A joyful reunion with birth parents leads to incest, murder
Associated Press DAVE COLLINS and DENISE LAVOIE,Associated Press 8 hours ago
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This June 2016 image provided by Alyssa Pladl, shows Katie Pladl and her father Steven Pladl in Richmond, Va. Steven Pladl, was charged with incest after he impregnated his biological daughter, Katie. Pladl killed the 7-month-old son he had with Katie, then killed Katie and her adoptive father in Connecticut and killed himself in New York. (Alyssa Pladl via AP)
DOVER, N.Y. (AP) — What started out as a joyful reunion of a young woman with her birth parents soon turned sour, then shocking, and finally deadly.
A young woman named Katie married her birth father, had a baby with him and, after she decided to leave him, lost her life to him along with that of their child and her adoptive father. All three were laid to rest this weekend in upstate New York.
"We're all still in shock," said Shirley Mann, a neighbor of Katie's adoptive parents in Dover. "It's crazy. I don't know what else to say. It's horrible."
Katie, whose last name was Fusco at the time, had no idea before she moved in with Steven Pladl and his wife in August 2016 that he had an explosive temper, a history of abusive behavior and owned at least four guns.
A VERY NORMAL LIFE
In 1995, Steven Pladl was 20 when he met a 15-year-old girl named Alyssa on the internet. She soon became pregnant and gave birth to a girl they named Denise.
Alyssa Pladl told The Associated Press in an interview last week that they put the girl up for adoption when she was 8 months old. They were young and poor, she said, but she also believed Steven Pladl physically abused the baby. In her interview, she did not elaborate.
"It was so hard to give her up," Alyssa said, "but I had to because I wanted her to live and be happy."
For most of what was to be her short life, she was. Tony Fusco and his wife, Kelly, adopted the girl they renamed Katie and raised her with their biological daughter in Dover, about 80 miles north of New York City.
"They had a very, very normal life," said Cary Gould, Kelly Fusco's brother. "My nickname for Katie was Pac-Man. She was always eating. She loved animals. She was a vegetarian."
Katie was an aspiring artist known at Dover High School for drawing comic strips. She planned to attend college and pursue a career in digital advertising.
"A pen and something to draw on became a safe place for me," she wrote in a blog post. "Ink became my weapon against rules and regulations. ... To be short; for me, a life without art is no life at all."
After turning 18 in January 2016, Katie, who Gould said had been told she was adopted, found her birth parents and messaged them. The Pladls were happy to reunite with her.
Instead of going to college in August 2016, Katie moved in with the Pladls in Henrico County, Virginia, that month. Tony and Kelly Fusco were apprehensive, Gould said, but they thought Katie was old enough to make her own decisions and supported her.
All was not well in the Pladl home. Steven and Alyssa had already decided to separate and were sleeping in separate rooms. Alyssa Pladl said she had suffered emotional and verbal abuse by her husband for years.
"I was always on eggshells, whatever his mood was, everybody knew, and that mood was often not happy, a lot of yelling, a lot of things smashed in the house, in front of our kids," she said.
Alyssa Pladl told Katie privately that Steven Pladl had abused her as a baby and that a major reason for the adoption was her own safety.
Katie, according to Alyssa, didn't appear to be concerned.
'WE'RE IN LOVE'
Steven Pladl's behavior changed after he met Katie, Alyssa Pladl said. He began wearing skinny jeans and form-fitting shirts. He shaved his beard and let his hair grow long. About six weeks after Katie moved in, Steven Pladl one night slept on the floor in her room.
It immediately concerned Alyssa. After he did it again the next night, she confronted him. He said it was none of her business and stormed out of the house with Katie.
Alyssa Pladl finally moved out in November 2016, and she shared custody of the two children with Steven Pladl.
In May 2017, she learned from her 11-year-old daughter's journal of the incestuous relationship and Katie's pregnancy. Her daughter wrote that she and her sister were told by Steven Pladl to refer to Katie as their stepmother.
"I started to become hysterical, and I called him," she said. "I said, 'Is Katie pregnant with your baby?' He just said, 'I thought you knew. We're in love.'
"I started screaming," she said. "I was just cursing him out: 'How could you? You're sick. She's a child.'"
Then she called the police.
INCEST CHARGES
On July 20, 2017, two months after his divorce from Alyssa was finalized and amid the police investigation, Steven Pladl married Katie in Parkton, Maryland. They lied on their application, saying they were unrelated, according to records.
Katie's adoptive parents posed for a photo on the wedding day along with Steven, Katie and Steven's mother. Katie wears a short black dress.
Tony and Kelly Fusco thought there was nothing they could do and had decided it was best to support Katie, Gould said.
Katie gave birth to Bennett on Sept. 1. She and Steven moved to a house on a cul-de-sac in Knightdale, North Carolina, just east of Raleigh, but wedded bliss did not last long. They were arrested on incest charges in January. A judge ordered them to not contact each other, and Steven Pladl's mother has custody.
Steven Pladl's lawyer, Rick Friedman II, said there was never an allegation that Steven Pladl pressured Katie into a relationship.
"This case is an 18-year-old girl who shows up at the doorstep of a 40-year-old man who's going through difficult times with his wife," Friedman said. "They have a bond because they're biologically related, but they never knew each other before they had a sexual relationship. He was head over heels in love with her, so much so that that outweighed the issue of them being biologically related."
After the arrests, Katie moved back with Tony and Kelly Fusco, who declined to comment for this article. Every Tuesday and Thursday, she would travel to her adoptive grandmother's home in Waterbury, Connecticut, Gould said.
On April 12, a Thursday, Katie and Tony Fusco left the Dover home for Waterbury. In a minivan nearby, Steven Pladl watched them leave, surveillance video shows.
Minutes later in nearby New Milford, witnesses reported someone opening fire. Katie and Tony Fusco, 56, were fatally shot. Steven Pladl was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot back in Dover.
Shortly after the New Milford shooting, Steven Pladl's mother called 911 to report her son had told her he killed the baby, Katie and her adoptive father.
"I can't even believe this is happening," Steven's mother told authorities, according to a 911 call transcript from which her name was redacted. Her son, she said, was upset because Katie, by then just 20, had broken up with him.
Police found the baby dead and alone in Katie and Steven's home.
Alyssa Pladl struggles to make sense of it all.
"I'm grieving. I'm sad. I'm upset," she said. "But I also want to have something good come out of this. If it's to get truth out there, to open people's eyes to incest."
____
Lavoie reported from Richmond, Virginia. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writer Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, and AP news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.
CUSTOMERS, EXPERIENCES AND SOUL
March 16, 2018 · by Simon · in customer experiences with soul. ·
Credit: Holonomics Publishing
Our latest book is about customers, experiences and soul. These are not three easily understood discrete entities which we can simply sum together. We need to explore what we mean by these terms, and how they come together to help us move beyond designing great customer experiences, to be able to offer something deeper – customer experiences with soul.
A little over twenty years ago an approach called ‘designing the customer experience’ was developed at the Human Factors department of BT Laboratories in Ipswich. In the early 1990s the focus was on human-computer interaction, a discipline mostly based in university research departments, with little connection to marketing departments, product managers, service centres and business strategists.
The process ‘designing the customer experience’ was created to reposition Human Factors and user-centred design at the very heart of the product life-cycle within organisations, thus helping to lay the groundwork for the development of design thinking, service design, customer journey mapping and concepts such as customer success.
Two decades later we felt the need to transcend what have now become well-defined approaches and definitions of customer experience, to help companies understand why their offerings are no longer resonating with people, where this deep source of a lack of authenticity, coherence and values comes from, and how to develop a profound understanding of the lived experience of every single person whose lives our organisations touch. This approach is rarely spoken about in business, but those who take on board what is being said, and who can develop the maturity and bravery to disrupt their own mental models of how things have to be, will find that they have the resources to create an entire new way of being for their businesses, a way of being which is soulful.
In the last twenty years two significant trends have emerged which have changed the business landscape dramatically and which now require businesses and organisations to shift their attention from offering great customer experiences to customer experiences with soul. The first trend, which needs little explanation, is the explosion in our use of mobile and internet technologies which have opened up many new ways for consumers to research, connect and interact with businesses, resulting in a shift in power away from marketing campaigns and towards consumer activists, ambassadors and critics. This has led to advances in the way in which we think about and design customer journeys, developing tools such as customer journey maps which visualise in graphs and grids the many different touchpoints that customers have.
Credit: Pixabay
The second trend relates not to technology, but to a consumer-led paradigm shift in attitudes and beliefs not just in Generation Y and Millennials, but across all age groups as people seek to reconnect authentically to other people and to nature. Consumers are seeking out experiences rather than ever greater consumption, desiring a more dignified life where work is more meaningful, lives are happier, and relationships with businesses and brands are fully authentic, aligned with their own personal missions, values and beliefs. People today are seeking more alignment, more engagement, more connectivity, more honesty and more transparency from the companies and organisations they chose to do business with. This is now causing a crisis in companies in terms of leadership, management, sales and results as they fail to connect with their customers and clients.
Credit: Pixabay
Around the world there is a growing awareness of the destructive nature of current economic paradigms based on fragmentation, where powerful nations aim to dominate weaker nations rich in natural resources. The most enlightened businesses are now transforming their life-destroying business models to ones which are life-enhancing and which regenerate natural ecosystems and local economies. The concept of customer experiences with soul radically transforms our attention from a focus on interactions that individual people have with products and services, to the quality of experience of communities and the richness of the quality of their lives.
What this boils down to is a crisis of essence and a crisis of values. It is not a crisis of coherence since there are many companies operating from traditional mindsets and values which are coherent, but not authentic. Companies are confusing emotion-driven marketing campaigns which still focus on the products and services, with authentic missions which inspire people with a higher purpose beyond the core offering. This new business paradigm places a huge emphasis on business culture, as the companies which will thrive in the twenty first century will be transparent, understanding that internal equals external, meaning that every single action they carry out will constitute marketing.
Credit: Pixabay
In the new business paradigm you cannot design the customer experience because you are the customer experience, and so in order to understand the customer experience, you have to understand what it means to be. This is the great question of ‘being’. While this may sound like a philosophical question of little relevance to leaders, as a business begins to experience early success and starts to grow, sometimes exponentially, the sense of who we are can often become lost and confused, especially as new recruits join who were not present at the inception and who do not necessarily live the mission and vision.
Source: Customer Experiences with Soul: A New Era in Design
In order to help businesses understand this question of being, we created the holonomic circle, a tool designed to help everyone across an organisation think about the customer experience of their offerings, and all those different aspects which need to be considered in order to be able to reach that point where the customer experience has soul. While we are perfectly willing to describe a corporate culture as soul-destroying, when we turn this concept around and ask if a company can have soul, the question can be particularly unsettling for many, especially if we leave the concept of soul undefined.
The word ‘soul’ has many different meanings and connotations. While it is common to hear the claim in business of “putting our heart and soul” into our work, it is quite valid to ask the question of whether or not it is possible for a customer experience to have soul, or to put it another way, if it is possible to experience soul in a transaction?
An experience has soul when one soul recognises another soul. For this reason this book reveals the hidden qualities of experience which are rarely spoken about in a business context. Emotions play an extremely significant role in decision-making; they can cloud our judgements and can lead us to decisions which later we can come to regret, allowing less scrupulous businesses to manipulate our emotions in the buying process. But when we strip away thinking and we strip away emotion we are left with feeling, through which when combined with an intuitive understanding of a phenomenon such as a brand, a product, or an experience of a representative of an organisation, we achieve a deeper sense of connection with the essence of that phenomenon.
The soul in customer experiences with soul is the essence of a business and we encounter the essence through each and every part, be it product, service, advertisement, interface or personal interaction we have with the organisation. For this reason the term ‘customer experience’ refers not only to the interaction our paying customers have with our products, services and brands, but also to every single interaction inside the business between colleagues, employees, suppliers, shareholders and contractors, and every interaction between those who work for a business and who are representing the business, and every person who comes into contact with the business.
Every single one of us has our own personal customer experience which we project and for which we have to take full responsibility. For this reason, before we explore the holonomic circle in detail, we have to explore matters relating to the transition of consciousness. The reason is that if we are stuck in ego, and if we have not developed a sense of human values, no matter how worthy our purpose there is still a danger that archetypal behaviours such as being blinkered, predatory, selfish and elitist will sabotage our efforts.
Credit: Pixabay
More often than not, cognitive dissonance protects people with these types of behaviours. Many people are unable to believe that leaders and gurus with such worthy aims could ever act in ways which are not congruent with their stated missions and purposes in life. While this may sound a little melodramatic, it is a sad fact that many places of work are disheartening environments to be in, and this is exacerbated by managers and leaders who may be stuck in their individual egos and therefore simply unable to ascertain just how their speech, actions and non-verbal behaviours are being communicated and picked up by those around them.
While technology has given us untold abilities to interact across traditional boundaries, the networks we develop are not going to be authentic and therefore sustainable without people who have an expanded level of consciousness. Discernment is required as never before in an age of personal branding, in order that we do not accidentally find ourselves being a part of a ‘knotwork’ – a network with ego – which can be more cliques than authentic networks of people working towards a higher purpose for the good of all.
Prof. Hans-Georg Gadamer
The journey from where we are now to developing customer experiences with soul starts with ourselves and our relationships with those immediately around us. If we can understand and heal these broken and inauthentic relationships, then we can start to rediscover trust, values and what it means to genuinely share and co-create whatever we are attempting to envision, innovate and bring into this world. The philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) was concerned with developing what he called “practical philosophy” or ‘praxis’ which he related to “the totality of our practical life, all our human action and behaviour, the self-adaption of the human being as a whole in this world” as well as “one’s politics, political advising and consulting, and our passing of laws”.
As members of humanity sharing this planet with our fellow human beings and all other forms of life, we need to develop ethics to guide us towards living together harmoniously. The great problem is that when we are born we do not receive instructions for acting ethically in the same way in which we can be given instructions for the use of a tool. Each one of us has to reach an understanding about a given situation, which means reaching an understanding with ourselves. Reaching an understanding is not achieved by following a scientific methodology; we have to interpret our situations and we reach an understanding through conversation and dialogue.
The holonomic circle is a framework we created to lead conversations into an understanding of customer experiences with soul. At the centre is ‘the trinity’, which is where authenticity is described as the maximum coherence between what a person says, what they mean, and what they do. The trinity equally applies to any group, team, organisation, business, ecosystem, and can include cities, states, countries and indeed movements.
Coherence is a quality which can run throughout whole organisations, both internally and externally, and across supply chains, business ecosystems the communities with which the person or entity interacts. We encounter counterfeit purposes when what the person or group says, what the person or group means and what the person or group does fail to coalesce as a unified whole.
Simon Robinson
The middle level of the holonomic circle helps us to think about those factors which underlie our tools and techniques, and to help us understand why they sometimes work and why at times they do not. This layer is not about telling you which tools and techniques to use. It is about exploring the underlying foundations behind the tools and techniques being used, and seeing which principles need to be operating in order for the tools and techniques to become more effective. What is often missing from the application of tools and techniques is an appreciation of systems as a whole.
In our book Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter, we take an approach whereby the whole is seen as coming to presence through the parts. The whole is not the sum of the parts, and neither is the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The whole is not a thing which acts as some kind of super-part, and neither can it be imposed on the parts. An authentic whole can only be encountered through the way in which it expresses itself through each part. If there is no conceptualisation of the whole system, and only a view on results with businesses having conflicting targets across competing departments, an organisation as a whole loses energy, it is not sustainable in the long term and will never manage to achieve coherent and soulful customer experiences.
Gadamer described his philosophy as the art of reaching an understanding – either of some thing or with someone. This reaching of an understanding is always an interpretation, which happens in conversation, in dialogue. It is for this reason that the outer circle of the holonomic circle contains the transcendentals, a guiding set of interwoven ideas which we can use to explore and talk about our products and services, our customer experience.
Understanding the truth of experience requires curiosity, questioning and an ability to interweave the transcendentals into each other. If we really are to understand customer experiences, and understand how customers are interpreting our products, services and brands, we need to explore the way in which language and reality belong together; how we participate in reality and interpret the world.
The ‘truth’ is something we can never definitively arrive at, due to the limitations of language. But through authentic dialogue, humility and an expanded level of consciousness we can remain open to an ever-changing vista of viewpoints and interpretations where beauty, truth and goodness all belong together within our experience.
—————————-
Extract taken from Customer Experiences with Soul: A New Era in Design, Simon Robinson and Maria Moraes Robinson (2017: Holonomics Publishing, London)
Simon Robinson is the co-founder of Holonomics Education, a strategy and innovation consultancy based in São Paulo whose mission is to help organisations to implement great customer experiences, powerful and effective strategies, and develop purposeful, meaningful and sustainable brands. He is the co-author of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter and his research examines how the dynamic conception of wholeness in hermeneutics and phenomenology can deepen our thinking on innovation, customer experience design and the circular economy.
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Best practices for life, love…and business
19 January 2017 / by Girls Just Wanna Have Bling
The concept of best practices is not new. It’s how you differentiate a beginner from a master – for example, anyone can make a cake. The master chef knows the best way to do things to make the cake that much better, while the beginner just follows the recipe as well as they can. But can you really have best practices for life, love…and business?
Setting your standards high
Anyone can do anything. How many times have you been told that? You can grow up to become president, or an astronaut, anything you want. The problem is, most people never try and reach the heights of what they could be, and if they do try, they fail because they don’t know what they are meant to be doing.
The way to find the best practices for whatever you choose is often to work backwards. The goal may be to become an astronaut. The last step is to be sitting in the chair, strapped in, waiting for the rocket to launch. But how did you get there? Years of training? Luck?
You can find out a lot of information through a web search – “how do I become an astronaut?” – but you can also discover a large amount by studying successful astronauts. How did Neil Armstrong become an astronaut? What about Buzz Aldrin? John Glenn? Susan Helms? By studying each of these people (even just a quick glance through Wikipedia entries), you will find patterns. These patterns will be things like discovering they flew jet planes before training to be astronauts, they studied physics in school, and perhaps they trained as engineers.
By combining the stories of people who are successful in a particular field, you will find the ideal model to follow to become whatever you want to be – ideally, this will be a simple, straightforward plan. The simpler it is, the better. When you can turn it into a list with checkboxes, you’ve most likely found the best practices to get you the result you desired.
Applying modelling to the best practices for life
There is an ideal ‘you’. At the moment, you might not be aware what it is, but unless you discover what you want to be, you’ll end up living your life in disappointment.
Spend some time setting some goals for yourself, and work out what will make you happy – design the life that would truly make you fulfilled.
And then, start the modelling process. Find people who have achieved everything you want to achieve (this doesn’t have to be one person for all your goals, you can find people for each goal you have) and find out how they did it. Create a model to follow to help you achieve greatness.
How can this work for love?
Modelling can work for anything – life, business, and love included. Try to make a list of people who have relationships you admire, people who are clearly in love and do what is best for their relationships. Remember, these don’t have to be famous people, they can just be people you know. When you’ve made a list of at least 5 people, look at the people on your list with a critical eye. What exactly do they do to make their relationships so fantastic? Are they always complementary to their partner? Do they treat them as an equal? And do they pamper them? Do they get up early or stay up late? Are they always spending a night in with their partner, or are they always going out?
Once you find common patterns, you’ll be able to attempt to emulate them in order to improve your own relationships. There will always be an outlier that does something different, but they are usually the exception – if you want to be successful, you’ll often have a better chance by following the path that others have taken before you, for these are the best practices. Best practices for life are simply the rules that specify the best way to do things for you to achieve the result you desire. There are of course other ways to achieve the results, but they usually won’t be as straightforward.
Building your own best practices for life
Only you know what you truly want to be and do. Once you’ve set your goals and found some people to model, make a list of your own best practices – things you need to do every day, things you need to do in certain situations, places you need to go, things you need to learn, and so on. Follow your list as if your happiness depended on it – because in a way, it does.
One thing to remember: a best practice will never put you or anyone else in danger. Your health, safety, and well-being is paramount. Without those three things, you stand little chance of being truly happy, so always look after yourself. There is a reason they are called “best” practices!
Don’t delay your happiness. Get started now, set some goals, find some models, and write down your own personal best practices!
What Are the Top 10 Brewing Companies?
by Cheryl Munson ; Updated September 28, 2017
An assortment of beers.
An assortment of beers.
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People the world over love beer, as evidenced by the fact that the top 10 brewing companies span the globe, from North America to Europe to Asia. The German-based Barth-Haas Group -- the world's largest supplier of hops, an essential beer ingredient -- annually ranks the world's largest producers of beers. Note that a brewing company is different from a beer brand. The world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Bush InBev, for example, produces hundreds of brands.
Anheuser Busch/In-Bev
The most recent Barth-Haas survey at the time of publication, which was based on 2012 data, identified Anheuser-Busch InBev as far and away the biggest brewing company, producing nearly one-fifth of the world's beer. The company is based in Leuven, Belgium and brews more than 300 beers, including such top-selling labels as Budweiser, Michelob, Beck's, Stella Artois, Bass and Brahma.
SAB Miller
SABMiller sells beer under more than 200 brand names worldwide and produces nearly 10 percent of the world's total beer consumption. The company's top-selling labels include Miller, Castle Lager, Grolsch, Bavaria, and Cerveceria National.
Heineken
Beyond the green-bottled brew that shares its name with the company, Netherlands-based Heineken's brands include Amstel, Murphy’s, Cordoba and Tiger. Barth-Haas pegged its 2012 market share at 8.8 percent.
Carlsberg
Denmark-based Carlsberg produced a little over 6 percent of the world's beer in the Barth-Haas survey. Beyond its flagship Carlsberg brand, the company produces such labels as Tuborg, Kronenbourg and Baltika, the top-selling brand in Russia.
CR Snow
China Resources Snow Breweries may not be a household name in the United States, but it certainly is in China, where it produces the country's best-selling beer, Snow. CR Snow produced about 5.4 percent of the world's beer in the Barth-Haas survey.
Tsingtao
China's second-largest brewery, Tsingtao was founded by German entrepreneurs around the turn of the 20th century. The company is based in Qingdao -- the company's name is a Western transliteration of the city's name -- and produced 4 percent of the world's beer in 2012. Its top brands all bear the Tsingtao name.
Modelo
Modelo dominates the Mexican brewery industry, with a market share of more than 60 percent in that country, and 2.9 percent worldwide. Its reigning brand is Corona. Other labels include Estrella, Leon Negra, Model Especial, Montejo, Pacifico, Negra Modelo and Victoria. In 2013, Anheuser-Busch InBev completed a takeover of Modelo, but at the time of the Barth-Haas survey, the brewer was still independent.
Molson Coors
This company was formed in 2005 out of the merger of two major North American breweries, Canada's Molson and Denver-based Coors. It held 2.8 percent of the world beer market. In the United States, the company operates a joint venture with SABMiller called Miller Coors. The two companies work together to market their brands and compete with U.S. market leader Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Beijing Yanjing
A fairly new company, Beijing Yanjing Brewery produces Yanjing, the "official state beer of China." The company had a 2.8 percent worldwide market share in the Barth-Haas Survey.
Kirin
Tokyo-based Kirin Brewery Company produces two iconic Japanese brands: Kirin lager and Ichiban Shibori. It held a 2.5 percent global market share.
Femsa
Femsa produces many of the top brew brands in Mexico and Brazil, including Carta Blanca, Dos Equis, Tecate, Bohemia, and Sol. Heineken lovers may also appreciate knowing that they can enjoy Femsa Cerveza worldwide through a structured joint business ownership deal.
Kirin
Japan utilizes the unicorn to connect Kirin as a beer that symbolizes good luck. So far that’s working quite well. Kirin is the top beer manufacturer in Japan, serves many markets overseas, and is the number one exporter of Japanese beer to the US.
References
Barth-Haas Group: 2013 Beer Production Report
Facts on Facebook
by Fraser Sherman
With Facebook mobile apps, it's easy to stay in contact with friends.
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When Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, he launched a revolution in how people connect with one another. By early 2014, Facebook had 1.2 billion monthly users accessing the site, with more than 1 billion checking in by phones or other mobile devices. In 2014, 67 percent of American Internet users are on Facebook.
Facebook History
Zuckerberg and his partners launched "The Facebook" in February 2004, while they were studying at Harvard. Within a month of the launch, it had grown beyond Harvard to Stanford, Columbia and Yale. In 2005, the company -- now called Facebook -- expanded to 800 other colleges. Then came high schools, work networks and everyone else. In 2012, the privately held company issued its initial public offering, at $38 per share. That set the company's net worth at greater than $100 billion.
Facebook Geography
Facebook users can view the site in more than 70 languages. The company has offices around the world including Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Brasilia, Madrid, Tokyo and Tel Aviv. Non-U.S. users make up 86 percent of the Facebook population, and China, which officially bans Facebook, has 95 million people on the social network. California, Texas and New York are the states with the most users. In California, 41 percent of the population is on Facebook.
Social Network Marketing
With hundreds of millions of users, Facebook is a natural magnet for companies who want to market themselves online. Facebook's advertising revenue in the last quarter of 2013 hit $2.34 billion, according to an article on the Forbes website. Retailers advertising on Facebook saw a 152-percent return on investment in 2013. The 2013 last-quarter click-thru rate for Facebook ads was up 365 percent from the previous year. Teenagers, however, are drifting away from Facebook to other video and photo-sharing networks.
Privacy Problems
Because people post so much of their lives to Facebook, its use of personal data has become controversial. The Sponsored Story format, for example, allowed advertisers to include Facebook users' names and photos in ads without compensating them. The Beacon ad platform allowed businesses to post on people's Timelines announcing an individual had purchased from the company. Facebook scrapped both these programs due to user objections, but privacy advocates still raise questions about how it uses personal information.
References
Facebook: Company Info
Search Engine Journal: 25 Amazing Facts About Facebook
Forbes: Will Facebook Marketing Be Relevant In 2015?
Time: Seven Controversial Ways Facebook Has Used Your Data
Resources
Information Week: Six Facebook Privacy Changes, Explained
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FintruX Network is a blockchain based online ecosystem connecting borrowers, lenders, and rated service agencies. FintruX facilitates marketplace lending in a true peer-to-peer network to ease the cash-flow issues of small businesses and startups.
THE CHALLENGE
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01. Significant Collateral Required
Banks like to loan cash on cash. This means that they will lend you the same amount of money you have in your savings account, using your money as collateral. This makes it difficult for businesses with low liquidity to get much needed capital to grow their business.
02. Stringent Requirements
Traditional local banks and credit unions do offer unsecured loans. However, it is extremely difficult to get an unsecured business loan through traditional lenders; especially if your business is relatively young. It can take months to apply and few businesses rarely get approved.
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Less advisable financing options are often available, but these come with outrageous interest rates and unrealistic repayment schedules. Small businesses and startups should not have to choose between bankruptcy and borrowing under unclear, unfair and uncertain terms.
THE SOLUTION
The FintruX Network
FintruX Network makes it easy for small businesses to quickly secure affordable loans with no collateral, in any currency.
The three main competitive advantages of FintruX are:
CREDIT ENHANCEMENTS
NO-CODE DEVELOPMENT
OPEN ECOSYSTEM
LEVEL 4: FintruX Reserve
Last resort protection
5% of all FTX Tokens have been reserved to cover any unexpected losses in the unlikely event that all previous credit enhancers fail. This is the ultimate protection.
Credit Enhancements
By applying credit enhancements, FintruX Network will virtually neutralize the lender’s credit risk and, in the case of a default, provide cascading levels of insurance to cover any possible loss. With risk reduced, lenders have peace of mind and the interest rates for borrowers is lowered.
LEVEL 1: Over-Collateralization
Covers 1 out of 10 bad loans
FintruX Network holds back 10% of each loan as over-collateralization for additional default protection. This serves as the primary level of security for lenders.
LEVEL 2: Third-Party Guarantors
Takes care of overflow losses
Individuals are invited to participate on the platform as a guarantor to the loans of their choice. Guarantors choose their risk & compensation packages, and in the case of defaults, cover the losses.
LEVEL 3: Cross-Collateralization
Covers multiple bad loans
The 10% held back from every loan is pooled together in a cross-collateralization pool which functions as an insurance to cover all loans within the same class. When invested properly to match the obligations, this pool can offer a sufficient coverage ratio against the average loan loss.
LEVEL 4: FintruX Reserve
Last resort protection
5% of all FTX Tokens have been reserved to cover any unexpected losses in the unlikely event that all previous credit enhancers fail. This is the ultimate protection.
Credit Enhancements
By applying credit enhancements, FintruX Network will virtually neutralize the lender’s credit risk and, in the case of a default, provide cascading levels of insurance to cover any possible loss. With risk reduced, lenders have peace of mind and the interest rates for borrowers is lowered.
By generating a new contract for each individual use case, each program is in its simplest form, eliminating the need for complex if-then-else statements. The Smart Contract becomes a binding agreement between the participants - unambiguous, immutable and no arbitration is required. Each borrower contract will be open-source, enabling participants in every loan to fully understand the terms of their loan agreement.
No-Code Development
A unique smart contract is automatically generated and deployed by FintruX Network for each approved loan in real-time to provide unambiguous, immutable, and censorship resistant records where no arbitration is required. This is possible with our no-code development technology.
FintruX Network is one of the world’s first decentralized applications powered by Ethereum and no-code development. The FintruX Network architecture is a highly scalable and robust combination of the latest technological advances in blockchain, user-experience, client, and server-side methodologies.
Traditional automation attempts to use one system to account for any possible transaction. The resulting program has millions of “if-then-else” statements and is very complicated. We are shifting the programming paradigm with FintruX Network. We generate one unique program (“Smart Contract”) for each borrower contract to be deployed in real-time on the blockchain via a configurable interface.
By generating a new contract for each individual use case, each program is in its simplest form, eliminating the need for complex if-then-else statements. The Smart Contract becomes a binding agreement between the participants - unambiguous, immutable and no arbitration is required. Each borrower contract will be open-source, enabling participants in every loan to fully understand the terms of their loan agreement.
No-Code Development
A unique smart contract is automatically generated and deployed by FintruX Network for each approved loan in real-time to provide unambiguous, immutable, and censorship resistant records where no arbitration is required. This is possible with our no-code development technology.
On the other side, we see borrowers, lacking a reliable source of comparability between different lenders as well as the possibility to give unfiltered feedback to share their opinion and thoughts. The same for lenders who can now rate and write reviews on their borrowers and agencies; subsequently these can be used as part of the credit scoring mechanism for assessment of credit risk.
Open Ecosystem
In addition to simplifying the loan application process via instant matching, FintruX Network also provides borrowers with post-funding self-serve administration options and access to third party rated agencies.
Partners such as fraud and identity service agents, credit scoring and decision agents, wallets, exchanges, banks, asset managers, insurance companies and technology companies will all have a role in our ecosystem. Our network will enable our partners to offer a new generation of financial products and to develop innovative new tools for use on our platform.
We provide and maintain a decentralized review platform for borrowers, lenders and all service agencies based on Ethereum smart contracts. In contrast, reviews written on a third-party website are subject to change by the site owner – there is no integrity in the current non-blockchain based systems. The need of gaining qualified feedback/market research data to enhance the quality of risk assessment, service and transparency cannot be over-emphasized.
On the other side, we see borrowers, lacking a reliable source of comparability between different lenders as well as the possibility to give unfiltered feedback to share their opinion and thoughts. The same for lenders who can now rate and write reviews on their borrowers and agencies; subsequently these can be used as part of the credit scoring mechanism for assessment of credit risk.
Open Ecosystem
In addition to simplifying the loan application process via instant matching, FintruX Network also provides borrowers with post-funding self-serve administration options and access to third party rated agencies.
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TOKENIZATION
The Token Economy
The FTX Token is used to power the FintruX Network and works as a means to reward or get rewarded for participation in the marketplace.
Supply
Agencies, guarantors, and FintruX Network are all being paid in FTX Token.
Demand
Borrowers and lenders pay a transactional fee in FTX to use the platform.
Accessible
There is no upfront cost necessary for any of the participants on our platform.
ROADMAP
Our Steps For Success
FintruX Network leads the way towards credit democratization, offering an innovative alternative to credit access.
Phase One
CREDIT ENHANCED FINANCING
Using the credit enhancement principles of securitization, FintruX delivers highly secure unsecured loans to benefit the small businesses borrowers, accredited investors, and financial institutions of the world.
Phase Two
ONE WORLD
By partnering with wallets, exchanges, and regulatory bodies, FintruX enables small business borrowers from countries with high interest rates to benefit from loans offered by lenders located in lower rate countries.
Phase Three
ADDITIONAL LOAN TYPES
FintruX invites innovative asset classes created by other network partners to the ecosystem to become the go-to financing hub of the world. FintruX will provide a marketplace for lenders to trade their loans to one another.
MEET THE TEAM
The Team Behind It All.
The founder Nelson Lin has been an innovator all his life since he started his career in the financial-technology sector as a systems analyst at J.P. Morgan in 1986.
- Invented Asynchronous Call in Programming - Delivered First Online Credit Adjudication in Canada, if not the World
- Delivered lending origination systems in client/server and browser based technologies
- Invented low-code Development platform Rintagi
- Generated A securitization system on the low-code platform
- Patented Self-Generating Rejuvenating Technology
- Generated full ERP systems on low-code platform
- Kept >10 years old systems on modern UI/UX via continuous rejuvenation
- Open-Sourced Rintagi as A global collaborative project - Turned low-code into No-code Generation - Innovated Credit-Enhanced Unsecured Loan Product – FintruX
The FintruX team has extensive experience serving the financing industry in Asia and North America and the securitization software built by the development team is currently managing billions of dollars of assets. The team leverages their experience to make unsecured loans highly secure and make affordable, safe cross-border borrowing a reality.
ALLDIRECTORSTEAMLEGALADVISORS
FOUNDER & CEO
Nelson Lin
Nelson pioneered online credit adjudication for the asset-based finance and leasing industry in Canada as mentioned in the book 'Unstoppable' published 2014 by Beth Parker and endorsed by the Canadian Finance and Leasing Association (CFLA). He has over thirty years of experience delivering numerous custom enterprise applications to global organizations such as J.P. Morgan, AT&T Capital, etc.
CO-FOUNDER & CMO
Conrad Lin
Completing a degree specializing in Neuroscience and Psychology from the University of Toronto, Conrad is deeply in tune with social marketing and outreach. He defines long-term marketing goals and short-term tactics, builds key customer relationships, identifies business opportunities, negotiates and closes business deals, and maintains extensive knowledge of current market conditions.
PRESIDENT
Ng Eng Ho
Eng Ho is the Chairman of Zweec Analytics and is also a director of China Taisan Technology and TNG (Asia) Limited. He has served in top management positions in large corporations including Singapore Technologies Telmedia, PT Indosat Tbk, and Keppel Telecommunications and Transportation Ltd. He was director of Alvarion Ltd and Mencast Holdings. His extensive network creates long term shareholder value.
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Yew Poh Leong
YP grew Dun & Bradstreet Software from 15 to over 250 employees as a managing director in Asia. He has provided business solutions and services to well-known corporations including Telekom Malaysia, Hong Kong Telecom, PLDT, Communications Authority of Thailand, Shell, Prudential, AIG, Starwood, Minolta, National Panasonic, Sony, Aiwa, Standard Chartered Bank, Malayan Banking, Bank of China, etc.
CTO
Gary Ng
Gary is a veteran in software development and has been a seasoned architect in the financial sector for the past 25 years, including some of the top global banks. He is skilled in all major programming languages and computing platforms. He has been instrumental in turning our low-code development platform into a no-code generator for smart contracts. Scalability and security is his main focus.
FRONT END DEVELOPER
Aaron Xu
User experience has been Aaron’s forte for the last 8 years. He has formal education and practical training in web development and digital design. He designs visually stunning user interfaces that integrates well with all other software. Aaron is adept at generating responsive mission-critical applications with low-code technology and designing easy to use apps.
BLOCKCHAIN DEVELOPER
Douglas Thiessen
Douglas is a full stack developer on a wide variety of computing languages for 12 years, including a full suite of blockchain technology and Smart Contracts with Solidity. Passionate on security and quality, he tests his code extensively by applying Scrum methodology. Douglas’ technical expertise enables him to evaluate and tackle complex programming challenges.
DATA ANALYST
Philemon Selvaraj
Philemon’s passion and expertise is in data analysis, machine learning, AI, and business intelligence. He brings with him 13 years of analyst programming experience in the accounting and financial sectors, including mission-critical systems for large fortune 500 companies. He has both MBA and engineering degrees and international experience.
SINGAPOREAN LEGAL COUNSEL
Brinden Anandakumar
Brinden graduated from the University of Nottingham with LLB (Hons) and was admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2015. He is currently engaged in civil and commercial litigation. He also has experience in corporate and advisory matters.
CANADIAN LEGAL COUNSEL
Alixe Cormick
Alixe Cormick is the founder of Venture Law Corporation in Vancouver, British Columbia and a member of Commercialization Advisory Board of the Life Science Institute at the University of British Columbia, the Advisory Board of the National Crowdfunding Association and two private tech companies.
INTELLIGENCE ADVISOR
Dr. Jonathan Calof
Dr. Calof has received Frost and Sullivan’s award in competitive intelligence, and others. He has given over 1000 speeches, seminars and keynote around the world. With over 150 publications, his extensive and successful track record has allowed him to combine research and consulting in competitive intelligence, technical foresight and business analytics to help FintruX develop key insights on its competitive environment.
BUSINESS ADVISOR
Yash Mody
Yash co-founded and built Orchid Leasing to finance transportation and equipment leases. He implemented real-time decision and predictive analytics software at Fortune 500 companies which helped him design a proprietary end-to-end lease portfolio management and collections tracking system. With his technical knowledge and financial entrepreneurship, he is a great resource to FintruX Network.
STRATEGIC ADVISOR
Hussein Hallak
Hussein is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, startup advisor and investor. Building over 20 startups, he has mentored and trained 1000+ entrepreneurs. Featured in Forbes, BBC, Entrepreneur, DailyHive (VancityBuzz), Business In Vancouver, Roundhouse Radio, and Vancouver Courier. He brings extensive knowledge of startups, innovation, strategy, growth, marketing, and social media to FintruX Network.
LEGAL ADVISOR
Binh Vu
Binh is a lawyer practicing in the area of corporate finance and securities law. Binh practiced law for 10 years in Toronto at WeirFoulds LLP and as partner at Aird & Berlis LLP before becoming corporate counsel and advisor for start-ups. He holds LL.B and BSc. (Neuroscience) degrees. Binh is an active member of the Law of Society of Upper Canada and provides legal guidance to FintruX Network.
FINANCIAL ADVISOR
Victor Yuen
Victor is CFO of ZWEEC Analytic. Armed with over 10 years in the finance and accounting profession, he was managing partner specializing in audit, tax, insolvency, corporate secretarial, accounting and business advisory. Victor is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) and an Accredited Tax Practitioner. His extensive financial experience is a great asset to FintruX Network.
COMPLIANCE ADVISOR
Dan Poh
Dan has 6 years of experience in Financial Sector including being part of Tier 1 Investment Bank & Private Wealth Management such as JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank & Bank of America. His last few roles with the financial firms covers mainly Regulatory, Risk, Compliance as well as FICC Support. Dan is currently a director at Cynopsis Solutions. He brings sales strategy, client servicing and compliance to FintruX Network.
ADVISOR
Elie Galam
A mathematician and alternative investments expert, Elie was a Portfolio Manager for Two Sigma investments, a 40 Billion dollars quantitative hedge fund. Elie received a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and a Masters in Engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris. He is passionate about bringing blockchain, digital assets, and cryptocurrencies to the financial ecosystem of FintruX Network.
BLOCKCHAIN ADVISOR
Abhijith Naraparaju
Abhijith is a blockchain solution architect, with official degrees in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Having worked at Syntel (Nasdaq:SYNT), he currently holds a position as Region Head at Blockchain Education Network. Abhijith is confident and dedicated to drive FintruX Network's success, starting with its smart contract technology.
BANKING ADVISOR
Jure Soklic
CO-Founder and CEO / Hive project. Jure is an executive and consultant with extensive experience in the international financial industry. He is an expert in eCommerce, digital marketing, omnichannel, retail, business development and start-ups, and has strong track record in the field of finance, consumer durables and marketplaces. As a true believer in a decentralized economy, he works with FintruX to serve the underserved.
Join the conversation today!
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NEWS BLOG
Read the latest news and blogs.
Introduction to FintruX
Interview with the Founders
FintruX Review
FEBRUARY 14, 2018
We are very proud to announce that FintruX is integrating the Bancor Protocol ...
FEBRUARY 11, 2018
London is fast-paced, dynamic and undoubtedly one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world ...
FEBRUARY 8, 2018
Our Token Sale Event is off to an incredible start!
FEBRUARY 5, 2018
The FintruX Token has various properties that will enable borrowers, lenders and our service partners ...
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5 MAINSTREAM PARADIGMS THAT DRIVE PEOPLE INTO ADDICTION
February 14, 2018
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Trevor McDonald & Anna Hunt, Contributors
Waking Times
Many things contribute to addiction, including genetics and demographics. Nonetheless, society may be playing a larger role than we think. As the years press on, pop culture references drugs more than ever before. As well, virtual social identity becomes more prevalent, and more of us become slaves to acceptable vices like caffeine and sugar.
Here are five paradigms in our current society that proliferate addiction.
1. Adoration of music industry celebrities
Have you noticed that songs these days reference drugs more than ever before? Take for example Madonna’s MDNA album, which glorifies the party drug Molly (a common name used for MDMA or ecstasy). Or Tove Lo’s “Habits” and Mike Posner’s “I Took a Pill in Ibiza.” There are countless examples. When we normalize drugs in songs, it gives the impression that using them is normal, even expected.
Unfortunately, the music industry has been glorifying drug use for decades. Aside from boycotting artists, it is also important that we teach our kids to see entertainment for what it is: entertainment.
2. Glorification of addiction in movies and television
You probably don’t have to think very hard to come up with a list of movies that glorify drug abuse. There’s Scarface, Pineapple Express, the Wolf of Wall Street, Blow, and a myriad of others. And then, there are the movies that glorify drinking alcohol and compulsive sexual behavior. This list is far too extensive to even begin counting.
For most of us, these movies are our first introduction to the world of addiction. Creators make the addictive habits seem innocuous and, at times, fabulous! The problem is that the reality is far from fabulous.
Fortunately, daytime television remains light on drug and alcohol references. Yet, there are many shows that glorify addiction, especially to drugs and alcohol. The list includes shows like Shameless, Breaking Bad, It’s Always Sunning in Philadelphia, etc. Even the old classic Cheers glorified spending countless hours sitting in a bar.
3. Proliferation of social media and video games
In itself, spending time on social media can evolve into an addiction. The same can be said for playing video games. Both habits may be linked to issues of impulse control that could lead to future addictions.
In addition, social media may promote substance abuse, due the nature of what people are posting. Just think about it. How likely are your friends to post pics when they’re out drinking versus studying or doing something intellectually stimulating? Especially in younger generations, it is often the party scene that gets the most likes and comments.
4. Using food for emotional support
For some reason, it is perfectly normal to obsess over food. It’s become so mainstream that someone with a blatant food addiction can say, “Chocolate cake makes everything better,” and we all nod in agreement.
Imagine an addict saying the same about heroin. We’d be judging that person so hard. But food addiction seems to be ok, even though poor eating habits are killing more people than hardcore drugs.
Our society consents, even encourages, unhealthy food addictions. Although sugar isn’t nearly on the same level of heroin, it’s still unhealthy to drown your troubles with cake. The impact may not be as clearly visible in the short term, but long term, sugar and other food addictions can lead to a host of problems.
When society teaches us from a young age that we can use sweets to help us feel better, we’re learning to self-medicate. This is a path that leads to other addictions.
5. Approval of addictive over-consumption
If you ask any long-time coffee drinker whether they can limit themselves to just one morning cup of Joe, their answer is probably a resounding “NO!” This is because coffee is addictive. It may be acceptable and has minimal side effects, but it’s a stimulant, nonetheless. As a result, it can be harmful to the body.
Furthermore, sugary drinks, such as soda and energy drinks, are exceedingly common but also very addictive. Regardless of the vast amount of scientific research about the health implications of sugary drinks, society condones these addictions, even in children. This teaches youngsters that it’s ok to give into their cravings, even if they aren’t really good for you.
The consent is so widespread, that some restaurants offer nothing else to drink except for sugary drinks, coffee and water.
This does not bode well for anyone who is addicted but trying to quick a bad habit. No one is trying to take away your morning cup of coffee or fizzy soda, but the lack of options in many public places for other types of drinks does make quitting the addiction difficult.
Final Thoughts
Just because you’re addicted to coffee or video games doesn’t mean you’re going to become an alcoholic. And just because your children like pop music and movies, doesn’t mean they will fall into a life of drugs.
Yet, most of the mainstream paradigms that reinforce addictive behaviors are run by corporations. These companies make money off people’s bad habits. There are even whole industries that thrive because of our addictions. (Just think Big Tobacco!)
Therefore, it is up to families and communities, and especially the individual, to recognize the potential implication of these societal norms.
Furthermore, we need to recognize that supporting some addictions and villainizing others isn’t helping anyone. This is especially flawed because it is often the “acceptable” addictions – like a “sweet tooth” – that teach people how to give into their appetites, without conscious reflection. This can lead to more destructive habits.
The most sensible solution is to offer help, equally, to anyone dealing with addiction. Help, with lots of compassion and very little judgement.
About the Authors
Trevor McDonald is a freelance writer and recovering addict & alcoholic who has been clean and sober for over two years. Since his recovery began he has enjoyed using his talent for words to help spread treatment resources and addiction awareness. In his free time, you can find him working with recovering addicts or outside enjoying about any type of fitness activity imaginable.
Anna Hunt is writer, yoga instructor, mother of three, and lover of healthy food. She’s the founder of Awareness Junkie, an online community paving the way for better health and personal transformation. She’s also the co-editor at Waking Times, where she writes about optimal health and wellness. Anna spent 6 years in Costa Rica as a teacher of Hatha and therapeutic yoga. She now teaches at Asheville Yoga Center and is pursuing her Yoga Therapy certification. During her free time, you’ll find her on the mat or in the kitchen, creating new kid-friendly superfood recipes.
This article (5 Mainstream Paradigms that Push People into Addiction) is copyrighted by Awareness Junkie, 2018. You may not copy, reproduce or publish any content therein without written permission. Feel free to share this article on social networks and via email. If you have questions, please contact us here.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Moreover, views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Awareness Junkie or its staff.
Mary Ann Sieghart is a journalist, broadcaster and author. She presents programmes for the BBC and has spent 30 years as a political columnist for The Times (of London), The Independent and The Economist. The Leading Voices: Introducing Our Speakers Raul Aparici is a consultant, coach and facilitator. He has a diverse background that includes a career in the fitness industry, a BA in English Literature and an MA in Critical Theory, and he forms part of the core team at The School of Life. Alain de Botton is the founder and Chairman of The School of Life. Alain was born in Zurich, Switzerland and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday life.' Self-knowledge matters so much because it is only on the basis of an accurate sense of who we are that we can make reliable decisions – particularly around love and work. Our bestselling essay book takes us on a journey into our deepest, most elusive selves and arms us with a set of tools to understand our characters properly. How the Modern World Makes
Us Mentally Ill
The modern world is wonderful in many ways (dentistry is good, cars are reliable, we can so easily keep in touch from Mexico with our grandmother in Scotland) – but it’s also powerfully and tragically geared to causing a high background level of anxiety and widespread low-level depression. There are six particular features of modernity that have this psychologically disturbing effect. Each one has a potential cure, which we will only collectively put into action when we know more about the disease in question. There are six particular features of modernity that have this psychologically disturbing effect. Each one has a potential cure, which we will only collectively put into action when we know more about the disease in question. Here are the six: 1. Meritocracy: Our societies tell us that everyone is free to make it if they have the talent and energy. The down side of this ostensibly liberating and beautiful idea is that any perceived lack of success is taken to be not, as in the past, an accident or misfortune, but a sure sign of a lack of talent or laziness. If those at the top deserve all their success, then those at the bottom must surely deserve all their failure. A society that thinks of itself as meritocratic turns poverty from a problem to evidence of damnation and those who have failed from unfortunates to losers. The cure is a strong, culturally endorsed belief in two big ideas: luck, which says success doesn’t just depend on talent and effort; and tragedy, which says good, decent people can fail and deserve compassion, rather than contempt. 2. Individualism: An individualistic society preaches that the individual and their achievements are everything and that everyone is capable of a special destiny. It is not the community that matters; the group is for no-hopers. To be ‘ordinary’ is regarded as a curse. The result is that the very thing that most of us will end up being, statistically speaking, is associated, with freakish failure. The cure is a cult of the good ordinary life – and proper appreciation of the pleasures and quiet heroism of the everyday. 3. Secularism: Secular societies cease to believe in anything that is bigger than or beyond themselves. Religions used to perform the useful service of keeping our petty ways and status battles in perspective. But now there is nothing to awe or relativise humans, whose triumphs and mishaps end up feeling like the be all and end all. A cure would involve regularly using sources of transcendence to generate a benign, relativising perspective on our personal sorrows: music, the stars at night, the vast spaces of the desert or the ocean would humble us all in consoling ways. 4. Romanticism: The philosophy of Romanticism tells us that each of us has one very special person out there who can make us completely happy. Yet mostly we have to settle for moderately bearable relationships with someone who is very nice in a few ways and pretty difficult in many others. It feels like a disaster – in comparison with our original huge hopes. The cure is to realise that we didn’t go wrong: we were just encouraged to believe in a very improbable dream. Instead we should build up our ambitions around friendship and non-sexual love. 5. The Media: The media has immense prestige and a huge place in our lives – but routinely directs our attention to things that scare, worry, panic and enrage us, while denying us agency or any chance for effective personal action. It typically attends to the least admirable sides of human nature, without a balancing exposure to normal good intentions, responsibility and decency. At its worst, it edges us towards mob justice. The cure would be news that concentrated on presenting solutions rather than generating outrage, that was alive to systemic problems rather than gleefully emphasizing scapegoats and emblematic monsters – and that would regularly remind us that the news we most need to focus on comes from our own lives and direct experiences. 6. Perfectibility: Modern societies stress that it is within our remit to be profoundly content, sane and accomplished. As a result, we end up loathing ourselves, feeling weak and sensing we’ve wasted our lives. A cure would be a culture that endlessly promotes the idea that perfection is not within our grasp – that being mentally slightly (and at points very) unwell is an inescapable part of the human condition and that what we need above all are good friends with whom we can sit and honestly discuss our real fears and vulnerabilities. The forces of psychological distress in our world are – currently – much wealthier and more active than the needed cures. We deserve tender pity for the price we have to pay for being born in modern times. But more hopefully, cures are now open to us individually and collectively if only we recognise, with sufficient clarity, the sources of our true anxieties and sorrows. The School of Life – a global organisation dedicated to developing emotional intelligence. We apply psychology, philosophy and culture to everyday life. You can find our classes, films, books, games and much more online and in our branches around the world. Get Involved
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The Shocking Story of How Mussolini Died
The National Interest Warfare History Network,The National Interest 18 hours ago
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Warfare History Network
History, Europe
How one of the most vile dictators of the twentieth century met his end.
The Shocking Story of How Mussolini Died
At 3 am on Sunday, April 29, 1945, a yellow furniture truck stopped at the Piazzale Loreto, a vast, open traffic roundabout where five roads intersected in the northern Italian city of Milan. This industrial center had been held for only four days by Communist partisans, but from 1919 on it had been the spiritual headquarters of the Fascist Party founded there by former journalist and World War I Army mountain corps veteran Benito Mussolini.
In a very real sense, his first political career, ended the day before by his demise, had now come full circle as Mussolini’s dead body was dumped from the van onto the wet cobblestones of the empty roundabout, followed by those of 16 other men and a lone female, his mistress since 1933, Claretta Petacci. All 18 people, their dead bodies thrown out by 10 men, had simply been murdered by Communist Party execution squads in hails of gunfire.
Without any sort of trial, 15 men were shot in the back at the town of Dongo on the shore of Lake Como, with Marcello Petacci slain in the water as he swam in vain for his life.
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As for the Fascist Duce (Leader) and his lady, how, where, why, and by whom they were shot are all still unsolved mysteries even today. While the executions of the men were thinly disguised, politically motivated assassinations, the killing of Claretta Petacci was and remains a shameful, common criminal act by ruthless men who had power over her and wrongfully exercised it—no more and no less.
By 8 am, word had gotten around the city via a special newspaper edition as well as bulletins on Radio Free Milan that the hated Duce, revered just four months earlier at public rallies by this very same citizenry, was dead and available for scorn in the Piazzale Loreto. It was there, on August 13, 1944, that the Fascists, egged on by the German SS, had shot 15 partisans. This day’s butchery had been allegedly in revenge for that earlier deed.
A large, ugly, depraved, and nasty crowd of civilians and partisans gathered and quickly got out of control; neither fire hoses nor bullets fired in the air could deter or disperse it.
Two men kicked the late Mussolini in the jaw while another put a pendant in his dead hand as a mock symbol of his lost power; a woman fired five pistol shots into his head as retaliation, she asserted, for the same number of her dead sons, all slain in Il Duce’s series of imperialistic wars since 1935. A fiery rag was thrown in his face, his skull was cracked, and one of his eyes fell out of its socket.
Another woman hitched up her skirt, squatted down, and urinated on his face, which others spit on with abandon, while yet a third brought forth a whip with which to beat his battered corpse. A man tried to stuff a dead mouse into the former Italian premier’s slack, broken mouth, chanting all the while, “Make a speech now!” over and over again.
Pushed beyond hatred and emotional endurance, the angry mob stormed forward and actually trampled the 18 bodies where they lay.
When a burly man picked up the slain Duce by the armpits and held him for the throng to view, the latter chanted, “Higher! Higher! We can’t see! String them up! To the hooks, like pigs!” Thus it came to pass that the bodies of Il Duce, his mistress, and four others were tied with ropes and hoisted six feet off the ground, their dangling bodies lashed by the ankles to the crosspiece of an unfinished Standard Oil gas station that has long since disappeared.
As the sole female corpse was raised, the belle of that gruesome ball’s skirt fell downward around her face, revealing a panty-less torso to the taunts of the crowd. Some accounts say that a woman, others say a male partisan chaplain stepped forward and placed a rope taut around her legs, thus securing her skirt in place for the cameras of the world to film.
A woman gasped aloud, “Imagine, all that and not a run in her stockings!”
Il Duce’s face was blood splashed, and his famous mouth gaped open, while Claretta’s eyes stared dully into space. The former Fascist Party secretary, Achille Starace, dressed in a jogging suit for his daily run, was brought forth, faced the dead, and incredibly gave the stiff-armed Fascist salute to “My Duce!” He was then shot in the back by a four-man firing squad.
Just then, the rope holding the dead body of Francesco Barracu snapped, and his corpse hit the ground below with a sickening thud; Starace was strung up in his place like a piece of meat beside the others. Next, Mussolini’s rope was cut, and he fell to the cobblestones on the top of his head, his brains oozing out onto the wet street.
At 1 pm, the combined protests of the Catholic cardinal of Milan and the just arriving American military government succeeded in having the bodies taken down, placed in plain wooden coffins, and sent to the city morgue.
There, the body of Mussolini was formally autopsied. The 5-foot, 6-inch tall Duce weighed 158 pounds, with sparse white hair on his battered, bald head. Because he was hit by seven to nine bullets while still alive, the immediate cause of death was determined to have been four shots near the heart. His stomach bore ulcer scars, but none of the long-rumored syphilis was visible. He had had a minor gall bladder problem, however.
Mussolini’s corpse was buried anonymously in Milan’s Musocco Cemetery in section 16, grave 384, while part of his brain was handed over for study to St. Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Hospital in Washington, D.C., and only returned to his widow, Donna Rachele, decades later.
Claretta had been killed by two 9mm bullets, which added to the mystery of the weaponry used. She was also buried in Milan under the name of Rita Colfosco and in 1956 was exhumed by the Petacci family, which had meanwhile returned to Italy from its Spanish exile at the end of the war. Today her remains rest in Rome’s Verano Cemetery in a pink marble tomb topped with a white marble statue. Rumor had it that her corpse had been retrieved to secure hidden gems sewn into the hem of her skirt.
The bloody killings and their gruesome aftermath horrified the world, but to the Italians the entire episode conjured up mainly postwar political connotations: to the beaten Fascists, the partisans had acted simply as “the Italian arm of the Red Army,” as the agents of Josef Stalin in Moscow; while to the rest of the body politic, the events at the Piazzale Loreto symbolized the birth pangs of the coming socialist republic that even Mussolini himself would have supported over the monarchy that had both hired and fired him.
The final saga for Mussolini and Petacci began when Il Duce arrived in Milan at 7 pm on April 18, just ll days before his death, with Ms. Petacci, the eldest daughter of a former Vatican physician, following later. On the 21st, an American OSS plan to capture Mussolini by paratroopers was vetoed, while his own German Waffen SS battalion-sized escort was removed and sent to the front to fight the advancing Allies and Communist partisan forces.
Even some of his own Fascists, as well as Claretta’s larcenous brother Marcello, were plotting to have Mussolini murdered while suspicions were running deep among members of his circle that the Germans were planning to trade him to the Allies to save their skins.
The Catholic Church offered Il Duce asylum, as did several South American countries. He refused and vowed he would never surrender but instead would lead a Fascist last stand in the Valtellina region, on the far side of Lake Como.
When the betrayed Duce heard of German plans for a secret surrender of all Axis forces in northern Italy on April 25, he left Milan in a huff for the town of Como, 25 miles distant, trailed by his SS bodyguard chief, Lieutenant Fritz Birzer and Secret Police Lieutenant Otto Kisnatt, each ordered not to let him out of
their sight or to shoot him themselves if he tried to escape.
He did try—twice. He was now a man on the run, but why?
Although informed that neutral Switzerland would not accept him, his family, or any other Fascists, Mussolini nevertheless seemed to be headed there rather than, as he asserted, to a final battle that drew only 12 faithful soldiers.
It has also been suggested that Mussolini meant instead to cross the frontier into the Nazi-held South Tyrolean region of Austria and there stand until death with still-resisting German troops, but even now no one really knows for sure.
Yet another theory has lingered since 1945— that Il Duce was trying to rendezvous with British secret agents to trade his life and those of the members of his sizable entourage in return for secret prewar letters between him and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as well as for others penned during the final stages of the war.
There was also the hoard of loot that the fleeing Fascists took with them in a convoy of 28 vehicles, an estimated millions in cash, checks, jewels, gold bullion and other riches taken from slain Jews, all later stolen by the partisans and used to launch the postwar Italian Communist Party as the largest in Western Europe. This has been referred to ever since as Il Duce’s Gold or the Dongo Treasure in reference to where it was captured on April 27 along with Mussolini and his fleeing minions.
All of this has been endlessly discussed since 1945 in a veritable phalanx of articles and books in both English and Italian, the most recent being an excellent trio of works brought forth for the 60th anniversary of the end of the Italian campaign and the Duce-Petacci-Fascist slayings of April 28, 1945.
The first two books, written by Ray Moseley and Luciano Garibaldi, respectively, appeared in 2004 and were titled Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce and Mussolini: The Secrets of His Death/Did Winston Churchill Order Mussolini’s Execution? The third volume of this trio, Sergio Luzzatto’s lyrical The Body of Il Duce: Mussolini’s Corpse and the Fortunes of Italy appeared in 2005.
On Friday, April 27, the convoy of German SS, Luftwaffe, and Italian Fascist vehicles of uncertain numbers was stopped by a small, vastly outnumbered unit of the 52nd Garibaldi Partisan Brigade commanded by Count Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle, alias Pedro, at the small village of Musso along Lake Como. Bluffing as to the size of their actual force, the Red negotiators told the Germans that they could proceed unharmed, but only on the condition that no Italians were in the enemy column.
Luftwaffe Lieutenant Hans Fallmeyer, according to Moseley, and Lieutenant Fritz Birzer agreed to these conditions. The latter hastened to the hidden Duce, who was inside an armored car and armed with a submachine gun and wearing his standard gray-green forage cap and uniform of the Fascist Militia.
Mussolini argued that all of his entourage should be allowed to continue, but the Nazi lieutenant was firm, insisting that only the Duce himself could go and that even Claretta had to be left behind. Urged by her to accept the terms, an embarrassed Duce reluctantly agreed.
Birzer got his own overcoat and steel helmet from a Luftwaffe sergeant and gave them to Mussolini to wear, but the mortified Duce protested that he would be ashamed to be found dressed as a German and hidden in a German vehicle. However, he finally relented.
The disguised Duce slipped out of the armored car and into a truck of Luftwaffe men, wearing the German steel helmet backward until Lieutenant Birzer righted it. Tearing off his own Fascist Militia jacket, the crestfallen Mussolini replaced it with the field gray overcoat that was discovered in Rome in 1999, to further hide the rest of his own uniform, complete with the traditional black shirt of the Fascisti. Sitting quietly at the far end in the left corner of the fourth truck in line, Mussolini pretended to be drunk.
The hidden Duce was betrayed by an Austrian who told the partisans, “There are Italians; have the trucks searched,” as well as an Italian Fascist, Nicola Bombacci, who lamented, “He is with us! It is not fair that he should get away!” Thus forewarned, the Communists stopped the convoy a second time, at the next village, Dongo, just opposite the town hall.
A former sailor in the Italian Navy, a clog-maker from Dongo named Giuseppe Negri who had joined the Partisans, searched the truck and was startled to see the profile of the man he had formerly served. He reported immediately to Urbano Lazzaro (alias Bill), asserting, “Oh, Bill! We’ve got the Big Bastard! … It’s really Mussolini! … I’ve seen him with my own eyes!”
Incredulous, Lazzaro climbed into the truck himself and approached the mysterious figure pointed out to him obligingly by the real Luftwaffe men who knew the truth. Lazzaro tapped the seated man on the shoulder and called out, “Comrade!” but got no answer. He then stated louder, “Your Excellency!” and tapped his shoulder once more, but was still met with silence and no movement. He addressed the silent figure yet a third time: “Cavalier Benito Mussolini!”
Later he recalled, “I take off his helmet and see his bald pate and the characteristic shape of his head. I take off his sunglasses and lower the collar of his coat. It is he, Mussolini.”
Lazzaro removed the man’s machine gun and was offered in turn from his unbuttoned coat a 9mm, long-barreled Glisenti automatic pistol without a word in response to the question, “Do you have any other weapons?”
He stood up and said, “I am Mussolini. I shall not make any trouble.”
Arrested by Lazzaro, the now meek Duce told the Germans not to defend him; he was taken from the truck and marched to the town hall, his captors following respectfully behind. There, according to Moseley, “He took off his coat, which was too long for him, and was found to be wearing a black shirt and a pair of Militia trousers. He wore boots, but had no jacket.”
At Milan, the slain Duce still had on the trousers and the boots, but the shirt had disappeared while he swung from the girders of the filling station and was also absent from the coffin in the morgue, as photographs clearly show.
Also taken by Lazzaro from the captured Duce was a briefcase and other baggage that had the originals of his most important, personal papers, to which Mussolini exclaimed, “Take care of those bags! They contain Italy’s destiny!” These files included his letters to and from Churchill, correspondence with Hitler, and a document covering the January 1944 Verona Trial of the traitors who had voted against him in 1943. A fourth set of papers detailed the alleged homosexual activities of Italian Crown Prince Umberto, then the designated lieutenant general of the realm.
Lazzaro gave all of this to his superior, Luigi Canali (alias Captain Neri), who wanted to honor the terms of the 1943 armistice with the Allies that required the Duce to be turned over to them for trial. The top Communists in Milan ignored this legal clause. Neri also opposed the seizure of the Dongo Treasure by his Communist bosses, and some have accused him of having shot Mussolini himself.
According to some sources, Neri was assassinated by the Communists in May 1945, not because of having done that, but for bringing the British secret service into the affair.
Ironically, Neri had been drafted into the Italian Army in 1936 as a lieutenant of engineers in East Africa, later took part in the retreat of the Expeditionary Corps in Russia, became a Communist, and helped found the 52nd Garibaldi Partisan Brigade that captured his former Duce.
A further twist to this complicated tale was that of Neri’s own mistress: Giuseppina Tuissi (aka Gianna), who was shot by their Communist colleagues on June 23, 1945. Her body was dumped into Lake Como.
The first and last of Mussolini’s files of personal papers disappeared forever, but the others were copied by the Allies and then deposited in the Italian State Archives after being examined by the Communists. As a precaution, however, Mussolini had made a three copies: one for Claretta, which she gave to Marcello and which the partisans seized; and a second for the Imperial Japanese ambassador to the Salo Republic, Baron Shinrokuro Hikada, which was delivered by him to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo. Mussolini gave the third and final set to his Fascist Education Minister, Carlo Alberto Biggini, who died supposedly of cancer in the hospital in the autumn of 1945, one of the few top Fascists not to have been shot.
There were, too, the now infamous Duce Diaries, 10 notebooks in his own handwriting that were given to Baron Hikada as well. Most of these vanished. Of the Duce’s own original papers and documents personally seen by Lazzaro, 344 pages dwindled to little more than 70 after several deletions by interested parties.
Some historians speculate that on September 15, 1945, at a secret meeting held between British agents and Como Communist leader Dante Gorreri, the latter turned over 62 Duce-Churchill letters for an estimated 2.5 million Italian lira laundered in Switzerland and then returned to Italy to be used to launch the new republic. Supposedly, during this exchange, the partisans agreed to accept the blame for the killing of Claretta, who had allegedly been shot by the British because she knew of the secret correspondence.
According to Bruno Giovanni Lonati (alias Ciacomo), a British Special Operations Executive agent, “Captain John,” the alias of Robert Maccarrone, shot both the Duce and Claretta. The name of a second British agent, Malcolm Smith, aka Johnson, also surfaced. All this was part of a fantastic yarn known as the so-called British Thread.
Taken away, Mussolini was rejoined at the De Maria farmhouse at Bonzanigo by Petacci, who begged her captors to shoot her as well if that was to be the ultimate fate of the apprehended Mussolini. They spent the night together in a peasant bed.
Meanwhile, a Communist murderer codenamed Colonel Valerio was sent from Milan to execute them both. Valerio has been identified over the decades as several different Communists.
As he went into the De Maria farmhouse to meet the captive Duce for the first and only time, Valerio chortled, “I’ll tell him I’ve come to rescue him!” The men hustled the Duce, now sporting a black beret, and Claretta, frantically searching among the bedsheets for her missing panties, out the door and into a waiting car.
Later, 19-year-old Dorina Mazzola claimed to have seen both victims gunned down just outside the De Maria farmhouse, and it was then that the long-accepted version of their having been shot by the gate of the Villa Belmonte was first challenged by historians.
Exactly who actually shot first Claretta and then Mussolini has been debated. It was even asserted that a second shooting of the already dead bodies was held at the Villa Belmonte. Some others said that the doomed pair committed suicide inside the De Maria farmhouse instead.
At a Communist rally in Rome in March 1947, a former partisan named Audisio was officially proclaimed before an audience of 40,000 as the killer of Mussolini and Petacci. This occurred during a campaign for the Italian Parliament, and he was elected.
It was also subsequently agreed that both Audisio’s submachine gun and pistol failed to fire in succession and that it was a 7.65mm L/MAS 1938 model F20830 submachine gun with a red ribbon tied to the end of the barrel and belonging to another partisan named Moretti that was the actual murder weapon. Captured from the Fascists, the weapon reportedly fired five French-made bullets into Mussolini while the mysterious 9mm rounds fired into Petacci came from an unknown weapon.
No mention has been made of where the weapons are today. In all, Audisio is said to have given as many as 22 different published accounts of these events before his death in 1971.
Valerio claimed that Il Duce was a trembling coward in death, begging that his life be spared: “I will give you an empire!” But other accounts stated that he pulled himself together after being told “Your luck has run out,” and having seen how Claretta argued with the murderers, “You cannot kill us like this!” before being gunned down herself.
One partisan claimed that Mussolini’s last words were, “Shoot me in the chest!” while another felt that “Aim for my heart!” was, in fact, more accurate. Still other versions are ”Long live Italy!” and “But, colonel….”
Afterward, Audisio was supposed to have said, “Look at his face! It suits him, doesn’t it?” In any event, the man contemptuously called “Hitler’s gauleiter for northern Italy” by his enemies and code-named “Karl Heinz” by the Germans was dead.
Formal Fascism died on the Piazzale Loreto on April 29, 1945. In perhaps the greatest irony of all, Audisio and his men very nearly never made their rendezvous with destiny in Milan. After having bluffed their way past U.S. Army patrols, which never searched the yellow truck, they were arrested by yet another partisan unit while on their way into the city at 10 pm on the 28th.
“They’re Fascists!” screamed the irate officer in command, and this seemed to be confirmed when he found the list of the top Fascists that Colonl Valerio himself had written to identify those to be shot.
The names of the slain “Dongo 16” have rarely been noted. They included Fascist Party Secretary Alessandro Pavolini; Francesco Maria Barracu, Paolo Zerbino, Fernando Mezzasoma, Ruggero Romano, and Augusto Liverani, Salo Republic ministers all; Inspector for Lombardy Paolo Porta; the Duce’s secretary Luigi Gatti; Bologna University Rector Goffredo Coppola; Stefani News Agency Director Ernesto Daquanno; Agricultural Federation employee Mario Nudi; Duce aide Vito Casalinuovo; Italian Air Force pilot Pietro Calistri; public relations man Idreno Utimpergher; Mussolini’s longtime socialist friend, Nicola Bombacci; and Claretta’s brother, Marcello, whom the partisans initially mistook for a Spanish diplomat and then for Il Duce’s son, Vittorio.
Neo-Fascism lives on mainly in the person of the Duce’s granddaughter, Italian film actress Alessandra Mussolini, child of Mussolini’s jazz musician son Romano and Sophia Loren’s divorced sister. Alessandra was elected to the nation’s legislature in the 1990s.
When neo-Fascist Domenico Leccisi of the MSI Party stole the Duce’s body on April 23,1946, he unwittingly launched the late Duce’s second political career as a traveling corpse. Leccisi had seen Mussolini twice, in 1936 and 1945, and found his remains to be still recognizable. Later, Leccisi was also elected to Parliament and even concocted a plot to kill Audisio. Fascist deputies were returned to office in the 1953 elections.
As for the missing Duce, his body was surrendered to a pair of Franciscan friars and hidden in the convent of Cerro Maggiore with the knowledge of the cardinal of Milan and of the Italian Socialist government for 11 years. By that time, the remains were skeletal and fit into a small trunk.
The so-called Padua Trial began on April 29, 1957, to resolve the issue of the disappearance of the Dongo Treasure and the subsequent murders of those linked to it. The trial adjourned inconclusively the following August and was never reconvened.
On September 1, 1957, Mussolini’s remains were finally returned to his widow and entombed in the family crypt at Predappio, the town where Il Duce was born in 1883. It has since become a shrine for 70,000 pilgrims and tourists who visit annually. It is guarded around the clock by twin neo-Fascist sentries in long capes.
The crossbar of the Milan gas station became a sort of monument to socialist and communist unions that staged parades past it, and painted upon it were the names of the five slain Fascisti and Claretta Petacci who had been suspended from it. Later, a merchant supposedly bought the piece as an investment for resale. Ironically, the flames of the memory of that day in Milan were fanned not by the Socialists who wanted to forget it, but rather by the neo-Fascists as a symbol of rightist anger.
It appears that the long-forgotten Claretta Petacci may yet have a final word. In 1945, when she took her leave of Lake Garda to chase after her departed Duce, she left behind with the caretakers at the Villa Mirabella her own papers.
These were two large boxes of 600 love letters from the Duce spanning the 12 years of their passionate association from February 1933 to April 1945. Containing not only gossip but also highly valuable military, political, and diplomatic tidbits, they were buried for safekeeping at Gardone and willed by Claretta to her younger sister and confidante, Myriam Petacci.
Dug up by the family in 1950, the 15 volumes were immediately confiscated by the Italian Socialist Republic. Myriam lost her case for repossession in the courts and died in 1991. The documents were ordered sealed for 50 years, or until April 25, 1995. When that date came and went, they remained sealed as they are today.
Today, the sole family heir is the younger son of Claretta’s murdered brother Marcello, broke and living in a trailer park in Phoenix, Arizona. Someday, when his legal inheritance is duly honored, Signor Petacci will become one of the most famous and richest men in the world as his late aunt’s papers are released and published globally.
This article by Blaine Taylor originally appeared on Warfare History Network.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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