluate all types of material. [17] His fundamental issue involved the capacity for mature understanding. He did not endorse violent forms of art and literature but recognized that since violence is not innate, man learns from his environment, therefore children need protection and education in order to realize how this material diminishes the human spirit.
Born 20 March 1895 in Nuremberg, Fredric Wertham was one of five children of Sigmund and Mathilde Wertheimer, nonreligious, assimilated middle-class Jews. His father, a successful businessman, was an active member of the local political establishment and endorsed the prevailing German authoritarian culture. His mother abandoned the Jewish traditions of her family, accepting her husband's preference for assimilation with the Gentile culture. Of course, during the Nazi period, the family was considered Jewish under Hitlerite laws: while Fredric had emigrated to America in the 1920s, his siblings and his mother who were still living in Germany and Austria, took refuge abroad. His brother Paul spent the war years in a Rotterdam attic hidden by his housekeeper, whom he later married. The other brother, Emil, set up a plastics factory in England, joining sister Babi who lived near London, The younger sister, Ida, by then also a psychiatrist, fled Austria and settled in Lancashire where she remarried into the locally prominent Macapline family. Ida and her son Richard Hunter, a psychiatrist at Guy's Hospital, became eminent medical historians known for their major studies Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry: 1535-1860 (1963) and George III and the Mad Business (1969). Throughout much of his adult life Fredric Wertham did not encourage family contacts, maintaining a cordial yet studied distance.
As a young man on the eve of the Great War (1914-1918), however, Wertham spent several summers in England with relatives, among whom was his cousin Ella Winter, who later became a controversial journalist and activist. He found the environment there open and relaxed -- a stark contrast to the rigid, disciplined, and intellectually pedantic German culture at home. During this period he explored Fabian socialism and the writings of Karl Marx. More importantly, he became an avid reader of the writings of Charles Dickens, impressed by their influence on the recognition and reform of social injustices. At the outbreak of the Great War Wertham, pursuing medical studies at King's College, University of London, found himself stranded in England and, as a German national, he was for a short time interned near Wakefield, then paroled. Since he so admired British society, Wertham happily remained in England during the war, reading medicine and literature. After the war he continued his studies at the Universities of Erlangen and Munich, obtaining his M.D. degree from the University of Wurzburg in 1921. Paris and Vienna were additional venues of postgraduate study before he joined the Kraepelin Clinic in Munich.
Emile Kraepelin, the distinguished classical psychiatrist who developed the standard system for the classification of mental diseases, was Wertham's first significant mentor. At this time psychiatrists generally made diagnoses on the basis of symptoms and theoretical preconceptions; Kraepelin believed the context -- family history, culture, environment, economic and political aspects -- must be considered in treating a patient. His technique owed much to Sister Castelli, the head nurse who spent more than thirty years working at the clinic. Of Sister Castelli, Wertham wrote: "Some of the doctors in the clinic were professionally snobbish and thought it beneath their dignity to ask her questions or discuss with her patients or procedures. On me, however, her knowledge, her authoritative manner yet coupled with modesty, made a great personal impression. I often discussed my patients with her and learned more from her about the Kraepelinian approach than from many formal lectures." [18] By rejecting the hierarchical constraints of German culture, especially in medicine, Wertham reveals his democratic nature not only in his relationship with this nun but also in his evaluation of her accomplishments: "to me she is a part of the history of psychiatry." [19]
Other significant figures in the history of psychiatry had varying influences on Wertham's development as a psychiatrist. Before leaving for America in 1922, Wertham, at the request of Walter Lippmann, visited Sigmund Freud to see if he would write an article on psychoanalysis for The Saturday Review. Freud told Wertham that one should not write on psychiatry for the popular press and that "Anyway, in America no one cares about psychoanalysis." [20] Freud did not write the article, and Wertham, as his career progressed, did not follow Freud's advice.
Wertham left Munich to accept a position working with Adolf Meyer, who had introduced to America Kraepelin's method of observation of abnormalities, first at Worcester (Massachusetts) State Hospital and then at Johns Hopkins University. It was with Meyer at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, where Wertham felt his training could best be continued. His arrival in Baltimore signaled a fundamental break with his European life. Not only did he Americanize his name, but he also applied for citizenship.
During his seven years at Johns Hopkins, Wertham refined his skills as a psychiatrist and began his career as a professor. In Baltimore Wertham established a friendship with H.L. Mencken (where he became a member of his Saturday Club) and worked with Clarence Darrow on legal issues to become one of the first psychiatrists willing to testify for indigent defendants, including blacks. Most importantly, Wertham met and married Florence Hesketh, an artist and Charlton Fellow in Medicine at Johns Hopkins. With her, Wertham co-authored "The Significance of the Physical Constitution in Mental Disease" (1926) and The Brain as an Organ: Its Postmortem Study and Interpretation (1934), for which Hesketh drew all the cell plate illustrations. Of The Brain as an Organ, Adolf Meyer wrote, " Psychiatry and neurology are in great need of internal harmonization. The present book is a most valuable contribution in the direction of such an orientation, not only among the specific data, but also among the broader relations." [21] The Brain as an Organ, for which Wertham received the first psychiatric grant made by the National Research Council in Washington, became a standard medical text published in several editions, for strange as it now seems, the brain had not been considered an organ by psychiatrists.
Wertham's marriage to the Maine-born, Wellesley-educated Florence Hesketh began a lifetime partnership and collaboration. Not only did Hesketh enjoy a distinguished career as a sculptor (her work was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Egan Gallery), but she also served as Wertham's editor, co-author, and protector. She created an environment, especially at 44 Gramercy Park, New York, and at Blue Hills, Kempton, Pennsylvania, in which the doctor, as she referred to him, could focus his energy and attention on his work. He used to say with gratitude that she made all the important decisions, allowing him to concentrate on psychiatry and writing. It was at her urging that they bought instead of the usual sedan, a two-seater M.G. motor car, so that their jaunts to the country were limited to themselves.
While at Johns Hopkins, Wertham was the first to publish a study on the effects of mescaline and did pioneer work on insulin use in psychotherapy. He also developed the mosaic test: by having a patient manipulate and assemble small multicolored pieces of wood into a freely chosen design, Wertham could evaluate the resulting pattern for what it revealed about the patient's ego organization. This diagnostic procedure was sometimes used in conjunction with paintings created by the patient, such as the watercolors done by Zelda Fitzgerald when under his treatment at the Phipps Clinic.
Wertham's acute critical judgment and his unassuming nature become apparent in his relationship with his cousin Ella Winter and her husband Lincoln Steffens. On a vacation visit to them in San Remo, Wertham discovered that Steffens was in the initial stages of the writing of his Autobiography (1931), seeking the right format for presenting the materials of his life. From their discussion Steffens decided that Wertham was the kind of reader he envisaged for his book. Steffens then sat Wertham down and read to him from the manuscript in order to gauge the effectiveness of the writing. Wertham's friendship and unacknowledged support for Steffens were returned, somewhat unkindly, many years later by Ella Winter. As Wertham told a close friend, on a visit to him, Winter was struck by admiration for the vivid colors of his El Lissitzky collection and learned that Madame Lissitzky, widow of the constructivist artist, was holding much of her husband's work for him since he was a longtime friend and collector. Within a week of her visit Winter set off to Russia, made contact with Madame Lissitzky, and by claiming to be Wertham's emissary, she obtained the collection for herself. Upon discovery of this treachery, Wertham refused to take action against her, though for the rest of his life he keenly felt the loss of those Lissitzky's promised to and saved for him. [22]
Named senior psychiatrist at Bellevue by the New York Department of Hospitals in 1932, Wertham that year organized and directed for the Court of General Sessions, now the State Supreme Court, the nation's first clinic providing a psychiatric screening for every convicted felon. In 1936 he was named director of Bellevue's Mental Hygiene Clinic. Four years later he moved to become director of psychiatric services at Queens Hospital Center. To fulfill as yet unmet critical needs in the health care system, Wertham founded in 1946 in Harlem the Lafargue Clinic and pioneered a clinic for sex offenders, the Quaker Emergency Service Readjustment Center, in 1947. This center was a humane effort to treat sex offenders and bring them back into the mainstream of American society.
During the 1930s Wertham's expertise as a forensic psychiatrist became known to the general public. His involvement in a number of spectacular murder cases, discussed in Dark Legend: A Study in Murder (1941) and The Show of Violence (1948), led him to advocate the duty of the psychiatrist to bring the psychiatric background of murder into relationship with the law and the society it represents. Wertham's support for an intelligent use of McNaughton's rule determining legal insanity, his understanding of how environmental forces shape individual responses, his argument that violence and murder are diseases of society -- all persuaded him that violence is not innate, and so could be prevented.
Dark Legend investigates the story of Gino, a seventeen-year-old, Italian-American who, commanded by the ghost of his dead father, murdered his promiscuous mother. In his diagnosis Wertham found that Gino "suffered from a definite circumscribed mental disorder which rendered him defenseless and resourceless at the time of the deed." [23] As a result of Wertham's testimony at the trial, Gino was committed to a psychiatric institution: discharged nine years later completely recovered, he married and led a happy, productive life. Wertham's compelling narrative draws upon the myth of Orestes and the legend of Hamlet. The incisive analysis of matricide set out in this book prompted Ernest Jones to remark: "Freud and I both underestimated the importance of the mother problem in Hamlet. You have made a real contribution." [24] Later Jones discussed with him the issues concerning matricide raised in Wertham's work before the publication of his own study on Hamlet and Orestes.
Wertham sent his manuscript of Dark Legend (working title: Shadow of Madness) to Thomas Mann for comment and advice. In a 3 October 1939 letter, Mann told Wertham he had read the manuscript with "intense interest" and praised Wertham for drawing "in it brilliant lines of connection between the actual murder case and some great psychological types of world literature." Prophetically Mann observed, "I believe that the book will attract a great deal of attention, especially so in America, where psycho-pathological matters find a certain popularity... " [25] And Mann was correct, for four years after publication, Arthur Miller wrote Wertham: "I have finished reading your Dark Legend for the 2-1/2th time and want to congratulate you on a profound and to me a deeply significant work. I keep wondering whether I could corner you for an hour or two some afternoon or evening, when we might discuss aspects of the work and some of the things suggested by it to my mind ... I can promise you no thorough grounding in psychiatry, but my fascination for it is professional and if I have few answers I do have plenty of questions. If you could manage a little time would you let me know where and when? " [26]
The fascination Dark Legend engendered impelled Helene Frankel to write an adaptation of it for the theatre. In a 25 March 1952 New York Times review of the play, Brooks Atkinson complained that there was too much of the case history about it. "No one," he wrote, "expects Mrs. Frankel to write with the fire of Aeschylus or Shakespeare, for no one is in those major leagues today. But to escape mediocrity even a factual, realistic play needs some of the momentum and excitement of poetic feeling." [27] The excitement and feeling that inform Wertham's own telling of Gino's tale, with its resonates of Aeschylus and Shakespeare had been lost in the process of dramatization.
The focus on matricide in Dark Legend made many people uncomfortable. In England publication of the book was delayed on "the score of obscenity," giving rise to the demand that its distribution be limited to physicians and mental health professionals. Only after a detailed review appeared in the New Statesman was the book available to booksellers. Hollywood was likewise made nervous by the book. The director Reuben Mamoulian (whose projects included the movie "Queen Christina" with Greta Garbo, the movie version of Clifford Odets's play "Golden Boy," and the stage play "Porgy" by Du Bose Hayward) told Wertham over a congenial luncheon in the Oak Room at New York's Plaza Hotel how much he wanted to make a film of Dark Legend, emphasizing in his conversation the conception of "Family Honor." "Of course," he added, " in a movie either on stage or off stage a mother cannot be killed. This would be completely out of the question." [28] He suggested it would be easy to substitute for the mother some old woman, possibly an aunt. In an almost stereotypical Hollywood fashion, Mamoulian assumed that Wertham would readily assent to such a ludicrous change. Not so! Of course, Wertham, a man of character and integrity quickly refused the blandishments of Hollywood.
In The Show of Violence Wertham analyzes the role a psychiatrist must play in criminal court proceedings, explains for the layman his discovery of the Catathymic Crisis, where "a violent act -- against another person or against oneself -- provides the only solution to a profound emotional conflict whose real nature remains below the threshold of the consciousness of the patient, [29] and reveals his own role in several celebrated murder cases. In this book Wertham discusses his courtroom work in the pathetic case of Madeline, a young woman who killed her two children and then failed in her suicide attempt. He also details the cases of the notorious child-murderer Albert Fish, the "mad sculptor" Robert Irwin, and the professional gunman Martin Lavin, among others. In each case Wertham probed the social background, the medical history, the political implications, and the legal response, all of which led him to question "society's sense of guilt." Wertham reconstructs the individual, historical development of the murder impulse to uncover the effect societal forces had in its creation. He argues that
The violence that manifests itself in violent crimes is not the expression of an inborn instinct of aggression and destruction. People like to be non-violent. It is always other negative factors in personality development and in the social medium where growth of the personality takes place that lead to murderous acts of violence. The murderer can never kill without a transformation of values which may come from the innermost mind but is always derived ultimately from social prejudgments and prejudices. [30]
His discussion of both individual and mass murder cases in The Show of Violence presents an indictment against a culture that fails to act as "its brother's keeper."
In 1947 Wertham contributed the introduction and psychoanalytic notes to a collection of stories The World Within: Fiction Illuminating the Neuroses of Our Time, edited by Mary Louise Aswell, literary editor of Harper's Bazaar. This book attempted to evaluate the literary imagination working on the "inner kingdom" of the mind. Writings by Hoffmann, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, James, Proust, Kafka, Welty, and Faulkner, among others, are examined for their psychiatric insights. Using methods of interpretation he developed in an experiment with Richard Wright ("An Unconscious Determinant in Native Son," 1944), Wertham explored the unconscious elements (the dream process) he found in the stories in this anthology.
Cognizant of the misuse of psychoanalytic material in literary criticism, Wertham is careful to maintain the integrity of writing and to respect the artistic dignity of each author. In his introduction Wertham set out the essence of this relationship:
]What brings the science of psychiatry in the psychoanalytic era into such close and fruitful relationship with the art of literature is that psychoanalysis is analysis of a special kind. It does not delve into the mind to isolate disparate elements. Psychoanalysis always aims to relate the detail, the symbol, to the living organism as a whole. It is here that the research of the scientist and the search of the artist find a common ground. Great writers know how to give a unified picture of a whole personality through minute observation of a meaningful expression, a characteristic mannerism, or an unconscious habit. [31
Literature reveals the inner conflicts of the individual as it reflects the larger conflicts of the world without.
For a long time, Wertham had recognized that poor blacks in America were not only discriminated against in law and society but were also denied psychiatric medical services. Fully cognizant of this social and medical reality, Wertham, after trying -- and failing -- for almost ten years to obtain funding to open a clinic, decided that he must act even without governmental or philanthropic sponsorship. As Richard Wright noted, this presented not only an economic risk, but also a bold challenge to political establishments:
There occurred to the one psychiatrist who is striving to build a "social psychiatry," bold, sub rosa idea as to how to break the deadlock and subvert the defensive "idealism" of psychiatry in New York City. Dr. Frederick Wertham, one of the nation's leading psychiatrists, devised a stratagem that was extraordinary in its directness, simplicity, honesty, and passion to serve. Wertham's attitude is that psychiatry is for everybody or none at all. He came to the conclusion that "reform is possible only if one keeps away from the reformers." [32]
Working from this desire to serve and to make psychiatry responsive to all races and classes, Wertham, with the encouragement of and advice of Earl Brown, a writer for Life Magazine, Marion Hernandez, district secretary of the Hannah Stone Center for the Planned Parenthood Foundation, the singer and activist Paul Robeson, and writers Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, undertook the organizational tasks necessary to start a clinic.
Provided with a church basement to house his clinic, Wertham enlisted a multiracial, volunteer staff to establish in Harlem a clinic dedicated to alleviating the "free-floating hostility" afflicting many in Harlem and to understanding the realities of the black in America. Named in memory of Karl Marx's son-in-law, Dr. Paul Lafargue -- a Cuban-born Black-French physician, politician, social reformer, and philosopher -- The Lafargue Clinic became one of the most noteworthy institutions in the United States to serve poor Americans and to promote the cause of civil rights. In "Harlem is Nowhere" (1948) Ralph Ellison writes:
This clinic (whose staff receives no salary and whose fee is only twenty-five cents -- to those who can afford it) is perhaps the most successful in the nation to provide psychotherapy for the underprivileged. Certainly it has become in two years one of Harlem's most important institutions. Not only is it the sole mental clinic in the section, it is the only center in the city where both Negroes and whites may receive extended psychiatric care. Thus its importance transcends even its greatest value as a center for psychotherapy: it represents an underground extension of democracy. [33]
Wertham, who became known in Harlem as "Doctor Quarter" (this fee was charged because he believed strongly that a feeling of responsibility for oneself should be encouraged), kept this clinic open for about a decade. During this time he studied at the request of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the effects of segregation on children [34] and developed his ideas on the contribution horror comic books made to a climate of juvenile violence.
In order to prepare for their discrimination cases in the State of Delaware Chancery Court against local Boards of Education [Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart, 87 A. 2d. 862 (Del. Ch. 1952), 91 A. 2d.137 (1953), 347 U.S.483(1954)], attorneys Louis Redding and Jack Greenberg needed medical testimony on the impairment segregation had on children. Although they were able to assemble a distinguished panel of experts in education and psychology, they felt psychiatric evidence would strengthen their case. Richard Kluger in Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality (1975) wrote of the search to enlist a prominent medical authority willing to help:
Greenberg wanted to add a qualitative evaluation by a prominent clinical psychiatrist with full medical credentials. If such an authority would first examine in depth a group of both black and white Delaware youngsters and then report to the court on how segregation affected them, the effect might be powerful. But psychiatrists were expensive, and to find one who would give a good deal of time to such a project without charging for it seemed an unlikely prospect. Yet Greenberg did find one, and an eminent one at that, with a touch of genuine Viennese in his speech. The effect on the courtroom in Wilmington proved not only powerful but nearly hypnotic. [35]
Wertham's presence and his cogent argument detailing the results of his research so persuaded Chancellor Collins Seitz that in his legal opinion he both quotes from and paraphrases at length Wertham's testimony. Seitz supported his ruling outlawing current Delaware school segregation by underscoring Wertham's analysis that the practice of racial separation "creates a mental health problem in many Negro children with a resulting impediment in their educational progress." [36] Wertham's testimony was significant because his research was the first to examine both black and white children attending segregated schools. The evidence revealed the possibility that white children, too, may be harmed by segregated schools.
Wertham's research and testimony in the Delaware cases became part of the legal argument used in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, [F. Supp. 797 (1951), 347 U.S. 483 (1954), 349 U.S.294(1955)]. Thurgood Marshall in a 25 May 1954 letter to Wertham pointed out the critical nature of his work and thanked him,
for the important assistance which you gave us in the school segregation cases which were recently decided by the Supreme Court. It is unfortunate that the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States could not, in so many words, give recognition to all of those who were of assistance to us. However, I hope that you and the members of your clinic will have the satisfaction in knowing your great efforts contributed significantly to the end result. Not only was your testimony in the Delaware case before the Court in the printed record of testimony, but the Chancellor in Delaware came to his conclusions concerning the effects of segregation largely upon the basis of your testimony and the work done by your clinic. You may recall also that the Chancellor referred to you as one of America's foremost psychiatrists. Besides this, you and your clinic's work were mentioned in our briefs on several occasions. [37]
The Lafargue Clinic that had begun so modestly had now achieved major national recognition.
As gratifying as Marshall's remarks were to him, Wertham, after a Harvard Law School symposium on the 25th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, observed: "Psychologically the Supreme Court's decision made a great difference for blacks and whites. It gave legal sanction to a moral judgment. But practically and historically it is an unfulfilled promise. While a lot has been accomplished in the South, in the largest cities of the North and West desegregation has not materialized. The Court's order of 'deliberate speed' has been translated into relentless slowness." [38] Wertham's disenchantment with the pace of segregation, however, did not result in bitterness.
His renown as a forensic psychiatrist, his compassion for his fellow man, and his personal integrity and courage suggested to attorney Emanuel Bloch that Wertham might agree to interview his client Ethel Rosenberg, who was suffering incapacitating mental anguish. Bloch felt that Rosenberg, now on death row at Sing Sing prison, was on the verge of a severe mental breakdown and would be unable to confer with him on her appeal. Aware especially of Wertham's work at the Lafargue Clinic, Bloch believed that he might be willing to appear for the defense in the espionage trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Convicted as members of a conspiracy to send stolen atomic-bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, the Rosenbergs, nevertheless, always maintained their innocence and averred that they were victims of a United States government frame-up. Political passions, fears of the Red menace, charges of treason and betrayal, swirled at the time against the backdrop of the Korean War. Such circumstances persuaded many prominent individuals to keep a low profile in order not to be tainted by helping the Rosenbergs. Bloch hoped that Wertham would risk involvement.
The petition Bloch drafted seeking permission for Wertham to examine Ethel Rosenberg at Sing Sing was denied. Although the court absolutely refused to allow Wertham direct access to Rosenberg, it gave him permission to testify in federal court under oath about her mental condition. Not only did this order deny Rosenberg due process, but it also created the paradoxical situation of permitting Wertham to testify about the mental condition of a patient whom he was not allowed to examine. Although he would now have to rely on second-hand information and would have to use Bloch as an intermediary, Wertham accepted these limitations and testified twice.
The cross-examination to which Wertham was subjected was vicious and often improper. Nevertheless, his understanding of the condition "prison psychoses" and his humanitarian concern for Rosenberg's health made his testimony compelling. Later he wrote:
The results of my testimony were most startling. With record speed in a few days Washington, which had been so adamant before, completely reversed itself. Husband and wife were no longer to be kept separate. Mrs. Rosenberg's husband was forthwith transferred from the Federal House of Detention in New York to Sing Sing. The warden of Sing Sing announced officially that husband and wife would now be allowed to visit regularly. I got some congratulatory phone messages. For Mrs. Rosenberg it meant that a heavy load was lifted from her. She improved dramatically and for the last two years of her life could at least live a more dignified, less morbid, emotionally tolerable life. [39]
This, however, did not end Wertham's services for the Rosenbergs. He was brought in to deal with the two children, Michael and Robert, whom he advised and helped to secure adoption by the Meeropol family.
Nothing so characterizes the climate of the period as Wertham's observation many years later:
Never in my life have I been blamed so much for anything I did as I have been for testifying for Mrs. Rosenberg. This happened not only with uneducated people but also with those who think of themselves as informed and liberal-minded. Some people even stopped speaking to me! A prison doctor after all treats all inmates as best he can regardless of what crimes they may have committed. He is not held accountable for them. Sometimes the fact that psychiatry has not only a scientific aspect but is humanitarian as well is in danger of getting lost sight of. A psychiatric colleague of mine, one of my best friends, approached me one day on this subject. My testimony had hardly been mentioned in the press and he had just heard about it. He felt it was very wrong and was really perturbed about it. "You see," he said, "if you do that kind of thing you will be losing your reputation." [40]
Wertham, after reminding his colleague of many ill-advised and frowned upon court appearances, including his testimony defending George Moore's translation of Daphnis and Chloe, which had been banned as obscene, replied, "You see, I have lost my reputation so often I can hardly call it my own any more." [41]
It was precisely this reputation for fearlessness and integrity that encouraged Senator Estes Kefauver to appoint Wertham sole psychiatric consultant to the Senate Subcommittee for the Study of Organized Crime. Not only did Wertham bring his expertise as a forensic psychiatrist to Kefauver's committee, but his experience in dealing with New York crime and governmental institutions made his observations particularly valuable. Of course, in the 1950s, the role organized crime played in American society was one that engendered fear, revulsion, respect, cynicism, and even admiration, especially for the way in which violent crime could be of service to politics.
Wertham's fascination with the mob's relationship to politics heightened as he observed some of the security precautions Senator Kefauver took. For example, Kefauver would often secretly confer with Wertham at his Gramercy Park apartment. During those conferences Kefauver would make several, rather long telephone calls, instead of making them from either his office or his hotel room. At first Wertham was puzzled by this until he happened to mention Kefauver's telephone activity to an attorney who frequently served as a consultant to governmental committees. This lawyer was not at all surprised by Kefauver's caution: "Sure," he told Wertham,
"Kefauver was wise in the use of concealed bugs. Nobody could know that and when he went to your apartment he was sure that that phone was not bugged. He went on to explain to me that members of his own party were suspicious of Kefauver and called him "dangerously sincere." They were fearful that his investigations would come too near to sensitive spots -- which indeed they did -- and would elicit too much that might be politically harmful." [42]
These observations are particularly revealing, for they explain why the Senate's investigation stopped abruptly and its recommendations proved inconsequential.
At this time America faced two primary fears: communism and juvenile delinquency. The axis on which these two met found Wertham, whose studies probed the social dynamic permitting the development of these fears and the underlying violence inflaming their intensity. Despite his Fabian proclivities and his close association with progressive intellectuals, Wertham escaped severe censure from Senator Joseph McCarthy and his followers. Moreover, he was able to develop his greatest public influence, drawing considerable media attention, with the publication of Seduction of the Innocent, the culmination of his seven-year long study on the effect of comic books on children.
In Seduction of the Innocent Wertham sets out his argument on the connection between the rise in juvenile delinquency and the role of comic books, attractive to children and easily available, in promoting violent activity. Wertham maintained that such comics created a culture of violence and encouraged anti-social behavior. The deleterious effect these comics had on child development led Wertham to the conclusion that access to these books for those under fourteen or fifteen years of age must be controlled. Although Wertham was mistakenly maligned as a censor -- a charge that angered him -- his work did stimulate the comic book industry to adopt a code (the Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America, 26 October 1954), labeling the suitability of each comic book now published.
However, the adoption of a comic book code did not come without intense resistance from the comic book publishing industry or without abuse directed at Wertham. After he had published a series of articles and given lectures describing his research detailing the harmful effects of mass media violence, Wertham decided his accumulated work merited a book-length study. Mindful of Henry Steele Commager's observation that "The ideals that grown-ups think should obtain are to be found more readily in children's literature than anywhere else. All our innocences are there." [43] Wertham planned to entitle his book All Our Innocences, but his editors had him change it to Seduction of the Innocent. This title, more gripping and evocative than the one originally proposed, continues today to incite an anti-Werthamite reaction among comic book aficionados as well as those who feel Wertham's work threatens the democratic thrust of American popular culture. Moreover, the emerging dominance of American popular culture was itself considered as posing a threat to re-establishing the authority of European culture in the postwar years. [44]
Of course, this is supremely ironic because the publishing history of Seduction of the Innocent and the vilification Wertham personally endured are anything but democratic. For example, the Book of the Month Club selected Seduction of the Innocent as an alternate choice and planned to run in its club newsletter a favorable review of it by Clifton Fadiman. However, the Book of the Month Club abruptly canceled both the offering and the review. Although an advance copy of Fadiman' s review survives among Wertham's private papers, it is yet to be published. More disturbing was the news Wertham received from many book stores and outraged book buyers who found their copies of Seduction of the Innocent had pages 399-400 missing. These pages contained the "Bibliographical Notes" where Wertham had listed the publishing sources for the book's illustrations. Apparently, Wertham's own publisher, Rinehart and Company, Inc., succumbed to extreme pressure from both comic book publishers and distributors and agreed to have the offending pages excised. Thus a finished book was mutilated neither with the knowledge nor the consent of the author.
In addition, Wertham was investigated and harassed by agents of the comic book industry, much in the same manner that Ralph Nader was treated years later by agents of General Motors. An entire public relations campaign was directed against Wertham. David Finn, who served at the time as a consultant to the comic book publishers, wrote in The Corporate Oligarch about his creation of the "Scorn Wertham" club and the efforts he made on behalf of his clients to discredit Wertham. The unfortunate legacy of that campaign remains, for among comic book cognoscenti, his name has become a by-word for the censorious, the narrow-minded, and the ill-informed. In addition, by devising its own code the comic book industry believed, as Finn pointed out, that it had circumvented dealing with the substance of Wertham's objections:


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Jimmy Fallon Offers the 'The Pros and Cons of Holiday Shopping' [VIDEO]
It's December — have you started your holiday shopping yet?
If you're the type of person who waits until the last minute you might be interested in this clip from 'Late Night,' where Jimmy Fallon gives us the pros and cons of Christmas shopping.
There's a downside to everything in life, even the holiday season. You can go shopping, but you might get pepper sprayed. Watch Fallon's take on holiday shopping below.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I just started driving a four-wheeler on the Indian roads for the first time. Of course, I am training my brain to make sure I enter a road on the left side and not the right side, to anticipate random people coming from any direction any time, so on. However, driving at night is such a tough task - many cars, trucks, vans and even two-wheelers drive using high-beam ON. Driving at night puts so much pressure on the driver to the point of being completely unbearable and downright risky.
You are completely blinded when facing such high-beam headlights. You can't see the curb, you don't know if there is a pot-hole or not, you don't know if there is a pedestrian or not. For few seconds you are completely blind – you don't know where you are going, and you lose your bearing.
I am quite sure that I am not the only one who is blinded by such high-beam headlights. I am quite sure most humans do get blinded by such high-beam lights. In fact, most animals do. They just stare at the oncoming vehicle and get run over.
So, how come we still use high-beam headlights while driving in a city, or on a road with oncoming traffic? Isn't it obvious for each driver the inconvenience and discomfort it causes? Why do they continue to practice something that causes so much discomfort while enduring that discomfort? Is it something like, 'Yes, I know I am doing something stupid here, but I would like to continue doing it because others are doing it!'
Instead of escalating the problem, why don't we tone it down? Like, driving on low-beam in the city, and moving to low-beam in face of oncoming traffic? One would expect that it is the most sensible thing to do. It is just common sense. I have driven for many years in US (and
What is it about us that don't allow us to practice something that makes sense right away? Is government involved here? Is the system wrong here? Are the politicians corrupt here? Is it caste-politics or communalism here? What is it in play here?
Or is it just about our attitude- the utter lack of social responsibility?
This lack of social responsibility is seen in other phases too. I was watching two young girls walking on the road next to my office. Very nonchalantly, they just threw trash, plastic and paper on the middle of the road while conversing away to glory. That particular scene was imprinted in my brain. They were educated girls, could be college-going or could be software professionals, they were nicely dressed, were talking in English. But just look at the apathy. I am not illustrating this to accuse those two girls. This shows how we raise our kids, how we teach our kids, how we as adults do not set examples where necessary, or may be, we do set examples- but they turn out to be bad examples, like driving with full-beam lights knowing very well how inconvenient that is to everyone!
Imagine the conversation, where the son says, "But Dad, this big light completely blinds us. Then, how come we are driving with big lights?" and the Dad replies, "This is the only way to get ahead in this country, son! Push or be pushed!"


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Owner of Pizza Man signs new lease 3 years after devastating fire
Three years after fire gutted a Milwaukee landmark, the owner of the Pizza Man restaurant has announced plans to reopen.
Mike Amadzich said Thursday that he has signed a letter of intent to lease a property less than a mile from the site of the original store, which was at the corner of East North and North Oakland avenues. The new restaurant will be located on Downer Ave., according to the Milwaukee BizTimes.
"We hope to become part of this neighborhood again," he said. "After three years of searching for the right investors and the right location, we are finally starting the process to reopen."
The original Pizza Man restaurant opened on Nov. 15, 1970 and became an east side landmark.
A $3 million fire in January 2010 destroyed the business along with several other businesses and apartments.
Amadzich said plans for the new location include two floors of seating and a second-floor terrace.


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What is the Wu Vatican?
The Wu Vatican is a restricted usergroup who have all contributed outstandingly to the forums. Most members have their usernames in Orange.
How do you become a member of the Vatican?
The other Vatican members decide by a vouching system where you need Vaticans and mods both to vouch for you. If enough members and mods vouch you and no members neg-vouch you, you may be selected. Normally the Vatican frowns on users asking to be (vouched) in the Vatican.
What do moderators have to do with the Vatican?
Generally moderators moderate and are usually a good judge of character. If you contributed to the forum in a positive way it means your posts have not needed constant moderation. This is why they have a major part of the vouching process. Also, it was the senior moderators who elected the first round of chartered Vatican members hence moderators started the group.
What are the benefits in being part of the Wu Vatican?
Larger avatars, more PM space, ability to give reputation, a private set of forums among other things.
What amount of posts and time I've been here do I need to become part of the Wu Vatican?
Posts and years registered don't mean *that* much and have no set amounts. However most Vatican members have relatively high post counts and have been here for years. The record for the fastest Vatican entrance from registration date is about 6 months and the lowest post count record is around 800. Remember that these are the records and generally it takes good posting creativity over a period. One hit wonders are often neglected.
Isn't this just some kind of popularity contest like the cool kids/retards that post in general chat?
No. More than half of the current Vatican members rarely post in general chat. There may be a few Vatican members who participate in some of the frenzied conversations in the general chat forum but that's not the reason why they were admitted.
What are the other restrictions?
The Vatican can not have more than 100 members at any given time. The 100 members are made up of the Vatican users and the senior moderators that have Dark Orange usernames since they can see the Vatican forums and if they werent moderators they would be in the Vatican anyway. As of April 3, 2009 the Vatican is at capacity.
If there's a cap, how are new spaces made?
Generally Vatican members get ousted if they have been inactive for a significant amount of time, as in many months. The only other way Vatican members are ousted is if other Vatican members feel indifferent on their overall image on the forum. Vatican members get ousted in a similar way than getting admitted.
Can I see a list of all the Vatican members?
You can find the list on the forum leaders page (click link)


text:
Do You Speak English? Want a Job?
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The ultimate makeover: Lasagne
Nutrition and extra info
Nutrition: per serving
- kcal447
- fat19g
- saturates9g
- carbs31g
- sugars9g
- fibre0g
- protein38g
- salt0.96g
For the meat sauce
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Olive oilol-iv oyl
Probably the most widely-used oil in cooking, olive oil is pressed from fresh olives. It's…
- 1 onion, chopped
Onions are endlessly versatile and an essential ingredient in countless recipes. Native to Asia…
- 2 medium carrots, diced
The carrot, with its distinctive bright orange colour, is one of the most versatile root…
- 3 plump garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 250g lean rump steak, trimmed of fat, thinly sliced, then very finely chopped
- 250g lean minced pork
One of the most versatile types of meat, pork is economical, tender if cooked correctly, and…
- 100ml red wine
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- 400g can plum tomato
- tsp ground nutmeg, plus a pinch
- handful basil leaves, torn
For the layers
- 300g fresh spinach
Used in almost every cuisine across the world, spinach is an enormously popular green vegetable…
- 1 egg
The ultimate convenience food, eggs are powerhouses of nutrition packed with protein and a…
- 250g tub ricotta
Ricotta is an Italian cheese made from whey and traditionally a by-product of…
- handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- 6 wide sheets (about 175g/6oz) no pre-cook lasagne
- 125g ball mozzarella, preferably buffalo, roughly chopped
- 50g parmesan, coarsely grated
Parmesan is a straw-coloured hard cheese with a natural yellow rind and rich, fruity flavour. It…
- 200g cherry tomato on the vine
- basil leaves and green salad leaves, to serve
Make the meat sauce: heat oil in a large sauté pan, then tip in onion and fry for 5 mins until golden. Add carrots and garlic, then fry for 2 mins more. Stir in both meats, breaking up the pork with a wooden spoon. Cook over a high heat until the meat is no longer pink and the juices are released. Pour in wine, scrape the bottom of the pan as you stir, then cook for 1-2 mins until the liquid is reduced. Tip in tomato purée, tomatoes and 2 tbsp water, then stir to break up tomatoes. Add ½ tsp nutmeg and some pepper, cover, then simmer for 1 hr, stirring occasionally. Taste and add salt if you like. Mix in torn basil. Sauce can be chilled for up to 1 day.
While the sauce is simmering, prepare the other layers. Tip the spinach into a large bowl and pour over boiling water. After 30 secs, tip spinach into a colander and put under cold running water briefly to cool. Squeeze to remove excess water. Beat the egg in a bowl, then mix with ricotta, parsley, a pinch of nutmeg and pepper. Soak the lasagne sheets in a single layer in boiling water for 5 mins. (Although the packet says no pre-cook, I find soaking improves the texture.) Drain well. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6.
Start layering. Spread a few big spoonfuls of sauce to barely cover the base of an ovenproof dish (20 x 29 x 6cm deep). Cover with 2 sheets of lasagne, then spread over half the remaining sauce. Cover with 2 more lasagne sheets, then scatter spinach evenly over. Spread the ricotta mixture on top and cover with 2 more lasagne sheets. Spread with remaining sauce, then scatter over mozzarella and Parmesan to almost cover meat. Top with cherry tomatoes and some pepper, then cover loosely with foil.
Bake for 35 mins, then remove foil and bake 5-10 mins more. Leave for a few mins, then scatter with basil and serve with salad.
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In all the cases, rapid picking and crushing of the grapes are required to preserve freshness.
In the case of Champagne, the starting date for picking the grapes is set by the CIVC (the organization that "coordinates the common interests of wine growers and producers in Champagne") which bases its decision on input from the ripening observation network which was initially established in 1956. This network allows input variables from 450 control plots to be analyzed and the grapes tracked for ripeness by cru and variety. Decisions on picking dates, quantities, and alcohol levels are a direct result of this analysis. Over 100,000 pickers are involved in harvesting the ripe grapes and moving them from the field to one of the 1900 pressing stations that are located throughout the region. The grapes are picked in clusters and then placed gently into waiting plastic bins. Picking normally begins in the cool of dawn in order to preserve as much of the grapes' freshness as possible. Chardonnay is generally picked one or two weeks later than Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.
In the case of Franciacorta, harvesting begins around the middle of August with picking of grapes around the base of Franciacorta. Berlucchi, one of the leading Franciacorta producers, hand-harvests on a lot-by-lot basis using over 1000 pickers. Careful harvesting is designed to retain the freshness and flavors of the grapes. Given the variability of the zones, harvesting can extend over 3 weeks on occasion. Chardonnay is harvested first followed by Pinot Noir and then Pinot Bianco. The picked grapes are transported to the crushers in 18-kg crates to keep the bunches perfectly intact during transportation to the winery.
The Glera grapes (Prosecco) are handpicked and transported to the winery for further processing. The grapes from the Cartizze area are the last to be harvested as, coming from the steepest hills, they are the most difficult to be accessed. The grape stalks are removed and the grapes crushed after which the must is moved to a press for separation of the juice from the skin and seeds. The grapes are pressed gently in order to ensure that only the most desirable juice makes it into the wine. The remaining material is set aside to be used in the production of grappa.
The Cava harvest runs from mid-August to the end of October and the picked grapes are quickly transported from the vineyards to the cellars either in 25-kg-capacity boxes or in stainless steel trailers.
The Champagne grapes are weighed at the pressing center and relevant information recorded in the pressing logbook. The grapes are then pressed as whole bunches in a process that is called fractionated winemaking. In this process, the free-run juice is drawn-off first in three successive pressings. The product of these pressings is called the cuvée and the middle of the three is called the coeur de cuvée (heart of the cuvee) and is said to possess an ideal balance of purity and structure. The maximum amount of juice that can be harvested during the cuvée pressing is 20.5 hl. The second component of this fractionated winemaking is the heavier press called the taille. In this stage the juice is harvested in two or three high-force presses that occur subsequent to the removal of the cuvée. The juice collected at this point is darker due to the impurities extracted from the grape skins. A total of 5 hl of juice can be legally harvested at this stage. The cuvée and taille have similar levels of sugar but the cuvée has higher levels of malic and tartaric acids while the taille has higher levels of oxidants, minerals, and pigments. A total of 25.5 hl of juice can be legally harvested from a 4000-kg marc of fruit.
After harvesting, the Franciacorta grapes are placed into special presses for a soft, gradual crushing. The first-press must is used for alcoholic fermentation.
Unlike the Champagne case, only free-run juice is used in the production of Prosecco and the allowed yield is 70 liters of wine from 100 kilogram of grapes, almost 10% greater than the yield allowed in Champagne.
Once harvested, Cava grapes are subjected to quality inspections and then transported rapidly to the winery to ensure freshness retention. Must is extracted with gentle pressing in order to obtain highest quality juice.
|Coquard presses at Berlucchi in Franciacorta
Addition of Sulphites
The fruit extracted during the press of the Champagne grapes flows into open tanks which are separated by cru, variety, and pressing (If the intent is to make Rosé Champagne via maceration, then the juice stays in contact with destemmed black-skinned grapes for 24 to 72 hours until the desired color is obtained.). Sulphites are added to the juice at between 6 and 10 g/hl in order to combat mold and bacteria and reduce the risk of flavor-killing oxidation.
Impurities are removed from the Champagne must in a process called débourbage where the solids fall to the bottom of the tanks while the clear juice is drawn off from the top.
In the case of Prosecco, the cloudy must is chilled to 5 - 10℃ and kept in stainless steel tanks for 10 to 12 hours during which time the solids settle to the bottom. The Cava must is also clarified prior to alcoholic fermentation.
Alcoholic Fermentation
The resulting clear juice is transported to the vat room for alcoholic fermentation. Today most fermentation is carried out in stainless steel tanks, a change from the prior norm of oak fermentation (Oak seems to be making a comeback in Champagne). In Champagne, the juice is chaptalized as necessary to bring it up to 11% potential alcohol after which yeast is added to initiate alcoholic fermentation. Fermentation runs between 10 and 20 days (10 - 14 in Champagne and 15 - 20 in Franciacorta) before all the sugar in solution is converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide produced at this phase is allowed to escape. Malolactic fermentation is initiated if is a part of the house style.
In the case of Berlucchi in Franciacorta, the result of the vinification process is 200 base wines, some of which undergo battonage in order to stir up the lees.
Cold Stabilization and Clarification
The base wine is cold stabilized to prevent tartrate precipitation later in the life of the wine. The wine is then racked off the solids and clarified further through fining and/or filtering.
Secondary Fermentation
The next step in the process sets Champagne apart from other sparkling wines. In order to produce Champagne that aligns with the House style, the Chef de Cave has to memorize and blend wines from a broad array of crus from the current vintage plus wines from the reserve as necessary. The other sparkling wines, on the other hand, draw from a smaller number of "crus" and a far smaller number of vintages as the base wines for their blends. In the case of a vintage sparklers, the blend can only contain wines sourced from grapes that have been harvested and fermented in the vintage year.
For Champagne, Franciacorta, and Cava, the blended wines are placed into Champagne-style bottles to which liqueur de tirage (a solution of wine, sugar, and yeast) is added and then the bottle is capped with a crown cork seal. This addition precipitates a second fermentation, this time in the bottle. As the bottle is capped, the carbon dioxide created during fermentation cannot escape and the bubbles formed as a result are absorbed into the liquid. The process by which these bubbles are formed is called prise de mousse and the longer the period, the more refined the bubbles.
At the conclusion of alcoholic fermentation, the Prosecco base wines are assembled into batches and pumped into large, sealed tanks (autoclaves) for the secondary fermentation. Sugar and yeast are added to the tanks and the consumption of the sugar by the yeast results in the Carbon Dioxide that gives the sparkling characteristic to the finished wine. This method of sparkling wine production is called the Italian (because it was first demonstrated as industrially viable by an Italian, Martinotti) or Charmat (the name of the Frenchman who refined the process such that it became feasible for large-scale industrial production), or Martinotti-Charmat method. It is felt that this method preserves the aroma of the grapes yielding fruity, floral wines. This second fermentation can run between 20 days and 3 months after which the wine is bottled.
After the sugar has been exhausted, the yeasts die. The breakdown of the dead yeast cells by enzymes -- autolysis -- adds complexity to the aroma, flavors, and mouthfeel of the Champagne if residency is maintained. Aging on lees (Aromas and Flavors: Explanatory Notes, wine-pages.com):
- Releases reducing enzymes that inhibit oxidation
- Absorbs certain essential yeast nutrients (limits potential for refermentation at dosage)
- Increases amino acids and other nitrogenous matter, precursors to "Champagne character"
- Produces acetal which possibly adds a biscuity or brandy-like complexity
- Produces MP32 which reduces tartrate precipitation.
Non-vintage Franciacorta wines are aged for a minimum of 25 months with 18 of those months being on the lees in the bottle. Vintage wines are aged for a minimum of 37 months with 30 of those months being in the bottle on the lees. Riserva wines are aged for 5 years on the lees.
In order to be called Cava, the sparkling wine made in the region has to be aged a minimum of 9 months before being taken to market. Many producers age their wines for 2 to 4 years in order to provide wines with more character. To be classified as Gran Reserva, a Cava has to be aged for at least 30 months.
The Prosecco aging requirement is the shortest for the sparkling wines under consideration in that the wine rests in bottle for between 20 and 40 days before being shipped.
In the next installment of the series I will be examining the styles of wines offered by these brands. For a look back at previous posts in the series, please click on the appropriate link below.
Part I -- Origins
Part II -- Regulatory histories
Part III -- Macro-Level characteristics
Part IV -- Production zones
Part V -- The vineyards
©Wine -- Mise en abyme


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"Summer Flies" Shawl/Scarf/Bib/Crap
Pattern: Summer Flies by Donna Griffin
Yarn: Bernat Satin, Bordeaux 1.5 skeins
Needles: US7
Start/Finish: Aug 4/Aug 9, 2010
Comments: I didn't plan on blocking this but after looking at the pictures I think I might have to. Everything I don't like about it would be fixed–the ruffle edge would be less ruffley, the knotted openwork would be more open, and the entire thing would be less stiff. I was hoping to have a scarf in the end but it looks like a bib. Whoops. I'm sure I would have been more pleased with the un-blocked FO had I not used an acrylic yarn. Silly me forgot how much of a beast it is blocking (or "killing") acrylic.
I could also do without the picot edge. PITA.
The color is accurate in the first pic, for some reason the color in the second pic is washed out.
My slight discontent has nothing to do with the pattern though, just my stupidity with yarn choice.
Carol permalinkMarch 14, 2013 8:02 pm
having issues just getting started…help, please?


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Local Treasure turns 150!
Calling all Canal enthusiasts, Civil War buffs, urban neighbors and historians
- On Saturday, October 6th from 2-4 p.m. travel to Rochester's River Romance weekend for a commemorative living history event along the Erie Canal Extension of the Genesee River (Near Exchange and Flint Street). The banks of Rochester's waterways will come alive with tales of the Underground Railroad, Civil War, and Erie Canal as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Camp Fitz-John Porter, a Civil War training camp
. This event will be an important tool in revitalizing the neighborhood surrounding the encampment and will bring local and national history alive for many residents who do not know the neighborhood's significance.
Plymouth-Exhange (PLEX) Neighborhood
President Dorothy Hall is proud to welcome the Rochester Community for the event: "The celebration is important for the Plymouth-Exchange neighborhood and Rochester to educate people about the history that was once part of this southwest riverfront community."
There will be an abundance of activity throughout the afternoon, thanks to a grant from the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor
• Self-guided walking tours that will utilize the canalway trails and encompass the historic Camp Fitz-John Porter and the PLEX
• Costumed historical figures including Fredrick Douglass and other Freedom Seekers by AWKAABA
: The Heritage Associates
• Military drills performed by the famed 140th New York Volunteer Infantry
• Live cannon firing demonstrations by Reynolds' Battery
• Live period music that will engage the audience by Excelsior Brigade
and Coreopia
• Proclamation read by city officials
• And more!
Attendees will travel back to the fall of 1862 - a time of historic change in Rochester that reverberated throughout New York State and beyond. The dialogue opened through this event will break down barriers and create an open line of communication among the residents, businesses and historians of the PLEX Neighborhood. People will leave with a feeling of camaraderie, an understanding of Rochester's involvement with national reform movements, and an appreciation for the Erie Canal. The PLEX Neighborhood will be recognized for its rich history and future potential with heritage tourism as a tool for economic redevelopment.
David Knoll, a PLEX resident, property owner and neighborhood association member, is planning to volunteer the day of the event. He says, "I'm pleased that PLEX's ties to the Underground Railroad, the Civil War and Rochester's early canal and industrial history will be brought to people's attention by this event. We have one of the most beautiful views of the Genesee riverfront and downtown Rochester. The extensive wildlife near Camp Fitz-John Porter river bend make this a rich outdoor habitat in an urban setting."
Join Knoll and all of the other volunteers for a great celebration of our community, rich cultural history and bright future!


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Nintendo: Broader, Awful Anti-Piracy Measures Are Sure To Turn Our Fortunes Around!
from the save-the-princess-from-bad-policy deptNintendo isn't having quite as much fun as normal lately, the launch of their Wii-U console not being particularly well-received in the market, over-shadowed by the launch of much more powerful and compelling hardware by Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo recently slashed the company's original full-year Wii U sales forecast by nearly 70% to 2.8 million units. It's not all sour; Nintendo's 3DS unit has been a smashing success overall (at least according to my Animal Crossing animal friends), sales of the 3DS are up, and despite some piracy threats from recent flashcart advances, 3DS software sales are clicking right along, with Nintendo recently stating 2013 was a "record year" for both 3DS hardware and software sales, 3DS software sales in particular are up 45% year over year.
Still, low Wii-U sales leave Nintendo in a tough spot, forcing the game company into a bit of an existential crisis. What can possibly turn around the living room fortunes of one of the world's most-adored gaming companies? Developing better games? Better scrutiny of third-party game quality? Developing a less gimmicky home console with enough power to battle Sony and Microsoft while retaining Nintendo's unique charm? Leveraging the inexhaustible energy of your massive fanboy base to generate clean, renewable energy for years to come?
A large portion of Nintendo calories that could be directed to those pursuits are instead being directed at convincing the U.S government to pressure Brazil, China, Mexico and Spain into imposing tougher anti-piracy countermeasures. Nintendo informs the U.S. government they've suffered "heavy losses" in those countries, which should be encouraged to embrace blocking websites and turning ISPs into liable Internet content nannies (both things that have clearly worked so well up until now). According to Nintendo's letter to the U.S. government, 16% of all online piracy of Nintendo products traces back to Spain:
"Since so many illegal video games are downloaded in Spain from foreign-based cyberlockers, and accessed through cyberlinkers or P2P linking sites hosted outside Spain, the IPC must address this issue by authorizing the blocking of linking sites," Nintendo writes."Except that much of that Spanish content is hosted here in the States, where Nintendo hasn't made the same recommendations. Nintendo would also very much like it if the United States would "train" and "educate" the Spanish legal system on how to properly treat piracy (read: a swift and heavy fist entirely detached from an operational brain):
"The Spanish Government should work with the U.S. Government and rights holders to provide necessary IP training to Spanish prosecutors, judges and IPC officials, particularly focusing on Internet piracy and effective online investigation, prosecution, and adjudication of criminal copyright infringement on the Internet."Which, again, should really be efficient since most of those sites are hosted in the United States, combined with the problem that these kinds of efforts don't work (or wind up impacting legitimate businesses and websites). My Animal Crossing animal friends go on at nauseating length about how instead of wasting energy on bad anti-piracy policy, Nintendo could instead focus that energy on better hardware and games (and perhaps a new fountain for the Animal Crossing town square) -- but what do they know.
Filed Under: piracy, video games, wii u
Companies: nintendo


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Three Piece Forged Aluminum Wheels with Deep Concave Profiles for a Modern Muscular Look!
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Static website
A static Website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the format that is sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML); Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to control appearance beyond basic HTML. Images are commonly used to effect the desired appearance and as part of the main content. Audio or video might also be considered "static" content if it plays automatically or is generally non-interactive. This type of website usually displays the same information to all visitors. Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a static Website will generally provide consistent, standard information for an extended period of time. Although the website owner may make updates periodically, it is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other content and may require basic website design skills and software. Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as classic website, a five-page website or a brochure website are often static websites, because they present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information about a company and its products and services through text, photos, animations, audio/video, and navigation menus.
Static websites can be edited using four broad categories of software:Text editors, such as Notepad or TextEdit, where content and HTML markup are manipulated directly within the editor program
WYSIWYG offline editors, such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver (previously Macromedia Dreamweaver), with which the site is edited using a GUI and the final HTML markup is generated automatically by the editor software
WYSIWYG online editors which create media rich online presentation like web pages, widgets, intro, blogs, and other documents.
Template-based editors such as iWeb allow users to create and upload web pages to a web server without detailed HTML knowledge, as they pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a desktop publishing fashion without direct manipulation of HTML code.
Static websites may still use server side includes (SSI) as an editing convenience, such as sharing a common menu bar across many pages. As the site's behaviour to the reader is still static, this is not considered a dynamic site.
Dynamic siteA dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently and automatically. Server-side dynamic pages are generated "on the fly" by computer code that produces the HTML (CSS are responsible for appearance and thus, are static files). There are a wide range of software systems, such as CGI, Java Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP), Active Server Pages and ColdFusion (CFML) that are available to generate dynamic web systems and dynamic sites. Various web application frameworks and web template systems are available for general-use programming languages like Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby to make it faster and easier to create complex dynamic websites.
👍Thanks for Reading---Have a Nice Day


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NEC's LCD Technologies division will next year begin mass-producing its latest low-temperature poly-silicon TFT displays for PDAs and other handheld gadgets, the company said today. The devices' unique selling point: the circuitry is embossed on the glass.
The company showed off four displays: two 3.5in parts and a pair of 2.7in panels, all of them with a native resolution of 640 x 480. An integrated interpolation circuit allows them to display up to 16.7m colours.
For each size, it will offer one transmissive display and one transflective - the former relies entirely on the backlight for illumination, while the latter uses both a backlight and light shining on the panel then reflected back through it.
NEC said the 3.5in panels have a pixel density of 229ppi, while the smaller panels run to 302ppi. The transmissive displays have a contrast ratio of 400:1 and a colour gamut of 70 per cent. The transflective panels deliver a luminance of 200cdpm² (3.5in) and 180cdpm² (2.7in).
The panels are due to go into mass-production in February 2007, NEC said. ®


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Preservation services:
- In-house book repair program
- Custom preservation projects
- Disaster planning and preparedness Staff education
- Public exhibitions and educational outreach efforts
Although our services are not available to the public, we believe strongly in educational outreach. Contact us with any questions.
The Preservation Department:
- supports the mission of the University Library System by preserving library and archival materials and keeping them accessible to the public
- Focuses on maintaining the library and archival collections of the main Oakland campus, except the Law and the Health Sciences Libraries
We are located off-campus at the Library Resource Facility
CONSOL Energy Mine Map Preservation Project
Caring for Your Collections: Not sure where to start? These helpful articles from the Library of Congress can set you on the right path
Preservation Blogosphere: The PCAN website has an excellent list of Preservation-related websites and blogs


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Update: J. Blakeson, who made a great directorial debut in 2009 with "The Disappearance of Alice Creed," has lined up his sophomore effort, a film about the life of Alan Turing.
Blakeson has been hired to helm "The Imitation Game," reported Variety. Warner Bros. bought the rights last fall to the script by first-timer Graham Moore, which he adapted from Andrew Hodges' biography, "Alan Turing; The Enigma."
The studio had ponied up on the strength of the universally-hailed script and DiCaprio's interest in taking the lead, but he's since committed to "The Wolf of Wall Street" with Martin Scorsese.
U.S. & World
The day's top national and international news.
Alan Turing stands as one of the great minds of the 20th Century, and like many who are as brilliant as he was, the man was a tortured soul, whose inner turmoil was made worse by the disgusting persecution he suffered at the hands of the very government he so heroically helped to save. Turing is, in short, a fantastic subject for a film.
Turing laid much of the early groundwork for modern computers, and was one of the heroes of WW II, helping crack the German's Enigma code. But he was later forced by the British government to undergo chemical castration as punishment for his homosexuality, and ultimately killed himself by eating a cyanide-laced apple, which according to legend was the inspiration for the name of Steve Jobs' company, a story that has been denied repeatedly.
Big name directors like David Yates and Ron Howard had previously been in the mix, but fell out for a variety of reasons. We're thrilled for Blakeson, who's a pretty talented guy with lots of promise.


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A New York snack food maker now says it is recalling more than 10 million pounds of frozen pizza, mozzarella bites, Philly cheese steaks and other products linked to a rare and potentially dangerous outbreak of E. coli poisoning. Three million pounds of the products remain in the marketplace, a company spokesman said Friday.
Rich Products Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y., is pulling all products manufactured at its Waycross, Ga., plant. The snacks have best buy dates from Jan. 1 2013 through Sept. 29, 2014, according to a press release. For a full list of products, click here.
Spokesman Dwight Gram originally told NBC News that 3 million pounds of the products were recalled, but he later confirmed that the company also had control of 7 million pounds of the frozen items that had not reached stores.
The foods may be contaminated with the bacterium E. coli O121, which already has sickened 27 people in 15 states who ate certain Farm Rich and Market Day frozen chicken quesadillas, pizza slices and other snack foods. Eight people have been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which updated cases on Friday.
However, many more people may have been made ill by the products without knowing it because of complexities involved in identifying E. coli O121, a strain that can be just as dangerous as the better-known E. coli O157:H7 frequently tied to outbreaks caused by hamburger.
The Thursday announcement expands a March 28 recall of 196,222 pounds of Farm Rich brand frozen chicken quesadillas and other frozen mini meals and snack items because they could be contaminated with E. coli O121.
The strain is among a potentially lethal group of bacteria known as Shiga-toxin producing E. coli or STECs. The bacteria, which include E. coli O157, create poisons that can lead to severe illness and disease, including bloody diarrhea, kidney failure and death.
In 2011, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials banned E. coli O121 and five other strains -- known as "the big six" -- from the nation's beef supply. This outbreak is the first time Food Safety and Inspection Service officials have recalled products potentially tainted with E. coli O121.
The bacteria are tough to identify in outbreaks because clinical laboratories typically test only for the E. coli O157 strains. To detect the other strains, labs must screen for the presence of Shiga toxins and then send positive samples to public health laboratories to find any non-E. coli O157 STECs.
The strain involved in this outbreak is so rare, its genetic fingerprint has been seen less than 30 times in PulseNet, the CDC's network of laboratories that track bacteria involved in foodborne illness.
The New York state Department of Health identified the outbreak strain of E. coli O121 in an opened package of Farm Rich brand frozen mini chicken and cheese quesadillas from an ill person's home, the CDC said.
People usually become sick from Shiga-toxin producing E. coli within two to eight days after eating contaminated food. Symptoms include bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps. Most people recover within a week, but others can become severely ill with a complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, which causes kidney failure.
Children and the elderly are most vulnerable to the worst effects of the illness.
Related stories:
- Mini quesadillas, pizza slices recalled over E. coli fears
- Six new E. coli strains banned from beef supply
This story was originally published on Thu Apr 4, 2013 3:57 PM EDT


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From one Perseus to another, Harry Hamlin has one request for the newest release of "Clash of the Titans" -- keep the myth real, guys.
Hamlin, who starred as Perseus in the cult-classic 1981 version alongside acting Sir Laurence Olivier and Dame Maggie Smith, said he fought for story truth often on the set and even had a brief sit down strike to ensure he could cut Medusa's head off.
"I did win many of my battles," Hamlin told Popcorn Biz after the release of the 1981 version's re-release on Blu-Ray. "And sometimes the producers would listen and tell me to just go off."
U.S. & World
Hamlin, who did his Yale thesis on mythology, said he hit the wall when the producers decided he couldn't cut off Medusa's head with a sword because it would affect the rating. Instead he was ordered to improbably throw his shield off a rock and have the shield knock off the dreaded monster's head.
"That's not the myth, what's the point of a magic sword if he's just going to throw a shield?" says Hamlin. "So I said, I think you're going to have to find someone else to play Perseus."
He then locked himself in his trailer during the Maltese shoot. The producers tried imploring and even unplugged his trailer's air conditioning to smoke him out, but Hamlin maintained his head-cutting strike until he prevailed.
As far as the new version, Hamlin will certainly be in line to see Sam Worthington fill his sandals. "I thought Sam Worthington did a terrific job in Avatar," says Hamlin. "It's going to be a great adventure no matter how you slice it."


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Employee Engagement services across East Dunbartonshire including:
Jen has been great to work with. When we launched the Scottish Family Business Association we knew it was vital to achieve awareness of our existence and understanding of our purpose through as many relevant media outlets as possible. Jen not only surpassed all of our expectations in this regard but also offered ongoing first-class advice and sugge......read more.


text: It has not been a good year for the Joneses. Jacques Jones is headed for retirement, Marion Jones went to jail and Ed "Too Tall" Jones banged his head on a doorway. And none of them will even acknowledge their brother from a white mother, Todd Jones, who was offcially replaced as closer on Sunday. […]Please, blog, may I have some more?