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Opal

Opal is a hydrated amorphous form of silica (SiO2·nH2O); its water content may range from 3% to 21% by weight, but is usually between 6% and 10%. Due to its amorphous property, it is classified as a mineraloid, unlike crystalline forms of silica, which are considered minerals. It is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock, being most commonly found with limonite, sandstone, rhyolite, marl, and basalt.

The name opal is believed to be derived from the Sanskrit word, which means 'jewel', and later the Greek derivative.

There are two broad classes of opal: precious and common. Precious opal displays play-of-color (iridescence); common opal does not. Play-of-color is defined as "a pseudo chromatic optical effect resulting in flashes of colored light from certain minerals, as they are turned in white light." The internal structure of precious opal causes it to diffract light, resulting in play-of-color. Depending on the conditions in which it formed, opal may be transparent, translucent, or opaque, and the background color may be white, black, or nearly any color of the visual spectrum. Black opal is considered the rarest, while white, gray, and green opals are the most common.

Precious opal

Precious opal shows a variable interplay of internal colors, and though it is a mineraloid, it has an internal structure. At microscopic scales, precious opal is composed of silica spheres some 150 - 300 nm in diameter in a hexagonal or cubic close-packed lattice. It was shown by J. V. Sanders in the mid-1960s that these ordered silica spheres produce the internal colors by causing the interference and diffraction of light passing through the microstructure of the opal. The regularity of the sizes and the packing of these spheres is a prime determinant of the quality of precious opal. Where the distance between the regularly packed planes of spheres is around half the wavelength of a component of visible light, the light of that wavelength may be subject to diffraction from the grating created by the stacked planes. The colors that are observed are determined by the spacing between the planes and the orientation of planes with respect to the incident light. The process can be described by Bragg's law of diffraction.

Visible light cannot pass through large thicknesses of the opal. This is the basis of the optical band gap in a photonic crystal. The notion that opals are photonic crystals for visible light was expressed in 1995 by Vasily Astratov's group. In addition, microfractures may be filled with secondary silica and form thin lamellae inside the opal during its formation. The term opalescence is commonly used to describe this unique and beautiful phenomenon, which in gemology is termed play of color. In gemology, opalescence is applied to the hazy-milky-turbid sheen of common or potch opal which does not show a play of color. Opalescence is a form of adularescence.

For gemstone use, most opal is cut and polished to form a cabochon. "Natural" opal refers to polished stones consisting wholly of precious opal. Opals too thin to produce a "natural" opal may be combined with other materials to form "composite" gems. An opal doublet consists of a relatively thin layer of precious opal, backed by a layer of dark-colored material, most commonly ironstone, dark or black common opal (potch), onyx, or obsidian. The darker backing emphasizes the play of color and results in a more attractive display than a lighter potch. An opal triplet is similar to a doublet but has a third layer, a domed cap of clear quartz or plastic on the top. The cap takes a high polish and acts as a protective layer for the opal. The top layer also acts as a magnifier, to emphasize the play of color of the opal beneath, which is often an inferior specimen or an extremely thin section of precious opal. Triplet opals tend to have a more artificial appearance and are not classed as precious gemstones, but rather "composite" gemstones. Jewelry applications of precious opal can be somewhat limited by opal's sensitivity to heat due primarily to its relatively high water content and predisposition to scratching. Combined with modern techniques of polishing, a doublet opal can produce a similar effect to Natural black or boulder opal at a fraction of the price. Doublet opal also has the added benefit of having genuine opal as the top visible and touchable layer, unlike triplet opals.

Common opal

Besides the gemstone varieties that show a play of color, the other kinds of common opal include the milk opal, milky bluish to greenish (which can sometimes be of gemstone quality); resin opal, which is honey-yellow with a resinous luster; wood opal, which is caused by the replacement of the organic material in wood with opal; menilite, which is brown or grey; hyalite, a colorless glass-clear opal sometimes called Muller's glass; geyserite, also called siliceous sinter, deposited around hot springs or geysers; and diatomaceous earth, the accumulations of diatom shells or tests. Common opal often displays a hazy-milky-turbid sheen from within the stone. In gemology, this optical effect is strictly defined as opalescence which is a form of adularescence.

Varieties of common opal

"Girasol opal" is a term sometimes mistakenly and improperly used to refer to fire opals, as well as a type of transparent to semitransparent type milky quartz from Madagascar which displays an asterism, or star effect when cut properly. However, the true girasol opal is a type of hyalite opal that exhibits a bluish glow or sheen that follows the light source around. It is not a play of color as seen in precious opal, but rather an effect from microscopic inclusions. It is also sometimes referred to as water opal, too, when it is from Mexico. The two most notable locations of this type of opal are Oregon and Mexico.

A Peruvian opal (also called blue opal) is a semi-opaque to opaque blue-green stone found in Peru, which is often cut to include the matrix in the more opaque stones. It does not display a play of color. Blue opal also comes from Oregon and Idaho in the Owyhee region, as well as from Nevada around the Virgin Valley.

Opal is also formed by diatoms. Diatoms are a form of algae that, when they die, often form layers at the bottoms of lakes, bays, or oceans. Their cell walls are made up of hydrated silicon dioxide which gives them structural coloration and therefore the appearance of tiny opals when viewed under a microscope. These cell walls or "tests" form the “grains” for the diatomaceous earth. This sedimentary rock is white, opaque, and chalky in texture. Diatomite has multiple industrial uses such as filtering or adsorbing since it has a fine particle size and very porous nature, and gardening to increase water absorption.

History
Opal was rare and very valuable in antiquity. In Europe, it was a gem prized by royalty. Until the opening of vast deposits in Australia in the 19th century the only known source was Červenica beyond the Roman frontier in Slovakia. Opal is the national gemstone of Australia.

Australia
The town of Coober Pedy in South Australia is a major source of opal. The world's largest and most valuable gem opal "Olympic Australis" was found in August 1956 at the "Eight Mile" opal field in Coober Pedy. It weighs 17000 carat and is 11 in long, with a height of 4+3/4 in and a width of 4+1/2 in.

The Mintabie Opal Field in South Australia located about 250 km northwest of Coober Pedy has also produced large quantities of crystal opal and the rarer black opal. Over the years, it has been sold overseas incorrectly as Coober Pedy opal. The black opal is said to be some of the best examples found in Australia.

Andamooka in South Australia is also a major producer of matrix opal, crystal opal, and black opal. Another Australian town, Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, is the main source of black opal, opal containing a predominantly dark background (dark gray to blue-black displaying the play of color), collected from the Griman Creek Formation. Boulder opal consists of concretions and fracture fillings in a dark siliceous ironstone matrix. It is found sporadically in western Queensland, from Kynuna in the north, to Yowah and Koroit in the south. Its largest quantities are found around Jundah and Quilpie in South West Queensland. Australia also has opalized fossil remains, including dinosaur bones in New South Wales and South Australia, and marine creatures in South Australia.

Ethiopia

It has been reported that Northern African opal was used to make tools as early as 4000 BC. The first published report of gem opal from Ethiopia appeared in 1994, with the discovery of precious opal in the Menz Gishe District, North Shewa Province. The opal, found mostly in the form of nodules, was of volcanic origin and was found predominantly within weathered layers of rhyolite. This Shewa Province opal was mostly dark brown in color and had a tendency to crack. These qualities made it unpopular in the gem trade. In 2008, a new opal deposit was found approximately 180 km north of Shewa Province, near the town of Wegeltena, in Ethiopia's Wollo Province. The Wollo Province opal was different from the previous Ethiopian opal finds in that it more closely resembled the sedimentary opals of Australia and Brazil, with a light background and often vivid play-of-color. Wollo Province opal, more commonly referred to as "Welo" or "Wello" opal, has become the dominant Ethiopian opal in the gem trade.

Virgin Valley, Nevada

The Virgin Valley opal fields of Humboldt County in northern Nevada produce a wide variety of precious black, crystal, white, fire, and lemon opal. The black fire opal is the official gemstone of Nevada. Most of the precious opal is partial wood replacement. The precious opal is hosted and found in situ within a subsurface horizon or zone of bentonite, which is considered a "lode" deposit. Opals which have weathered out of the in situ deposits are alluvial and considered placer deposits. Miocene-age opalised teeth, bones, fish, and a snake head have been found. Some of the opal has high water content and may desiccate and crack when dried. The largest producing mines of Virgin Valley have been the famous Rainbow Ridge, Royal Peacock, Bonanza, Opal Queen, and WRT Stonetree/Black Beauty mines. The largest unpolished black opal in the Smithsonian Institution, known as the "Roebling opal", came out of the tunneled portion of the Rainbow Ridge Mine in 1917, and weighs 2585 carat. The largest polished black opal in the Smithsonian Institution comes from the Royal Peacock opal mine in the Virgin Valley, weighing 160 carat, known as the "Black Peacock".

Mexico
Fire opal is a transparent to translucent opal with warm body colors of yellow to orange to red. Although fire opals don't usually show any play of color, they occasionally exhibit bright green flashes. The most famous source of fire opals is the state of Querétaro in Mexico; these opals are commonly called Mexican fire opals. Fire opals that do not show a play of color are sometimes referred to as jelly opals. Mexican opals are sometimes cut in their rhyolitic host material if it is hard enough to allow cutting and polishing. This type of Mexican opal is referred to as a Cantera opal. Another type of opal from Mexico, referred to as Mexican water opal, is a colorless opal that exhibits either a bluish or golden internal sheen. Opal occurs in significant quantity and variety in central Mexico, where mining and production first originated in the state of Querétaro. In this region the opal deposits are located mainly in the mountain ranges of three municipalities: Colón, Tequisquiapan, and Ezequiel Montes. During the 1960s through to the mid-1970s, the Querétaro mines were heavily mined. Today's opal miners report that it was much easier to find quality opals with a lot of fire and play of color back then, whereas today the gem-quality opals are very hard to come by and command hundreds of US dollars or more. The orange-red background color is characteristic of all "fire opals," including "Mexican fire opal".

The oldest mine in Querétaro is Santa Maria del Iris. This mine was opened around 1870 and has been reopened at least 28 times since. At the moment there are about 100 mines in the regions around Querétaro, but most of them are now closed. The best quality of opals came from the mine Santa Maria del Iris, followed by La Hacienda la Esperanza, Fuentezuelas, La Carbonera, and La Trinidad. Important deposits in the state of Jalisco were not discovered until the late 1950s.

In 1957, Alfonso Ramirez (of Querétaro) accidentally discovered the first opal mine in Jalisco: La Unica, located on the outer area of the volcano of Tequila, near the Huitzicilapan farm in Magdalena. By 1960 there were around 500 known opal mines in this region alone. Other regions of the country that also produce opals (of lesser quality) are Guerrero, which produces an opaque opal similar to the opals from Australia (some of these opals are carefully treated with heat to improve their colors so high-quality opals from this area may be suspect). There are also some small opal mines in Morelos, Durango, Chihuahua, Baja California, Guanajuato, Puebla, Michoacán, and Estado de México.

Other locations

Another source of white base opal or creamy opal in the United States is Spencer, Idaho. A high percentage of the opal found there occurs in thin layers.

Other significant deposits of precious opal around the world can be found in the Czech Republic, Canada, Slovakia, Hungary, Turkey, Indonesia, Brazil (in Pedro II, Piauí ), Honduras (more precisely in Erandique), Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

In late 2008, NASA announced the discovery of opal deposits on Mars.

Fossil opal
Wood opal, also known as xylopal, is a form of opal, as well as a type of petrified wood which has developed an opalescent sheen or, more rarely, where the wood has been completely replaced by opal. Other names for this opalized sheen-like wood are opalized wood and opalized petrified wood. It is often used as a gemstone.

Synthetic opal
Opals of all varieties have been synthesized experimentally and commercially. The discovery of the ordered sphere structure of precious opal led to its synthesis by Pierre Gilson in 1974. The resulting material is distinguishable from natural opal by its regularity; under magnification, the patches of color are seen to be arranged in a "lizard skin" or "chicken wire" pattern. Furthermore, synthetic opals do not fluoresce under ultraviolet light. Synthetics are also generally lower in density and are often highly porous.

Opals which have been created in a laboratory are often termed "lab-created opals", which, while classifiable as man-made and synthetic, are very different from their resin-based counterparts which are also considered man-made and synthetic. The term "synthetic" implies that a stone has been created to be chemically and structurally indistinguishable from a genuine one, and genuine opal contains no resins or polymers. The finest modern lab-created opals do not exhibit the lizard skin or columnar patterning of earlier lab-created varieties, and their patterns are non-directional. They can still be distinguished from genuine opals, however, by their lack of inclusions and the absence of any surrounding non-opal matrix. While many genuine opals are cut and polished without a matrix, the presence of irregularities in their play-of-color continues to mark them as distinct from even the best lab-created synthetics.

Other research in macroporous structures have yielded highly ordered materials that have similar optical properties to opals and have been used in cosmetics. Synthetic opals are also deeply investigated in photonics for sensing and light management purposes.

Local atomic structure

The lattice of spheres of opal that cause interference with light is several hundred times larger than the fundamental structure of crystalline silica. As a mineraloid, no unit cell describes the structure of opal. Nevertheless, opals can be roughly divided into those that show no signs of crystalline order (amorphous opal) and those that show signs of the beginning of crystalline order, commonly termed cryptocrystalline or microcrystalline opal. Dehydration experiments and infrared spectroscopy have shown that most of the H2O in the formula of SiO2·nH2O of opals is present in the familiar form of clusters of molecular water. Isolated water molecules, and silanols, structures such as SiOH, generally form a lesser proportion of the total and can reside near the surface or in defects inside the opal.

The structure of low-pressure polymorphs of anhydrous silica consists of frameworks of fully corner bonded tetrahedra of SiO4. The higher temperature polymorphs of silica cristobalite and tridymite are frequently the first to crystallize from amorphous anhydrous silica, and the local structures of microcrystalline opals also appear to be closer to that of cristobalite and tridymite than to quartz. The structures of tridymite and cristobalite are closely related and can be described as hexagonal and cubic close-packed layers. It is therefore possible to have intermediate structures in which the layers are not regularly stacked.

Microcrystalline opal
Microcrystalline opal or Opal-CT has been interpreted as consisting of clusters of stacked cristobalite and tridymite over very short length scales. The spheres of opal in microcrystalline opal are themselves made up of tiny nanocrystalline blades of cristobalite and tridymite. Microcrystalline opal has occasionally been further subdivided in the literature. Water content may be as high as 10 wt%. Opal-CT, also called lussatine or lussatite, is interpreted as consisting of localized order of α-cristobalite with a lot of stacking disorder. Typical water content is about 1.5 wt%.

Noncrystalline opal

Two broad categories of noncrystalline opals, sometimes just referred to as "opal-A" ("A" stands for "amorphous"), have been proposed. The first of these is opal-AG consisting of aggregated spheres of silica, with water filling the space in between. Precious opal and potch opal are generally varieties of this, the difference being in the regularity of the sizes of the spheres and their packing. The second "opal-A" is opal-AN or water-containing amorphous silica-glass. Hyalite is another name for this.

Noncrystalline silica in siliceous sediments is reported to gradually transform to opal-CT and then opal-C as a result of diagenesis, due to the increasing overburden pressure in sedimentary rocks, as some of the stacking disorder is removed.

Opal surface chemical groups
The surface of opal in contact with water is covered by siloxane bonds (≡Si–O–Si≡) and silanol groups (≡Si–OH). This makes the opal surface very hydrophilic and capable of forming numerous hydrogen bonds.

Etymology
The word 'opal' is adapted from the Latin term opalus. The origin of this word in turn is a matter of debate, but most modern references suggest it is adapted from the Sanskrit word úpala meaning ‘precious stone’.

As references to the gem are made by Pliny the Elder, one theory attributed the name's origin to Roman mythology: to have been adapted from Ops, the wife of Saturn, and goddess of fertility. (The portion of Saturnalia devoted to Ops was "Opalia", similar to opalus.)

Another common claim was that the term was adapted from the Ancient Greek word, opallios. This word has two meanings, one is related to "seeing" and forms the basis of the English words like "opaque"; the other is "other" as in "alias" and "alter". It is claimed that opalus combined these uses, meaning "to see a change in color". However, historians have noted the first appearances of opallios do not occur until after the Romans had taken over the Greek states in 180 BC and they had previously used the term paederos.

However, the argument for the Sanskrit origin is strong. The term first appears in Roman references around 250 BC, at a time when the opal was valued above all other gems. The opals were supplied by traders from the Bosporus, who claimed the gems were being supplied from India. Before this, the stone was referred to by a variety of names, but these fell from use after 250 BC.

Historical superstitions
In the Middle Ages, opal was considered a stone that could provide great luck because it was believed to possess all the virtues of each gemstone whose color was represented in the color spectrum of the opal. It was also said to grant invisibility if wrapped in a fresh bay leaf and held in the hand. As a result, the opal was seen as the patron gemstone for thieves during the medieval period. Following the publication of Sir Walter Scott's Anne of Geierstein in 1829, opal acquired a less auspicious reputation. In Scott's novel, the Baroness of Arnheim wears an opal talisman with supernatural powers. When a drop of holy water falls on the talisman, the opal turns into a colorless stone and the Baroness dies soon thereafter. Due to the popularity of Scott's novel, people began to associate opals with bad luck and death. Within a year of the publishing of Scott's novel in April 1829, the sale of opals in Europe dropped by 50%, and remained low for the next 20 years or so.

Even as recently as the beginning of the 20th century, it was believed that when a Russian saw an opal among other goods offered for sale, he or she should not buy anything more, as the opal was believed to embody the evil eye.

Opal is considered the birthstone for people born in October.

Examples

 * The Olympic Australis, the world's largest and most valuable gem opal, found in Coober Pedy
 * The Andamooka Opal, presented to Queen Elizabeth II, also known as the Queen's Opal
 * The Addyman Plesiosaur from Andamooka, "the finest known opalised skeleton on Earth"
 * The Burning of Troy, the now-lost opal presented to Joséphine de Beauharnais by Napoleon I of France and the first named opal
 * The Flame Queen Opal
 * Opal cameo (jewellery-case) of a profile head of a helmeted warrior, attributed to Wilhelm Schmidt
 * The Halley's Comet Opal, the world's largest uncut black opal
 * Although the clock faces above the information stand in Grand Central Terminal in New York City are often said to be opal, they are in fact opalescent glass
 * The Roebling Opal, Smithsonian Institution
 * The Galaxy Opal, listed as the "World's Largest Polished Opal" in the 1992 Guinness Book of Records
 * The Rainbow Virgin, "the finest crystal opal specimen ever unearthed"
 * The Sea of Opal, the largest black opal in the world
 * The Fire of Australia, assumed to be "the finest uncut opal in existence"
 * Beverly the Bug, the first known example of an opal with an insect inclusion

title: Opal


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Pedal

A pedal (from the Latin pes pedis, "foot") is a lever designed to be operated by foot and may refer to:

Computers and other equipment

 * Footmouse, a foot-operated computer mouse
 * In medical transcription, a pedal is used to control playback of voice dictations

Geometry

 * Pedal curve, a curve derived by construction from a given curve
 * Pedal triangle, a triangle obtained by projecting a point onto the sides of a triangle

Albums

 * Pedals (Rival Schools album)
 * Pedals (Speak album)

Other music

 * Bass drum pedal, a pedal used to play a bass drum while leaving the drummer's hands free to play other drums with drum sticks, hands, etc.
 * Effects pedal, a pedal used commonly for electric guitars
 * Pedal keyboard, a musical keyboard operated by the player's feet
 * Pedal harp, a modern orchestral harp with pedals used to change the tuning of its strings
 * Pedal point, a type of nonchord tone, usually in the bass
 * Pedal tone, a fundamental tone played on brass instruments
 * Piano pedals, typically three pedals used to soften, sustain, or selectively sustain notes played on a piano
 * Pedal piano, a kind of piano that includes a pedalboard
 * Player piano, a kind of piano which plays prerecorded music, some designs of which are driven by pedals
 * The damper mechanism on a vibraphone, also known as a "pedal"

Transportation

 * Bicycle pedal, the part of a bicycle that the rider pushes with their foot to propel the vehicle
 * Pedalo, a small boat, usually for recreation, propelled by one or more occupants using bicycle style pedals
 * Automobile pedal, such as the accelerator, brake, and clutch
 * Pedals (The Nottingham Cycling Campaign), a cycling advocacy group in Nottingham, England
 * Rudder pedal, to control yaw on an airplane

Other uses

 * Pedal bin, a container with a lid operated by a foot pedal
 * Pedal bone or coffin bone, the last phalanx and most distal bone in the front and rear legs of horses, cattle, pigs, and other ruminants
 * Pedals (bear)

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title: Pedal


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Alice Miller (psychologist)

Alice Miller (born Alicja Englard; 12 January 1923 – 14 April 2010) was a Polish-Swiss psychologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher of Jewish origin, who is noted for her books on parental child abuse, translated into several languages. She was also a noted public intellectual.

Her book The Drama of the Gifted Child caused a sensation and became an international bestseller upon the English publication in 1981. Her views on the consequences of child abuse became highly influential. In her books she departed from psychoanalysis, charging it with being similar to the poisonous pedagogies.

Life
Miller was born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland into a Jewish family. She was the oldest daughter of Gutta and Meylech Englard and had a sister, Irena, who was five years younger. From 1931 to 1933 the family lived in Berlin, where nine-year-old Alicja learned the German language. Due to the National Socialists' seizure of power in Germany in 1933 the family turned back to Piotrków Trybunalski. As a young woman, Miller managed to escape the Jewish Ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski, where all Jewish inhabitants were interned since October 1939, and survived World War II in Warsaw under the assumed name of Alicja Rostowska. While she was able to smuggle her mother and sister out, in 1941, her father died in the ghetto. She retained her assumed name Alice Rostowska when she moved to Switzerland in 1946, where she had won a scholarship to the University of Basel.

In 1949 she married Swiss sociologist Andreas Miller, originally a Polish Catholic, with whom she had moved from Poland to Switzerland as students. They divorced in 1973. They had two children, Martin (born 1950) and Julika (born 1956). Shortly after his mother's death Martin Miller stated in an interview with Der Spiegel that he had been beaten by his authoritarian father during his childhood - in the presence of his mother. Miller stated that his mother did not intervene and was emotionally abusive. Martin also mentioned that his mother was unable to talk with him, despite numerous lengthy conversations, about her wartime experiences, as she was severely burdened by them.

In 1953 Miller got her doctorate in philosophy, psychology and sociology. Between 1953 and 1960, Miller studied psychoanalysis and practiced it between 1960 and 1980 in Zürich.

In 1980, after having worked as a psychoanalyst and an analyst trainer for 20 years, Miller "stopped practicing and teaching psychoanalysis in order to explore childhood systematically." She became critical of both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Her first three books originated from research she took upon herself as a response to what she felt were major blind spots in her field. However, by the time her fourth book was published, she no longer believed that psychoanalysis was viable in any respect.

In 1985 Miller wrote about the research from her time as a psychoanalyst: "For twenty years I observed people denying their childhood traumas, idealising their parents and resisting the truth about their childhood by any means." In 1985 she left Switzerland and moved to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France.

In 1986, she was awarded the Janusz Korczak Literary Award for her book Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child.

In April 1987 Miller announced in an interview with the German magazine Psychologie Heute (Psychology Today) her rejection of psychoanalysis. The following year she cancelled her memberships in both the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association, because she felt that psychoanalytic theory and practice made it impossible for former victims of child abuse to recognise the violations inflicted on them and to resolve the consequences of the abuse, as they "remained in the old tradition of blaming the child and protecting the parents".

One of Miller's last books, Bilder meines Lebens ("Pictures of My Life"), was published in 2006. It is an informal autobiography in which the writer explores her emotional process from painful childhood, through the development of her theories and later insights, told via the display and discussion of 66 of her original paintings, painted in the years 1973–2005.

Between 2005 and her death in 2010, she answered hundreds of readers' letters on her website, where there are also published articles, flyers and interviews in three languages. Days before her death Alice Miller wrote: "These letters will stay as an important witness also after my death under my copyright".

Miller died on 14 April 2010, at the age of 87, at her home in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence by suicide after severe illness and diagnosis of advanced-stage pancreatic cancer.

Work
Miller extended the trauma model to include all forms of child abuse, including those that were commonly accepted (such as spanking), which she called poisonous pedagogy, a non-literal translation of Katharina Rutschky's Schwarze Pädagogik (black or dark pedagogy/imprinting).

Drawing upon the work of psychohistory, Miller analyzed writers Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka and others to find links between their childhood traumas and the course and outcome of their lives.

The introduction to the first chapter in Miller's first book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, first published in 1979, contains a line that summarises her core view. In it, she writes:

"Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood."

In the 1990s, Miller strongly supported a new method developed by Konrad Stettbacher, who himself was later charged with incidents of sexual abuse. Miller learned of Stettbacher and his method from a book by Mariella Mehr titled Steinzeit (Stone Age). Having been strongly impressed by the book, Miller contacted Mehr in order to get the name of the therapist. From that time forward, Miller refused to make therapist or method recommendations. In open letters, Miller explained her decision and how she originally became Stettbacher's disciple, but in the end she distanced herself from him and his regressive therapies.

In her writings, Miller is careful to clarify that by "abuse" she does not only mean physical violence or sexual abuse, she is also concerned with psychological abuse perpetrated by one or both parents on their child; this is difficult to identify and deal with because the abused person is likely to conceal it from themselves and may not be aware of it until some event, or the onset of depression, requires it to be treated. Miller blamed psychologically abusive parents for the majority of neuroses and psychoses. She maintained that all instances of mental illness, addiction, crime and cultism were ultimately caused by suppressed rage and pain as a result of subconscious childhood trauma that was not resolved emotionally, assisted by a helper, which she came to term an "enlightened witness." In all cultures, "sparing the parents is our supreme law," wrote Miller. Even psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists were unconsciously afraid to blame parents for the mental disorders of their clients, she contended. According to Miller, mental health professionals were also creatures of the poisonous pedagogy internalised in their own childhood. This explained why the Commandment "Honor thy parents" was one of the main targets in Miller's school of psychology.

Miller called electroconvulsive therapy "a campaign against the act of remembering". In her book Abbruch der Schweigemauer (The Demolition of Silence), she also criticised psychotherapists' advice to clients to forgive their abusive parents, arguing that this could only hinder recovery through remembering and feeling childhood pain. It was her contention that the majority of therapists fear this truth and that they work under the influence of interpretations culled from both Western and Oriental religions, which preach forgiveness by the once-mistreated child. She believed that forgiveness did not resolve hatred, but covered it in a dangerous way in the grown adult: displacement on scapegoats, as she discussed in her psycho-biographies of Adolf Hitler and Jürgen Bartsch, both of whom she described as having suffered severe parental abuse.

A common denominator in Miller's writings is her explanation of why human beings prefer not to know about their own victimisation during childhood: to avoid unbearable pain. She believed that the unconscious command of the individual, not to be aware of how they were treated in childhood, led to displacement: the irresistible drive to repeat abusive parenting in the next generation of children or direct unconsciously the unresolved trauma against others (war, terrorism, delinquency), or against themselves (eating disorders, drug addiction, depression).

The roots of violence
According to Alice Miller, worldwide violence has its roots in the fact that children are beaten all over the world, especially during their first years of life, when their brains become structured. She said that the damage caused by this practice is devastating, but unfortunately hardly noticed by society. She argued that as children are forbidden to defend themselves against the violence inflicted on them, they must suppress the natural reactions like rage and fear, and they discharge these strong emotions later as adults against their own children or whole peoples: "child abuse like beating and humiliating not only produces unhappy and confused children, not only destructive teenagers and abusive parents, but thus also a confused, irrationally functioning society". Miller stated that only through becoming aware of this dynamic can we break the chain of violence.

Writings
The following is a brief summary of Miller's books.

The Drama of the Gifted Child (Das Drama des begabten Kindes, 1979)
In her first book (also published under the titles Prisoners of Childhood and The Drama of Being a Child), Miller defined and elaborated the personality manifestations of childhood trauma. She addressed the two reactions to the loss of love in childhood, depression and grandiosity; the inner prison, the vicious circle of contempt, repressed memories, the etiology of depression, and how childhood trauma manifests itself in the adult.

Miller writes:

"Quite often I have been faced with patients who have been praised and admired for their talents and their achievements. According to prevailing, general attitudes these people--the pride of their parents--should have had a strong stable sense of self-assurance. But exactly the opposite is the case… In my work with these people, I found that every one of them has a childhood history that seems significant to me: This ability is then extended and perfected. Later, these children not only become mothers (confidantes, advisers, supporters) of their own mothers, but also take over the responsibility for their siblings and eventually develop a special sensitivity to unconscious signals manifesting the needs of others."
 * There was a mother who at the core was emotionally insecure, and who depended for her narcissistic equilibrium on the child behaving, or acting, in a particular way. This mother was able to hide her insecurity from the child and from everyone else behind a hard, authoritarian and even totalitarian façade.
 * This child had an amazing ability to perceive and respond intuitively, that is, unconsciously, to this need of the mother or of both parents, for him to take on the role that had unconsciously been assigned to him.
 * This role secured "love" for the child—that is, his parents' exploitation. He could sense that he was needed, and this need, guaranteed him a measure of existential security.

For Your Own Good (Am Anfang war Erziehung, 1980)
Miller proposed here that German traumatic childrearing produced heroin addict Christiane F., serial killer of children Jürgen Bartsch, and dictator Adolf Hitler. Children learn to accept their parents' often abusive behaviour against themselves as being "for their own good." In the case of Hitler, it led to displacement against the Jews and other minority groups. For Miller, the traditional pedagogic process of spanking was manipulative, resulting in grown-up adults deferring excessively to authorities, even to tyrannical leaders or dictators, like Hitler. Miller even argued for abandoning the term "pedagogy" in favour of the word "support," something akin to what psychohistorians call the helping mode of parenting.

In the Poisonous Pedagogy section of the book, Miller does a thorough survey of 19th century child-rearing literature in the book, citing texts which recommend practices such as exposing children to dead bodies in order to teach them about the sexual functions of human anatomy (45–46), resisting the temptation to comfort screaming infants (41–43), and beating children who haven't committed any specific offense as a kind of conditioning that would help them to understand their own evil and fallen nature.

The key element that Miller elucidated in this book was the understanding of why the German nation, the "good Germans," were compliant with Hitler's abusive regime, which Miller asserted was a direct result of how the society in general treated its children. She raised fundamental questions about current, worldwide child-rearing practices and issued a stern warning.

Thou Shalt Not Be Aware (Du sollst nicht merken, 1981)
Unlike Miller's later books, this one is written in a semi-academic style. It was her first critique of psychoanalysis, charging it with being similar to the poisonous pedagogies, which she described in For Your Own Good. Miller was critical of both Freud and Carl Jung. She scrutinised Freud's drive theory, a device that, according to her and Jeffrey Masson, blames the child for the abusive sexual behaviour of adults. Miller also theorised about Franz Kafka, who was abused by his father but fulfilled the politically correct function of mirroring abuse in metaphorical novels, instead of exposing it.

In the chapter entitled "The Pain of Separation and Autonomy," Miller examined the authoritarian (e.g.: Old Testament, Papist, Calvinist) interpretation of Judeo-Christian theism and its parallels to modern parenting practice, asserting that it was Jesus's father Joseph who should be credited with Jesus's departure from the dogmatic Judaism of his time.

The Untouched Key (Der gemiedene Schlüssel, 1988)
This book was partly a psychobiography of Nietzsche, Picasso, Kollwitz and Buster Keaton; (in Miller's later book, The Body Never Lies, published in 2005, she included similar analyses of Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Schiller, Rimbaud, Mishima, Proust and James Joyce).

According to Miller, Nietzsche did not experience a loving family and his philosophical output was a metaphor of an unconscious drive against his family's oppressive theological tradition. She believed that the philosophical system was flawed because Nietzsche was unable to make emotional contact with the abused child inside him. Though Nietzsche was severely punished by a father who lost his mind when Nietzsche was a little boy, Miller did not accept the genetic theory of madness. She interpreted Nietzsche's psychotic breakdown as the result of a family tradition of Prussian modes of child-rearing.

Banished Knowledge (Das verbannte Wissen, 1988)
In this more personal book Miller said that she herself was abused as a child. She also introduced the fundamental concept of "enlightened witness": a person who was willing to support a harmed individual, empathise with her and help her to gain understanding of her own biographical past.

Banished Knowledge is autobiographical in another sense. It is a pointer in Miller's thoroughgoing apostasy from her own profession—psychoanalysis. She believed society was colluding with Freud's theories in order to not know the truth about our childhood, a truth that human cultures have "banished." She concluded that the feelings of guilt instilled in our minds since our most tender years reinforce our repression even in the psychoanalytic profession.

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer, 1990)
Written in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Miller took to task the entirety of human culture. What she called the "wall of silence" is the metaphorical wall behind which society — academia, psychiatrists, clergy, politicians and members of the media — has sought to protect itself: denying the mind-destroying effects of child abuse. She also continued the autobiographical confession initiated in Banished Knowledge about her abusive mother. In Pictures of a Childhood: Sixty-six Watercolours and an Essay, Miller said that painting helped her to ponder deeply into her memories. In some of her paintings, Miller depicted baby Alice as swaddled, sometimes by an evil mother.

"I betrayed that little girl […]. Only in recent years, with the help of therapy, which enabled me to lift the veil on this repression bit by bit, could I allow myself to experience the pain and desperation, the powerlessness and justified fury of that abused child. Only then did the dimensions of this crime against the child I once was, become clear to me."

In a New York Times obituary of 26 April 2010 British psychologist Oliver James is quoted saying that Alice Miller "is almost as influential as R.D. Laing."

Book reviews

 * Paths of Life: Seven Scenarios reviewed by Steven Khamsi
 * The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting reviewed by Steven Khamsi

title: Alice Miller (psychologist)


text:
Benjamin Spock

Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist. His book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-selling books of the 20th century, selling 500,000 copies in the six months after its initial publication and 50 million by the time of Spock's death in 1998. The book's premise told mothers, "You know more than you think you do."

Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis in an effort to understand children's needs and family dynamics. His ideas influenced several generations of parents, encouraging them to be more flexible and affectionate with their children and to treat them as individuals. However, his theories were widely criticized by colleagues for relying heavily on anecdotal evidence rather than serious academic research.

After undergoing a self-described "conversion to socialism", Spock became an activist in the New Left and anti-Vietnam War movements during the '60s and early '70s, culminating in his run for President of the United States as the People's Party nominee in 1972. He campaigned on a maximum wage, legalized abortion, and withdrawing troops from all foreign countries. His books were criticized by conservatives for propagating permissiveness and an expectation of instant gratification, a charge that Spock denied.

Early life and education
Benjamin McLane Spock was born May 2, 1903, in New Haven, Connecticut. His parents were Benjamin Ives Spock, Yale graduate and long-time general counsel of the New Haven Railroad, and Mildred Louise (Stoughton) Spock. The family name had Dutch origins; they originally spelled it Spaak before migrating to the former colony of New Netherland. Spock was one of six children, including his younger sister, environmentalist writer Marjorie Spock.

Spock attended Hamden Hall Country Day School, and went on to attend his father's alma maters Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University. He studied literature and history at Yale; the lanky 6' 4" Spock was also active in college rowing. Eventually, he joined the Olympic rowing crew (Men's Eights) that won a gold medal at the 1924 games in Paris. At Yale, he was inducted into the Eta chapter of the Zeta Psi fraternity and the senior society Scroll and Key. He attended the Yale School of Medicine for two years before shifting to Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, from which he graduated first in his class in 1929. By that time, he had married Jane Cheney.

Personal life
Jane Cheney and Spock were married in 1927. Jane assisted Spock in the research and writing of Dr. Spock's Baby & Child Care, published in 1946 by Duell, Sloan & Pearce as The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. The book has sold more than 50 million copies in 42 languages.

Jane Cheney Spock was a civil liberties advocate and mother of two sons. She was born in Manchester, Connecticut, and attended Bryn Mawr College. She was active in Americans for Democratic Action, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. The Spocks divorced in 1976. Cheney went on to organize and run support groups for older divorced women.

In 1976, Spock married Mary Morgan. They built a home on Beaver Lake in Arkansas where Spock would row daily. Mary quickly adapted to Spock's life of travel and political activism, and was arrested with him many times for civil disobedience. Once they were arrested in Washington, D.C. for praying on the White House lawn. Morgan was strip-searched; Spock was not. Morgan sued the jail and the mayor of Washington, D.C. for sex discrimination. The ACLU took the case and won.

For most of his life, Spock wore Brooks Brothers suits and shirts with detachable collars, but at 75, for the first time in his life, Mary got him to try blue jeans. She joined him in meditation twice a day and introduced him to Transactional analysis (TA) therapists, massage, yoga and a macrobiotic diet which reportedly improved his health. "She gave me back my youth," Spock was quoted as saying. He adapted to her lifestyle, as she did to his. There were 40 years difference in their ages, but Spock would tell reporters they were both 16. Mary scheduled speaking dates and handled legal agreements for the 5th through 9th editions of Baby and Child Care. She continues to publish the book with co-author Robert Needlman.

For many years, Spock lived aboard his sailboat, the Carapace, in the British Virgin Islands off Tortola. At 84, Spock won third place in a rowing contest, crossing four miles (6.4 km) of the Sir Francis Drake Channel between Tortola and Norman Island in 2.5 hours. He credited his strength and good health to his lifestyle and his love for life. Spock had a second sailboat named Turtle, which he lived aboard and sailed in Maine in the summers. The Spocks lived only on boats for most of 20 years.

By 1991, Spock was unable to walk without assistance and was reported as infirm shortly before his death. At the very end of Spock's life, he was advised to come ashore by his physician, Steve Pauker, of New England Medical Center, Boston. In 1992, Spock received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for his lifelong commitment to disarmament and peaceable child-rearing.

Spock had two sons.

Spock died at a house he was renting in La Jolla, California, on March 15, 1998. His ashes were buried in Rockport, Maine, where he spent his summers.

Books
In 1946, Spock published The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, which became a best-seller. Its message to parents is "You know more than you think you do." By 1998, it had sold more than 50 million copies, and had been translated into 42 languages. According to the New York Times, Baby and Child Care was, throughout its first 52 years, the second-best-selling book, next to the Bible. According to other sources, it was among best-sellers, albeit not second-best-selling.

Spock advocated ideas about parenting that were considered out of the mainstream. Over time, his books helped to bring about major change. Previously, experts (such as Truby King) had told parents babies needed to learn to sleep on a regular schedule, and that picking them up and holding them when they cried would only teach them to cry more and not to sleep through the night (a notion that borrows from behaviorism). They were told to feed their children on a regular schedule, and that they should not pick them up, kiss them, or hug them, because that would not prepare them to be strong, independent individuals in a harsh world. In contrast, Spock encouraged parents to show affection for their children and to see them as individuals.

By the late 1960s, however, Spock's opposition to the Vietnam War had damaged his reputation. The 1968 edition of Baby and Child Care sold half as many copies of the prior edition. Later in life, Spock wrote Dr. Spock on Vietnam and co-wrote an autobiography entitled Spock on Spock (with wife Mary Morgan Spock), in which he stated his attitude toward aging: Delay and Deny.

In the seventh edition of Baby and Child Care published shortly after he died, Spock advocated for a bold change in children's diets, recommending children switch to a vegan diet after age 2. Spock himself had switched to an all-plant diet in 1991 after a series of illnesses that left him weak and unable to walk unaided. After making the dietary change, he lost 50 pounds, regained his ability to walk and became healthier overall. The revised edition stated children on an all-plant diet will reduce their risk of developing heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain diet-related cancers. Studies suggest that vegetarian children are leaner, and adult vegetarians are known to be at lower risk of such diseases. However, Spock's recommendations were criticized as being irresponsible towards children's health and children's ability to sustain normal growth, which has been aided with minerals such as calcium, riboflavin, vitamin D, iron, zinc and at times protein.

Spock's approach to childhood nutrition was criticized by a number of experts, including co-author Boston pediatrician Steven J. Parker, as too extreme and likely to result in nutritional deficiencies unless it was carefully planned and executed, which would be difficult for working parents. T. Berry Brazelton, Boston City Hospital pediatrician who specialized in child behavior (and longtime admirer and friend of Dr. Spock), called the dietary recommendations "absolutely insane." Neal Barnard, president of Physicians for Responsible Medicine, a Washington organization advocating strict vegetarian diets, acknowledged he drafted the nutrition section in the 1998 edition of Baby and Child Care, but said Spock edited it to give it "his personal touch." It was acknowledged that in Spock's final years, he had strokes, bouts with pneumonia and a heart attack.

Sudden infant death syndrome
Spock advocated that infants should not sleep on their backs, commenting in his 1958 edition that "if [an infant] vomits, he's more likely to choke on the vomitus." This advice was extremely influential on healthcare providers, with nearly unanimous support through the 1990s. Later empirical studies, however, found a significantly increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) associated with infants sleeping on their abdomens. Advocates of evidence-based medicine have used this as an example of the importance of basing healthcare recommendations on statistical evidence. One researcher estimated that as many as 50,000 infant deaths in Europe, Australia, and the U.S. could have been prevented had this advice been changed by 1970 when such evidence became available.

Male circumcision
In the 1940s, Spock favored circumcision of males performed within a few days of birth. However, in the 1976 revision of Baby and Child Care he concurred with a 1971 American Academy of Pediatrics task force that there was no medical reason to recommend routine circumcision, and in a 1989 article for Redbook he stated that "circumcision of males is traumatic, painful, and of questionable value." He received the first Human Rights Award from the International Symposium on Circumcision (ISC) in 1991 and was quoted as saying, "My own preference, if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone."

Social and political activism
In 1962, Spock joined The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, otherwise known as SANE. Spock was politically outspoken and active in the movement to end the Vietnam War. In 1968, he and four others (including William Sloane Coffin, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, and Michael Ferber) were singled out for prosecution by then Attorney General Ramsey Clark on charges of conspiracy to counsel, aid, and abet resistance to the draft. Spock and three of his alleged co-conspirators were convicted, although the five had never been in the same room together. His two-year prison sentence was never served; the case was appealed, and in 1969 a federal court set aside his conviction.

In 1967, Spock was pressed to run as Martin Luther King Jr.'s vice-presidential running mate at the National Conference for New Politics over Labor Day weekend in Chicago.

In 1968, Spock signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War, and he later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of anti-war protest. He was also arrested for his involvement in anti-war protests resulting from his signing of the anti-war manifesto "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" circulated by members of the radical intellectual collective RESIST. The individuals arrested during this incident came to be known as the Boston Five.

In 1968, the American Humanist Association named Spock Humanist of the Year. On 15 October 1969, Spock was a featured speaker at the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam march.

In 1970, Dr. Benjamin Spock was active in The New Party serving as Honorary co-chairman with Gore Vidal. In the 1972 United States presidential election, Spock was the People's Party candidate with a platform that called for free medical care; the repeal of "victimless crime" laws, including the legalization of abortion, homosexuality, and cannabis; a guaranteed minimum income for families; and for an end to American military interventionism and the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from foreign countries. In the 1970s and 1980s, Spock demonstrated and gave lectures against nuclear weapons and cuts in social welfare programs.

In 1972, Spock, Julius Hobson (his vice presidential candidate), Linda Jenness (Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate), and Socialist Workers Party vice presidential candidate Andrew Pulley wrote to Major General Bert A. David, commanding officer of Fort Dix, asking for permission to distribute campaign literature and to hold an election-related campaign meeting. On the basis of Fort Dix regulations 210-26 and 210–27, General David refused the request. Spock, Hobson, Jenness, Pulley, and others then filed a case that ultimately made its way to the United States Supreme Court (424 U.S. 828—Greer, Commander, Fort Dix Military Reservation, et al., v. Spock et al.), which ruled against the plaintiffs.

Spock was the People's Party and the Peace and Freedom Party nominee in 1976 for vice president as the running mate of Margaret Wright.

Conservative backlash
Popular preacher Norman Vincent Peale supported the Vietnam War. During the late '60s, Peale criticized the anti-Vietnam War movement and the perceived laxity of that era, blaming Dr. Spock's books: "The U.S. was paying the price of two generations that followed the Dr. Spock baby plan of instant gratification of needs."

In the '60s and '70s, Spock was also blamed for the disorderliness of young people, many of whose parents had been devotees of Baby and Child Care. Vice President Spiro Agnew also blamed Spock for "permissiveness". These allegations were enthusiastically embraced by conservative adults, who viewed the rebellious youth of that era with disapproval, referring to them as "the Spock generation".

Spock's supporters countered that these criticisms betrayed an ignorance of what Spock had actually written, and/or a political bias against Spock's left-wing political activities. Spock himself, in his autobiography, said he had never advocated permissiveness; also, the attacks and claims that he had ruined American youth only arose after his public opposition to the Vietnam War. He regarded these claims as ad hominem attacks, whose political motivation and nature were clear.

Spock addressed these accusations in the first chapter of his 1994 book, Rebuilding American Family Values: A Better World for Our Children. "The Permissive Label: A couple weeks after my indictment [for 'conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet resistance to the military draft'], I was accused by Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, a well-known clergyman and author who supported the Vietnam War, of corrupting an entire generation. In a sermon widely reported in the press, Reverend Peale blamed me for all the lack of patriotism, lack of responsibility, and lack of discipline of the young people who opposed the war. All these failings, he said, were due to my having told their parents to give them 'instant gratification' as babies. I was showered with blame in dozens of editorials and columns from primarily conservative newspapers all over the country heartily agreeing with Peale's assertions.

Many parents have since stopped me on the street or in airports to thank me for helping them to raise fine children, and they've often added, 'I don't see any instant gratification in Baby and Child Care'. I say they're right—I've always advised parents to give their children firm, clear leadership and to ask for cooperation and politeness in return. On the other hand, I've also received letters from conservative mothers saying, in effect, 'Thank God I've never used your horrible book. That's why my children take baths, wear clean clothes and get good grades.'

Since I received the first accusation 22 years after Baby and Child Care was originally published—and since those who write about how harmful my book is invariably assure me they've never used it—I think it's clear that the hostility is to my politics rather than my pediatric advice. And though I've been denying the accusation for 25 years, one of the first questions I get from many reporters and interviewers is, 'Dr. Spock, are you still permissive?' You can't catch up with a false accusation."

In June 1992, Spock told Associated Press journalist David Beard there was a link between pediatrics and political activism: "People have said, 'You've turned your back on pediatrics.' I said, 'No. It took me until I was in my 60s to realize that politics was a part of pediatrics.'"

Conservatives also criticized Spock for being interested in the ideas of Sigmund Freud and John Dewey and his efforts to integrate their philosophies into the general population. Spock wrote: "John Dewey and Freud said that kids don't have to be disciplined into adulthood but can direct themselves toward adulthood by following their own will."

Olympic success
Spock was part of the all-Yale Men's eight rowing team at the Paris Olympics, captained by James Rockefeller (later president of what would become Citigroup). Competing on the Seine, the team won the gold medal.

Pop culture references
I Love Lucy mentions Dr. Spock twice. In "Nursery School", Lucy quotes a sentence from his child care book out of context to justify her not sending Little Ricky to nursery school. Ricky then reads the rest of the passage, all of which applies to Little Ricky's home life situation, causing Lucy to ask, ""Well, what does he know?" Ricky then asserts that he and "Dr. Spook" agree about nursery school. Lucy corrects Ricky and asks how Spock knew this, and was he ever a mother.

In "Little Ricky's School Pageant", when Lucy and Ricky discuss Little Ricky's role in a school play, Ricky tells Lucy that it's more important that their son learn to cooperate with others than have a big part in the play. Lucy then calls her husband a Cuban Dr. Spock.

Books by Benjamin Spock

 * Baby and Child Care (1946, with revisions up to tenth edition, 2018)
 * A Baby's First Year (1954)
 * Feeding Your Baby and Child (1955)
 * Dr. Spock Talks With Mothers (1961)
 * Problems of Parents (1962)
 * Caring for Your Disabled Child (1965)
 * Dr. Spock on Vietnam (1968)
 * Decent and Indecent (1970)
 * A Teenager's Guide to Life and Love (1970)
 * Raising Children in a Difficult Time (1974)
 * Spock on Parenting (1988)
 * Spock on Spock: a Memoir of Growing Up With the Century (1989)
 * A Better World for Our Children (1994)
 * Dr. Spock's the School Years: The Emotional and Social Development of Children 01 Edition (2001)

title: Benjamin Spock


text:
Bookmark (disambiguation)

A bookmark is used to keep one's place in a printed work. It can also refer to:

 * Bookmark (digital), a pointer in a web browser and other software
 * Bookmarks (album) by Five for Fighting
 * Bookmarks (magazine), an American literary magazine
 * Bookmark (TV series), a BBC Two TV series
 * Bookmarks (TV program), an educational television show on Netflix
 * Bookmarks (bookshop), a socialist bookshop in London
 * Bookmark Biosphere Reserve, South Australia
 * Bookmarking, method of genetic communication
 * Enterprise bookmarking, a method of applying tags to data and content to improve enterprise search
 * Social bookmarking, a method for internet users to store, organize, and share links to web pages
 * Book Marks, a review aggregation website of Literary Hub
 * Bookmark, a television show on PBS from 1989 to 1991 hosted by Lewis H. Lapham

title: Bookmark (disambiguation)


text:
Los Angeles Xtreme

The Los Angeles Xtreme was a professional American football team based in Los Angeles, California. The team was a member of the original version of the XFL, begun by Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment and by NBC, a major television network in the United States. The team played its home games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the spring of 2001. They were in the XFL's Western Division with the San Francisco Demons, the Memphis Maniax, and the Las Vegas Outlaws. The team had the league's best passing offense and was nicknamed "L.A.X." as a pun on the IATA code for Los Angeles International Airport. They finished the season in 1st place with a 7–3 record and defeated the Chicago Enforcers in the Playoffs and the San Francisco Demons in the Million Dollar Game with a score of 38–6 to win the league's sole Championship.

History
The LA Xtreme were the sole champions of the original XFL because NBC dropped the XFL concept after the first season due to dismal ratings. Shortly after this, McMahon announced that the league would be dissolved. However, the Xtreme's quarterback, Tommy Maddox, subsequently caught on with the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League, later leading them into the playoffs in 2002 and winning a Super Bowl ring in 2005. Maddox also won the XFL's Most Valuable Player award. Jeremaine Copeland has achieved success in the CFL with the Montreal Alouettes, the Calgary Stampeders, and the Toronto Argonauts winning two Grey Cup championships.

Revival
In December 2018, a revival of the XFL announced its intention to return to Los Angeles. The new team was named the Los Angeles Wildcats, but would cease operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic; they would not return when the league was reactivated in 2023.

Season-by-season
!Totals || 9 || 3 || 0
 * 2001 || 7 || 3 || 0 || 1st Western || Won Semifinals (Chicago) Won Million Dollar Game (San Francisco)
 * 2001 || 7 || 3 || 0 || 1st Western || Won Semifinals (Chicago) Won Million Dollar Game (San Francisco)
 * colspan="2"| (including playoffs)

Coaches

 * Al Luginbill, Head Coach (2001)

Other notable figures

 * Bonnie-Jill Laflin – One of the team's cheerleaders is now a scout for the Los Angeles Lakers and a co-general manager of a minor league affiliate, the Los Angeles D-Fenders.
 * Super Dave Osborne – The actor and stuntman was the sideline reporter on the radio broadcasts of the team on KLSX. The booth announcers were Geoff Nathanson and Craig Fertig (Fertig died in 2008).

Team leaders

 * Rushing yards: 310, Saladin McCullough
 * Receiving yards: 656, Jeremaine Copeland
 * Passing yards: 2186, Tommy Maddox (also league leader)

title: Los Angeles Xtreme