New Technologies and Mental Health
Cuban Psychiatry Studies the Impact of Technologies on Mental Health
When Cuban society advances towards computerization as a priority, it turns out, in the opinion of Dr. Miriam de la Osa O´Reilly, head of the Psychiatry Service of the Hermanos Ameijeiras clinical-surgical hospital, that the theme chosen for the IX Cuban Congress of this specialty is very timely: Frontiers of Psychiatry and the Impact of New Technologies.
Author: Lisandra Fariñas Acosta | lisandra@granma.cu
14 March 2019 00:03:09
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Yaimi Ravelo
In the danger of living an excessively “connected” 21st century, and increasingly dependent on computers or cell phones, psychiatry finds new and enormous challenges, said Dr. Miriam de la Osa O´Reilly, head of the Psychiatry Service of the Hermanos Ameijeiras clinical-surgical hospital, to Granma during the first day of the 9th Cuban Congress on this specialty.
We are talking about behavioral addictions, which can range from distorting reality, showing dependence on devices to having communication and socialization problems, and even suicidal attitudes, all related to the misuse of mobile phones and different social networks on the Internet.
When Cuban society moves towards computerization as a priority, in the opinion of the specialist, the topic chosen for the appointment is very topical: Frontiers of Psychiatry and the Impact of New Technologies.
The congress, which seeks to be a space for reflection, scientific exchange and professional commitment, on a science that gains in maturity and experiences on the road to human improvement and well-being. It brings together more than 250 Cuban delegates and some twenty countries at the Havana Convention Center through Friday, March 15.
“We have tried to make the scientific program address the main problems of mental health in the population, while constituting an update on topics specific to this century. Among these are the advantages and dangers of using the Internet, but also the development of neurosciences and nanotechnology in psychiatry,” said the president of the organizing committee.
We communicate all the time, and there is a network like a highway, in which one can advance in time, distance, friends and knowledge is extraordinary. But that same goal implies, if not used properly, multiple dangers, she said.
That’s why psychiatry professionals insist, from the promotion of health and prevention of diseases, on being aware of the problems that so-called TICS can bring; an alert that involves the media and the rest of society, especially when Cuba connects more and more, insisted Dr. Osa O´Reilly.
Healthier contents should be placed in the social networks that are being created and in the existing ones. They should be directed to the well-being of people. At the same time, a critical reading of those messages that we consume daily is needed. And let’s not lose sight of what the smallest members of the household consume, she warned.
The young population is the most affected by this misuse, explained the specialist. And there are plenty of examples, ranging from nomophobia or fear of being without a mobile phone for a long time, the need to check it even when the person wakes up at dawn, to the controversial selfies, which have caused death in the search for new, exuberant places… and the construction of a virtual life in networks like Facebook, dissonant from reality and which can lead to depression.
The interviewee also mentioned other organic consequences of these addictions, such as vision disorders or orthopedic disorders, when adopting incorrect postures for a long time in front of a computer or mobile phone.
On the other hand, for Profesor de la Osa, in this technological era, the cornerstone of the specialty continues to be clinical training, she said.
Based in the capital, the 9th Cuban Congress of Psychiatry was extended in a group of pre-congress courses to the provinces of Artemisa, Santiago de Cuba and Holguín.
On the closing day this Friday, Doctor of Science Pastor Castell-Florit Serrate, director of the National School of Public Health of Cuba and president of the National Council of Scientific Health Societies, stressed that Cuba recognizes the complexity of mental health problems and their social determination, as well as the right of the population to it. In addition there’s to the provision of information and communication with patients and families, and to understanding and support until recovery and continuation of the life project.
Dr. Carmen Borrego, head of the Mental Health and Addictions section of the Ministry of Public Health, signified the high knowledge and responsibility of the professionals of this branch in Cuba, who work in a wide network of services in the country and exceed one thousand specialists.
The urgent need for a resistance front
from the left
The urgent need for a resistance front
If democratic forms of government have been subjected to the harshest tests in recent times, nowhere have they been so fiercely attacked and placed in such a serious disruption as in our America.
Author: Raúl Roa García | internet@granma.cu
November 4, 2018 22:11:08
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
“Peace is the supreme aspiration of the man who feels freedom as an imperative of conscience. Photo: Archive.
If democratic forms of government have been subjected to the harshest tests in recent times, nowhere have they been so ferociously attacked and placed in such a serious disruption as in our America. From south to north, military lodges, lords of the earth, merchants of power, wild oligarchies and big companies, in a sinister consortium, have been abolishing the fundamental freedoms of man and of the citizen, without the UN and the OAS giving them a break, The cynical adulteration of the popular will, or the violent substitution of constitutionally-elected governments by autocracies using typical totalitarian rhetoric, characterize this dramatic process, which threatens to be generalized to the whole continent.
Pseudo-Marxist fifth columnism and imperialist greed today lord it over a beam of invertebrate nations, at the mercy of unscrupulous swords, gamonales, politicians, bankers and businessmen. Scarce governments of popular roots, the majority undermined by administrative corruption, social imbalances, electoral demagoguery and colonial exploitation, complete this gloomy picture. There is no doubt that the fate of democracy is cast. The unavoidable urgency of forming a broad front of resistance to the unbridled aggressiveness of the enemies of popular liberties is obvious.
It is indisputable that the democratic conception of life, society and the state is consubstantial with the spirit and historical development of our peoples; but, no less, that conception is currently threatened by the most regressive and rapacious forces of our time.
The central question to be debated is how to galvanize the democratic regime, to the point of promoting, in the peoples, the passionate determination to defend it, at the price of life, in all contingencies and avatars. A democratic regime without economic content, without a broad social base and without the active participation of the people in the orientation of public power, is a useless piece of junk at this historic juncture of transition. There can be no room for circumlocutions or euphemisms.
The fundamental problem facing democracy at this time is how to organize society without compromising freedom. On a universal level, it is now imperative that democracy clearly distinguishes subjective rights from patrimonial rights. Questions concerning the human person can only be resolved with the “discovery and establishment of a fairer legal structure, which allows the problem to be reduced to its true terms”.
Economic rights can already exist only in function of society. No individual interest, which pretends to oppose the social interest, is legitimate. If we aspire for man to recover his “lost fertility” and to develop, to the full, his aptitudes and powers, it is indispensable to socially discipline things. The task ahead of the democratic movement is extremely complex.
In the particular case of our America, we have to count on what history has given us. In material and cultural terms, much progress has been made so far this century. Considering the process as a whole, we must agree, however, that the economic, social and administrative structure of the Latin American peoples is in need of a substantial transformation. This transformation must go hand in hand with respect for public liberties and an international policy of militant repudiation of all regimes that violate human dignity.
It should be insisted that only through clean elections, administrative honesty, public freedoms, economic welfare, social justice, diffusion of light and consolidation of sovereignty can the representative institutions in this hemisphere be saved. The opportunity is unique to provide content and historical projection to the fight against the American dictatorships.
The American states have acquired the commitment to guarantee freedom and justice to the peoples by signing the Charter of Human Rights in the UN Charter of the Rights and Duties of Man at the IX Inter-American Conference in Bogota.
Peace is the supreme aspiration of the man who feels freedom as an imperative of conscience. The role that the leaders of the working forces will play is of the first line. No one like them will be able to contribute the most urgent and effective formulas for social improvement to strengthen the democratic regime.
Nor can the problem of the industrialization of our America be uncontroversial. Increasing the economic potential of our peoples is one of the most effective means of strengthening and consolidating the democratic regime and of putting at bay the imperialists of every sign and of every bay.
The American states have made a commitment to guarantee freedom and justice to the peoples by signing the Charter of Human Rights in the UN Charter of the Rights and Duties of Man at the IX Inter-American Conference in Bogota.
Peace is the supreme aspiration of the man who feels freedom as an imperative of conscience. The role that the leaders of the working forces will play is of the first line. No one like them will be able to contribute the most urgent and effective formulas for social improvement to strengthen the democratic regime.
The problem of the industrialization of our America cannot be uncontroversial either. Increasing the economic potential of our peoples is one of the most effective means of strengthening and consolidating the democratic regime and of putting at bay the imperialists of every sign and every bay.
The way in which the most developed countries can contribute to this increase in our economic potential must be considered, in the light of this question: could governments that are representative and respectful of public liberties and those that are born of the usurpation of the will of the people and deny their governed the enjoyment of the essential rights of man and of the citizen, be placed on an equal footing with regard to this aid? Nor can the question of the recognition of de facto governments be ignored. On this matter ,there are no guidelines within the inter-American public law, nor unanimity of criteria in the chancelleries.
If democracy needs both America to overcome the deep crisis it is going through, it is essential that the policy of good neighborliness be effectively restored. After the death of Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, on many osions the “good guys have been us and the neighbors them. May the government of the people, by the people and for the people, cease to be the government in the name of the people, without the people and against the people! And may they live on an equal footing, in peace and harmony, the America of Juarez and the America of Lincoln!
(Excerpts taken from the book 15 años después [15 years later], Editorial Librería Selecta, Havana, 1950).
To Subscribers to Walter Lippmann’s Blog
CUBAN CHRONICLES
by Walter Lippmann
March 13, 2019
FOR SUBSCRIBERS TO WALTERLIPPMANN.COM’s blog only.
I’m about to post some older materials from the CubaNews Yahoo News Group, and some other materials which were first posted to Facebook, just collecting previous postings in one convenient location: my website.
If you’ve not seen them before, I hope you’ll enjoy them. If you have, the same applies. I’m writing this so when you receive things from last year or the year before, it’s not because the mail was late. I’m just posting it here now.
Thank you,
Walter Lippmann
Venezuela Won the First Round
Venezuela Won the First Round Against the Empire
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The clash between Venezuela and the Empire last weekend ended with a humiliating defeat for Elliott Abrams, the alleged designer of the operation.
What the neocons initially planned may never be known, but what is known is that they could not culminate in an invasion or another false flag operation.
The most notable facet of the confrontation, according to the most objective international experts and observers, has been the scant effect that Anglo-Zionist propaganda had inside Venezuela.
Although certainly a few senior officers and Venezuelan soldiers betrayed their country by uniting with the enemy, the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan military remained faithful to the Constitution and their homeland.
President Maduro and his government successfully carried out a strategy that combined roadblocks, a musical concert on the Venezuelan side, and the minimal – but effective – use of riot police to keep the border closed and order throughout the homeland. Most notably, the “unidentified snipers” did not seem to shoot on both sides (the Empire’s favorite tactic to justify its interventions).
Outside Venezuelan national territory, this first confrontation was also a defeat for the Empire. Not only because most countries in the world refused to recognize Washington’s puppet, but because the level of rejection of a possible invasion proved remarkably intense, and the Internet and the blogosphere overwhelmingly opposed U.S. intervention. This situation created many internal political tensions in several Latin American countries whose public opinion is firmly opposed to any form of U.S. interference in Latin America, even if not with the historic oligarchy.
The leaders of the Empire and their puppets do not hide the fact that their goal is to overthrow the constitutional government and to replace it with the kind of regime that Washington seems to have been able to impose on Colombia. Pompeo, Abrams, Pence, Elliot Abrams and Marco Rubio were particularly hysterical in their threats, although the oligarchies (not so the peoples) of the “Lima Group” countries submissively abided by them.
Certain American politicians resorted to their usual childish language for threats in situations of gravity as an obvious show of contempt for their own population. For those bewildered because adult politicians used the language.
No one should be surprised when they claim that Maduro is a “new Hitler” who commits a “genocide” against his own people. Or that he is accused of using “chemical weapons”.
Last weekend’s military defeat of Venezuela’s self-appointed interim president, Juan Guaidó, has been publicly reproached by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. The White House has attempted to evade responsibility for what its espionage and subversion agencies have been unable to achieve. They’d saught the adherence of an emblematic number of traitors from the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) to the action of the alleged coup plotters, and failed to get it. Pence reproached the supposed interim president of Venezuela for the failures suffered after his recognition last January 23, actions called to justify the military intervention designed by Washington.
Their main demand was against the support of the FANB for the legitimate president, Nicolás Maduro.
Guaidó had promised the U.S. government that if the majority of world leaders recognized him as president of Venezuela, at least half of the FANB officers would defect, which did not even remotely happen.
The U.S. official also questioned the uncommitted attitude of Venezuelan millionaires abroad who “were expected a more determined contribution of money to finance the bribery of police, military and politicians and their adherence to the Guaidó sphere, which did not happen either.
Important international decision-making centers allied to the Trump regime have warned that the Venezuelan opposition “could lose the momentum” that the U.S. supposedly provided with the sudden appearance of the puppet Guaidó. He certainly has not yet found territory to govern and perhaps would have to do so from Colombia or another nation whose government is not ashamed to cede a piece of its sovereignty to the United States.
March 4, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Cuba Debuts “Gay-Friendly” Constitution
Cuba Debuts “Gay-friendly” Constitution or,
the Battle for LGBTI Rights Has Just Begun
by Francisco Rodríguez Cruz
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
With its ratification by a resounding majority of its citizens, Cuba gets the first Constitution in its history and one of the few in the world that explicitly supports the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.
But don’t tell anyone!
The new Magna Carta is the result of more than a decade of citizen and institutional activism for the sexual rights of LGBTI people, of progressive political and governmental work for comprehensive sexuality education, and of the growing overcoming of homophobia and transphobia among the Cuban population.
The contents that most directly express the gay-friendly character of the new constitutional text are:
It expressly proscribes and punishes by law discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, among other grounds (Article 42).
It recognizes the right of everyone to found a family, and protects all families, regardless of their form of organization (Article 81).
It deletes the previous definition of marriage as the union between a man and a woman, and conceptualizes it only as a social and legal institution, and one of the forms of family organization, which is based on free consent and the equal rights, obligations and legal capacity of the spouses (Article 82).
This 2019 Constitution, more than a goal, then, is a starting point.
Great trials will have to be faced in the future, in particular the process of popular consultation and referendum on the draft Family Code. Within two years from the entry into force of the Constitution, the Family Code will have to establish the way of constituting marriage, among other issues that concern LGBTI people very.
The convincing success of the YES in the constitutional referendum that we have just held does not mean that the great majority of Cubans understand, respect or support our rights as lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.
On the contrary, the great lesson of the popular consultation and of some of the modifications that the draft Constitution underwent, as well as its interpretation, was that there are still many prejudices, much ignorance and even recalcitrant, retrograde and extremist positions in our population.
Such objections and resistances, deliberate or unconscious, do not exclude individuals or sectors that support the Revolution in other areas, and even occupy leadership responsibilities at different political or governmental levels of the country.
Nor does the defeat of the NO in the vote imply that among the minority that in one way or another showed its disagreement with the new Law of Laws there are no sensitive people, directly interested or sympathetic to the defense of LGBTI rights.
We will then have to promote, activate or recompose alliances, excuse grievances, appease hostilities and resentments, overcome disunity and strengthen strategies for working together among activists, organizations and institutions that advocate for free sexual orientation and gender identity.
It is also foreseeable that on this road towards the realization of such constitutional guarantees there will be controversies, conflicts and disagreements, including clashes and rebellions, questioning and injustices; advances, stagnations and setbacks, all of which should not discourage or discourage us from taking the necessary risks.
It will therefore be essential to deploy all our intelligence and responsibility, negotiation skills and capacity, maturity and political courage, so that we can ensure that this wonderfully advanced constitutional chrysalis spreads its multi-colored butterfly wings in specific laws that effectively regulate and guarantee our rights as LGBTI people.
February 25, 2019
Who is Paquito?
Photo by Jose Goitia
I am , also known as Paquito, from Cuba; I am a Marti follower and an author; I am a communist and gay journalist; I am a convinced and superstitious atheist; I am the father of a son whom I have adored and have been a partner for fifteen years with a seronegative man who loves me; I have been an AIDS patient since 2003 and am a survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for more than twelve years; I am a university professor and a student of life; a follower of Cuban economic issues and a passionate devourer of universal literature; an incontinent and belligerent moderate; a friend of my friends and a compassionate friend of my enemies; often wrong and never repentant; a hardened and eternal enthusiastic optimist; alive and kicking; in short, another ordinary man who wants to share his story, opinions and desires with you…
Cuban cigarettes
CUBAN CHRONICLES
by Walter Lippmann
February 15, 2019
These are Cuban cigarettes, not at the duty-free, and you’ll notice the price is 6 cuc for a carton, that is 10 packs and other words 200 coffin nails.
Originallly posted to facebook February 15, 2019 at 9:06am
The plane has been called for boarding
CUBAN CHRONICLES
by Walter Lippmann
February 15, 2019
The plane has been called for boarding so I’m going to go now I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do any more posting from inside the plane. On the way to the airport, I had to make a quick stop at the office of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde. It is located catty-corner from the office of the Ministry of the Armed Forces.
You’ll notice the red berets, quite distinctive, which identified them as members of the internal security force within the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Look closely and you will see that this detail includes both male and female soldiers. Okay, perhaps this is a good place to stop recording any more impressions and go line up to board my flight to Miami which leaves in about a half hour.
Originally posted on Facebook February 15, 2019
With Suitcases at The Airport
CUBAN CHRONICLES
With Suitcases at The Airport
by Walter Lippmann
February 15, 2019
Here I am at the airport. Over a two months nap over a two-month span, I accumulate a massive quantity of books. If there’s any space left beyond the books, and the Cuban coffee that I purchase, I sometimes by a few little touristy things to drop my last few see you sees into the Cuban economy.
And I am still amazed, as I think about it, that with one suitcase entirely filled with books and others including books and Cuban coffee and those lovely little small coffee cups that we drink are Cuban coffee in, that I paid no overweight, for the very first time in my memory. I think I will always fly American because they give you two checked bags. Getting in here, and going through airport security, was a snap they were just as thorough as anywhere else but it was very easy and the security people were very polite.
I cannot resist pointing this out, and it’s true in many other Cuban installations as well, that these security officials, the female ones, often wear skirts that measure as much as 8 to 10 INCHES above the knee.
Originally posted on facebook February 15 at 9:24 AM
Cuban Coffee
CUBAN CHRONICLES
by Walter Lippmann
February 15, 2019
After all these years, I finally have learned the correct way to make Cuban coffee in the cafetera. Here is my final cup being made this very morning. Serrano isn’t around these days, so we’re drinking Turquino. Also very good.
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