by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Discipline – whether it’s spanking, yelling or giving time-outs – may sometimes do little to reduce children’s behavior problems, a new study indicates.

The study – which involved researchers from six universities, including the University of Michigan – looked at practices and perceptions of discipline in six countries. Spanking led to more child aggression and anxiety, regardless of the country, said Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, U-M associate professor of social work.

So what should parents do to teach children right from wrong?

“It may be that the long-term investments that we make in children, like spending time with them, showing that we love them, and listening to them, have a more powerful positive effect on behavior than any form of discipline,” he said.

The study examined the associations of discipline techniques with children’s aggressive and anxious behaviors from mothers and children from in China, India, Italy, Kenya, Philippines and Thailand.

Unlike other studies, this project collected information from both mothers and their children. Participants included 292 mothers and their 8- to 12-year-old children.

Researchers used the sample to address two questions:

· When multiple discipline techniques are considered at the same time, which forms of discipline emerge as having the strongest associations with ­children’s aggressive and anxious behaviors?

· Are significant associations between discipline practices and child be1haviors moderated by the extent to which mothers and children perceive these practices to be normal in their communities?

The 11 discipline techniques analyzed were: teach about good and bad behavior; get child to apologize; give a time-out; take away privileges, spank; express disappointment; shame; yell/scold; withdraw love for misbehavior; threaten punishment or promise a treat/privilege.

Mothers and children were asked was about the frequency with which others in their communities used each discipline technique.

“When children perceive a discipline technique to be (normal) within their culture or community, they may be less likely to evaluate their parents’ use of it as aberrant or objectionable,” the study conjectured.

Grogan-Kaylor said the research showed that the relationship of some kinds of discipline with behavior problems varied according to how common use of that type of discipline was in the community. However, despite these small variations, there was a strong consistency in the results across countries.

The bottom line: giving a time-out, using corporal punishment, expressing disappointment and shaming were significantly related to greater child anxiety symptoms. Child aggression resulted from spanking, expressing disappointment and yelling, the study said.

Researchers include lead author Elizabeth Gershoff, University of Texas at Austin; Jennifer Lansford and Kenneth Dodge, Duke University; Arnaldo Zelli, Istituto Universitario di Scienze Motorie; Lei Chang, Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Kirby Deater-Deckard, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The findings appear in the March/April issue of Child Development.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Alvaro Uribe

The results of the March 14 legislative elections demonstrated that Colombians want to see a continuation of President Alvaro Uribe’s conservative policies after he leaves office on Aug. 7 next. The vote also set the field for a hotly contested presidential election on May 30, not least because of administrative difficulties that marred the vote counting process.

While all the presidential candidates can now start their campaign in earnest, Colombians and international observers alike will be worried about the ability of the registrar’s office to perform its duties on May 30.

Commentary: Mexico’s drug-related violence isn’t widespread across the country

After the murder of two U.S. consulate workers in Mexico’s border city of Ciudad Juarez, many of you have written to me wondering whether it is safe to travel to Mexico. The answer is: If you are courageous enough to travel to Washington, D.C., you can safely visit most parts of Mexico.

Despite the escalation of drug-related violence in several Mexican cities, and the pictures of mutilated bodies dumped on the streets of Ciudad Juarez and other cities along the U.S. border, a dispassionate look at Mexico’s murder rates shows that some parts of the country are indeed dangerous, but the country as a whole is safer than what the latest headlines suggest.

Lugo and opposition prepare to square up in ParaguayPresident Fernando

Lugo appealed to congress last week to drop its incessant threats to impeach him and to engage in a dialogue process to address the deeper, more intractable, problems 1afflicting Paraguay.

Lugo’s remarks, part of a Holy Week message to the nation, came days after he participated in the launch of a new left-wing coalition movement, some of whose more radical members called for congress to be “swept away” if it sought to impeach Lugo. In the coming two months pro-Lugo parties and opposition parties are planning to stage large rallies to gauge their respective support. With campaigning for municipal elections in November also starting, any dialogue process is unlikely to get off the ground.

­Regional security attracts international concern

Guatemala’s President Alvaro Colom last month fired his fourth interior minister, his fourth police chief and two other top anti-drugs officials for alleged corruption and drug-trafficking, underlining once again the struggle in Central America to make progress in the fight against the illegal narcotics trade and its associated violence, in the face of the corrosive power of international criminal gangs.

The latest scandal, which comes on the heels of a series of reports highlighting the region’s increasing importance as drug trafficking hub, broke just days before the U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited Guatemala to discuss security with regional leaders.

According to Casas-Zamora’s figures, based on United Nations 2008 data, Mexico’s murder rate is nearly five times less than that of sunny Jamaica and about half that of Brazil, a country that was recently awarded the much-coveted 2014 soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

by Adrian Rocha

(This article was written before Jaime Escalante’s death on march 30.)

At age 79, Jaime Escalante, the legendary East Los Angeles math teacher who inspired the classic 1988 motion picture Stand and Deliver is fighting for his life.

This time “ganas” — the Spanish word he used to indoctrinate thousands of Latino students with a fierce desire to learn, may not be enough to save him. A month ago, doctors gave the Bolivian native, now in late stages of gall bladder cancer, two months to live, actor Edward James Olmos, his longtime friend, tells Hispanic Link News Service.

Olmos, who earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Escalante, is on a mission to raise funds to help the teacher and his family in Sacramento, Calif., meet mounting medical bills. “It is not that we are trying to save his life,” Olmos says with resignation. “It’s that we want to make his days more comfortable.”

Olmos spent most of a year with Escalante prior to starting the film. “I was able to build a friendship with one of the greatest people on the planet,” he says, proclaiming that Escalante has the greatest depth of any character he has ever played.

Born in La Paz, Bolivia, Escalante taught physics and math for 14 years in his homeland before migrating to the United States in 1964. In California he confronted a new language and the need for U.S. teaching credentials.

On earning them, he obtained a job as a math teacher at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles.

After cajoling school administrators, some students and their parents to accept his challenge, he instituted Garfield’s first college- level calculus classes.

His greatest triumph — and shock — came in 1982 when he guided 18 of his students to pass the rigorous national Advanced Placement calculus exam, an accomplishment comparable to excelling in college competition.

The shock? Test administrators couldn’t believe Chicano students from East L.A. could be that smart. Suspecting they cheated, AP test officials demanded they take the examination over. The students complied and passed again, many scoring even higher than before.

The sour memory of how the media played the drama has remained with Olmos. “The press came after him,” as the cheating charges received far more attention than the achievements of Escalante and his students, Olmos recalls with lingering rancor.

The actor first met Escalante in the early ’80s when both were being honored by the NAACP — Olmos for his relent- less devotion to helping the community and Escalante for his classroom magic.

Escalante’s odyssey made its way to the big screen in 1988, showing the world that kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are just as capable as students from affluent ones. They possess the potential to “understand the highest form of mental use achieved by mathematics,” Olmos says. Stand and Deliver continues to be screened regularly in high schools and middle schools throughout the country. Olmos makes the claim it is “the world’s number 1 most influential movie.”

His big acting break came as El Pachuco in Zoot Suit. His roles over the years include Gaff in Blade Runner, Lt. Martin Castillo in Miami Vice, Montoya Santana in American Me, which he directed, and most recently, Admiral William Adama in Battlestar Galactica.

But today Escalante remains foremost in his thoughts. Three presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and William Clinton — have hosted the remarkable teacher at the White House in the past.

With Escalante unable to travel, Olmos says. “I’m praying that President Obama will find a way to see Jaime and thank him for all he’s done for our nation.” Hispanic Link.­

(Adrian Rocha is a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. His email: Arocha41@gmail.com) To help the family of Jaime Escalante, contact: “Friends of Jaime” c/o FASE 236 West Mountain Street, Suite 105 Pasadena, CA 91103 Or call 626-793-5300).

­by the El Reportero’s staff

Flamenco dancer Lakshmi “La Chimi” will perform at la Peña on April 9. (For more info see below in the calendar.)

Come and enjoy a truly performing arts event with Balanced, a group of artists dedicated to the search of talent in the Bay Area. This events are organized to promote and show the community the beauty of the art by the different type of artistic expressions that exist.

The repertoire inlcudes poetry with Arturo “Arte” Delgado and Charles Castillo, in the visual arts with Alejandra Campos, Leicester “eLe” Huezo, Christo Oropeza and Javier Vallin, and in the performing arts,with The Alegre Sisters, Arturo “Arte” Delgado, Damaris E. Ortiz, Juliet Gómez and Theatrical Souls.

At the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Misison Street, San Francisco, April 3, at 7 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m.

Jazz In Focus – The Photography of Scott Chernis

Celebrate Jazz Appreciation month in April at the Berkeley Public Library. San Francisco photographer, Scott Chernis, exhibits black and white photographs from his series “Jazz in Focus” in Berkeley Public Library’s Central Catalog Lobby, 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck, downtown Berkeley, from April 5th through April 30th.

In this series Chernis focuses on details of jazz performances emphasizing the interplay of musicians and their instruments. Chernis’ photographs closely examine the inherent beauty of ephemeral moments in musical performance. Access to the exhibit is available during the library’s open hours: Mon. 12 – 8; Tues. 10- 8; Wed. – Sat. 10 – 6; Sun. 1 – 5.

For more information, call 510-981-6100 or connect www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org.

Tickets for birth of impressionism at the de Young

Tickets for Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay go on sale on Tuesday, April 6. This spectacular exhibition features nearly 100 paintings from the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the repository of the world’s finest collection of Impressionist art, and opens to the public at the de Young Museum on Saturday, May 22.

Each ticket to Birth of Impressionism also includes complimentary, same-day admission to Impressionist Paris: City of Light, a companion exhibition at the Legion of Honor presenting 180 prints, photographs, drawings, illustrated books, posters and paintings that transport the visitor back to Paris during the time of the Impressionists. Impressionist Paris: City of Light opens to the public on June 5.

Golden Gate Park 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive San Francisco, CA 94118. For info call 415.750.3600 or visit www.deyoungmuseum.org,

Gypsy Flamenco from Jérez, Spain

The Bay Area Flamenco Partnership in collaboration with La Peña Cultural Center presents Flamenco dancer Lakshmi “La Chimi” with guest artists from Jérez de la Frontera, Spain, José Galvez, Kina Méndez and Antonio de Jérez on Friday, April 9, at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. in Berkeley,

The evening of music and dance promises a rare opportunity to see flamenco in a more intimate, less programmed and structured environment that is closer to its true nature. “It will be an intimate, ‘rancio’ (aged, like a fine cheese or wine) program, as opposed to a commercial show,” La Chimi says.

­On Friday, April 9, at 8 p.m., at the Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. in Berkeley. For info call Nina Méndez, artistic director The Bay Area Flamenco Partnership. (510) 444-2820, nmenendez@sbcglobal.net.

by Prison Planet

Internal Revenue Service agents

If the health care bill was such a positive act of reform, as establishment Democrats and the corporate media are pitching it, then how come it needs to be enforced by means of coercion at the hands of thousands of armed IRS thugs?

That was the context of the discussion during Ron Paul’s appearance on Fox Business’America’s Nightly Scoreboard last night, as the Congressman continued to speak out against the tyrannical nature of Obamacare.

Paul emphasized the need to protect the private option in health care as a fundamental right for all Americans not to be reliant on the government for their services.

­“During this debate they talked a whole lot about the public option, I just wish they would protect the private option, give us a chance to have it private, just like you should have a chance to have private education, home schooling, you should always protect that….if you always had a private option in medicine
some of us could survive and at least we could set an example for the type of medicine that the people should be getting,” said the Congressman.

Host David Asman pointed out that it would now be illegal to have private health care and that people would be forced to buy insurance under the constant glare of the 16,000 plus new IRS agents being hired to harass people into compliance to the new program.

Under Obamacare, $10 billion dollars is allocated to pay for 16,500 IRS agents who will collect and enforce mandatory “premiums.”

Paul said that the people who previously needed to carry the least insurance would now be forced to carry the maximum, and be hounded by the IRS as a result.

“This is a command society now and medicine is right at the forefront of this….16,500 armed bureaucrats coming to make this program work – if it was a­good program and everybody liked it, you wouldn’t need 16,500 thugs coming with their guns and putting you in jail if you didn’t follow all the rules,” said Paul.

The Congressman highlighted the fact that people don’t trust the government’s record on social programs, pointing out that Medicare, Medicaid and the Post Office are all bankrupt, and that the majority of Americans have little confidence in Obamacare being any different.

Paul said there was a chance parts of the bill would be overturned if Republicans were victorious in November, but that the biggest threat to the legislation was the probability that the entire system would collapse, labeling Obamacare a “Horrendous new burden that we have placed on the economy.”

— Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience. John Locke-1690

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— Elderly people with visual disorders that are left untreated are nine times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease — the most common form of dementia – compared to those who take care of their eyes with preventative measures.

A University of Michigan Health System study shows those with poor vision who visited an ophthalmologist at least once for a general vision screening and treatment, were 64 percent less likely to develop dementia-related symptoms.

The study appears online ahead of print in the American Journal of Epidemiology and may draw a new picture of poor vision as a cause of dementia rather than as a symptom.

“Visual problems can have serious consequences and are very common among the elderly, but many of them are not seeking treatment,” says lead author Mary A.M. Rogers, Ph.D, research assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School and research director of the Patient Safety Enhancement Program at the U-M Health System and the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center.

For the study, Rogers and her colleague Kenneth M. Langa, M.D., Ph.D., professor of internal medicine at U-M and researcher at the Veterans Affairs Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research and Institute for Social Research analyzed data from the federal Health and Retirement Study and the Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study.

”Our results indicate that it is important for elderly individuals with visual problems to seek medical attention so that the causes of the problems can be identified and treated,” Rogers says.

The most common types of vision treatment that are helpful for delaying a dementia diagnosis are surgery to correct cataracts and treatments for glaucoma and retinal disorders. In addition to these procedures, regular eye examinations performed by an ophthalmologist are important in 1helping to ­delay the onset of dementia.

Along with proper vision care, exercise and mental stimulation, such as reading and playing board games, are usually associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. But a visual disorder may interfere with normal mobility and can also hinder a person’s ability to participate in such activities.

“Many elderly Americans do not have adequate health coverage for vision, and Medicare does not cover preventative vision screenings,” Rogers says.

“So the elderly generally receive vision treatment only after a problem is severe enough to warrant a visit to the doctor. But by that time, the damage could be too great to fix.”

According to a survey conducted by the National Eye Health Education Program, less than 11 percent of respondents understood that there are no early warning signs for eye problems such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.

However, similar vision problems and blindness are among the top disabilities among adults and can result in a greater tendency to experience other health conditions or even to die prematurely.

“While heart disease and cancer death rates are continuing to decline, mortality rates for Alzheimer’s disease are on the rise,” says Rogers. “So if we can delay the onset of dementia, we can save individuals and their families from the burden, cost and stress that are common with Alzheimer’s disease.”

The study was based on the surveys of 625 people compiled over 14 years. Only 10 percent of those surveyed who developed dementia had excellent vision at the beginning of the study compared to 30 percent of those starting with excellent vision who did not develop dementia.

Approximately 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease and the number has doubled since 1980. It is expected to be as high as 13 million by 2050. One in five Americans who are over age 50 report experiencing a visual impairment, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Laura Chinchilla

Costa Ricans have elected their first woman president as the ruling party candidate won in a landslide after campaigning to continue free market policies in Central America’s most stable nation.

But most Costa Ricans were reluctant to shake up the status quo in a country with relatively high salaries, the longest life expectancy in Latin America, a thriving ecotourism industry and near-universal literacy.

Chinchilla, the mother of a teenage son, is a social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage. She appealed both to Costa Ricans seeking a fresh face and those reluctant to risk the unknown.

Pro-Uribe camp cements control after Colombia’s congressional contest Just over two weeks after Colombia’s constitutional court barred President Alvaro Uribe from standing for re-election in May, parties loyal to him won a decisive victory in congressional elections on 14 March, fulfilling his main priority – that “policies not people” should be re-elected.

The big winner was Juan Manuel Santos, whose Partido de la U led the field in the senate, with 25 of the vote, strengthening his claim to be the true heir to Uribe’s legacy. The Partido Conservador (PC) also fared well in the senate, but the party is embroiled in an acrimonious internal dispute after a fiercely contested primary election failed to produce a clear victor.

This threatens to undermine the unity of the pro-Uribe coalition in congress.

Bolivia Recalls Cen­tenarian Demand in Sea Day

Bolivian President Evo Morales headed on Tuesday the Sea Day’s celebration, in which the army will launch the slogan “Motherland or Death: We Shall Overcome” and it will be recalled the maritime demand to Chile.

This day is the 131th anniversary of the clash with Chile for the city of Calama, in which Bolivia lost the access to the Pacific Ocean.

Ecuador appeals U.S. court decision arbitration

Lawyers for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing Chevron for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into Ecuador’s Amazon filed a notice of appeal today in U.S. federal court seeking to prevent the oil giant from taking its claims to an international arbitration where the rainforest communities cannot appear.

“After more than 17 years of litigation fraught with delay caused largely by Chevron itself, these individuals deserve to have their claims resolved in the forum that Chevron chose after relying for years on those promises.”

The appeal is of a March 11th decision by U.S. Judge Leonard B. Sand that allowed Chevron to take claims in the environmental case (Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco) to a private arbitration in violation of its earlier promises to the U.S. federal court that it would abide by any judgment in Ecuador subject only to an enforcement action under New York state law, according to the plaintiffs.

Presidential visit patches relationship between Argentina and Peru

Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández began a two-day state visit to Peru on March 22, the first such trip in 16 years. The objective of Fernández’s trip was to reinvigorate bilateral relations with Peru. That goal was met and the two presidents signed a series of cooperation agreements that appear to launch a new era of intense collaboration between the two countries.

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