Gold and Mercury

This is a very powerful piece! It opened a door for me on the morning after a nephew died from a drug overdose.

what a shrink thinks

Gold

I recently came upon this passage as I was re-reading Alice Miller’s Prisoners of Childhood for a larger project.

And the words tore through me:

In Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin I have found a story that may sound rather bizarre, but nevertheless has much in common with what I have presented here. I shall summarize the story briefly.



Once upon a time there was a child who had a golden brain. His parents only discovered this by chance when he injured his head and gold instead of blood flowed out. They then began to look after him carefully and would not let him play with other children for fear of being robbed. When the boy was grown up and wanted to go out into the world, his mother said:

“We have done so much for you, we out to be able to share your wealth” Then her…

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How Self-Aware Are You? Epoch I, Contd.

Call me a dreamer, but can you imagine a future when Raising Consciousness is a key plank on the platform of a presidential candidate? When the most important thing the Department of Defense defen…

Source: How Self-Aware Are You? Epoch I, Contd.

How Self-Aware Are You? Epoch I: Physical Consciousness

Avatar and Cultural Transformation

The Wilderness of Our Emotions

The Wilderness of Our Emotions.

An Older White Man’s Message to Angry Young Blacks in Baltimore

Great thinking, as usual!

Finding Ourselves In The Bible

This message may mean nothing to you. But long ago my little league coach said it is better to swing and miss than take a called third strike

As I studied to become a rabbi, I was also taught: One who saves a single life is regarded as though he or she had saved the whole world.

So if just one of you resonates to these words, I will be happy. If not then at least I took my cut.

The circumstances under which many of you have grown up are beyond awful! The instances of police use of excessive force against black males in 2015 alone are ample evidence that the system is in urgent need of fixing. It is awful! I share your frustration and your anger.

But I know that we have made some progress.

 Freddie Gray’s assailants have been indicted! When I was growing up…

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Oh, Yes! On a Sexual Revolution in Islam by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

For centuries, religions have controlled sexuality. They have defined the legitimate options with regard to gender, sexual orientation, how to make love and its purpose. The religious discourse on sex imposes patriarchy, binarism, marriage, monogamy, motherhood and heterosexuality as sine qua non conditions for a “proper” sexual life. Also, it has caused the invisibility and subordination of female pleasure and has repressed the power of women’s sexuality that allows us multiple orgasms and tireless self sexual satisfaction for a life time.

The modern mainstream Islamic discourse is the continuation of what I already knew in Catholicism about sex: its purpose is to have children, it is lawful only after marriage, the man controls the couple’s sex life and may have more than one partner while women are the exclusive property of their men.

However, it seems that it was not always this way. The biblical book, “The Song of Songs,”

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“Twitter Trial” in Izmir

This promotes a Twitter Action of Amnesty International.

Human Rights in Turkey

Coming in the context of repeated efforts by the Turkish government to block social media outlets, the next hearing of the Izmir “Twitter Trial” is receiving international attention.  The case involves 29 men and women on trial Twitter messages they sent during the Gezi Protests last June.  

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If Tattoos Could Talk: fangs, gangs, and the pangs of youth

Well done article! I always thought so!

thedenialfile

“k1f” Kirby Farrell

Humans have been tattooing skin, filing teeth, and spiked with ornaments since prehistoric times: sometimes to stand out, sometimes to blend into a group. The 5000+ year old Ice Man (Oetzi) uncovered in the Alps has tattoos that may have telegraphed identity or magical thinking, or worked to relieve, physically or psychosomatically, his local aches and pains. Or all of these.

Today, tattoos have proliferated. While rationales can be as varied as the designs, all tattoos modify self-esteem as well as bodies. Like cosmetics, tattoos are prosthetic, since like an artificial limb they make up for something felt to be missing or inadequate. We’re always devising ways to enhance parts of our bodies, from diets and wigs to a Michael Jackson makeover. Once we’re self-aware, there’s really no such thing as a wholly “natural” body. We compete with others and ourselves to envision a more perfect us.

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Guns and “Mental Illness”

thedenialfile

“Normal Dan” Dan Liechty

I think it may have started with Wayne LaPierre’s infamous press conference a week after Sandy Hook. In any case, we now here it as a common refrain of the no-holds-barred gun crowd – that the big problem is inadequate enforcement in keeping high-powered weapons out of the hands of the “mentally ill,” since obviously it is the “mentally ill” who perpetrate the mass killings of the type seen in Sandy Hook, Aurora, and dozens of other places around the country. In short, we ought all unite together to make sure no one with “mental illness” has easy access to these high powered weapons, but let them remain freely available for others.

In my view, even apart from the further stigmatization of mental illness this would entail, the policy itself is mind-bogglingly naive.

In the first place, “mental illness” is not a clearly definable condition. Other…

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