Gaslighting, Gaslighter

GASLIGHT film by Trailer screenshot - Gaslight 1944 Public Domain, Link

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person (gaslighter) or a group secretly attempts to create doubt in a person so that they doubt their memory, perception, or even their sanity.

I have been hearing the term used more lately. Just this month, I saw that the Dixie Chicks have released an album and song titled Gaslighter. The reference in the song is supposed to be to gaslighting that happened in lead singer Natalie Maines' marriage/divorce.

The term originated from the 1938 play Gas Light and was popularized by the 1940 and 1944 film adaptations (both titled Gaslight).

In the play, the scheming husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions.

He also dims other lights and makes noises and voices that the wife hears while he denies that these things are happening. His goal is to have her evaluated and committed to a mental institution.

Gaslighters use denial, misdirection, contradiction, and misinformation to destabilize and delegitimize the victim's beliefs.

Currently, I hear the term applied to politicians who seem to be manipulating the public by using those techniques.

The term has worked its way into popular culture. Pop group Steely Dan has a song entitled "Gaslighting Abbie" on their album Two Against Nature.

Quarantine

The word quarantine has certainly increased in usage in the past two month. The word's origin contains a kind of message for many of us.

The word comes from the Italian quarantena, and means "forty days." It was used in the 14th-15th-century. It designated the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic.

The practice began as the trentino, a 30-day isolation period that began being used in 1377 in The Republic of Ragusa, Dalmatia (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia).

Today, we are hearing about two and three week isolation periods of "sheltering in" but perhaps a period of 40 days might be better.

Quarantine is not the same as medical isolation. The latter is when someone infected with a communicable disease is isolated from a healthy population. Quarantine may be used even with people who have not been confirmed to have a disease. 

A related term that I have not heard used (yet) is cordon sanitaire which is French for "sanitary cordon" meaning the restriction of movement of people into or out of a defined geographic area, such as a community, region, or country. Originally the term referred to an actual barrier used to stop the spread of infectious diseases.

New York Mets

The New York Mets are in the National League East and are based in the New York City borough of Queens.

They were one of baseball's first expansion teams. The Mets were founded in 1962 to replace both of New York's departed NL teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. The American League team in New York City is the New York Yankees who are based in the borough of the Bronx. The team's colors combine the Dodgers' blue and the Giants' orange.

The nickname "Mets" was adopted as a shorthand to the club's corporate name, "The New York Metropolitan Baseball Club, Inc."

The name also recalls the "Metropolitans" which was a former New York team in the American Association from 1880 to 1887. The shorter form worked better in newspaper headlines.

After the 1957 season, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated from New York to California to become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. That left the country's largest city in the United States with no National League franchise.

There was a threat that a New York team joining a new third league, so the MLB the National League expanded by adding the New York Mets following a proposal from William Shea.


For the first two years of its existence, the team played its home games at the historic Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.

In 1964, they moved into newly constructed Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, where the Mets played until the 2008 season.

In 2009, the club moved into Citi Field, adjacent to the former Shea Stadium site.

Tom_Seaver_at_Shea_Stadium_1974
(Delaywaves CC BY 2.0, Link)

In their inaugural season, the Mets posted a record of 40–120, the worst regular-season record since MLB went to a 162-game schedule. The team never finished better than second-to-last until the "Miracle Mets" beat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1969 World Series. The win is considered one of the biggest upsets in World Series history.

In the years since the Mets have played in four World Series. These include a dramatic run in 1973 that ended in a seven-game loss to the Oakland Athletics and a second championship in 1986 over the Boston Red Sox. The "Subway Series" ended in a loss against their cross-town rivals the New York Yankees in 2000. Their last Series appearance resulted in a five-game loss to the Kansas City Royals in 2015.

At the end of the 2019 season, the team's overall win-loss record was 4448–4808, a .481 win percentage.