Post No. 2,704 - Some interesting reading/viewing [Note: Content Warning - links to distressing reports on some topics, including self harm. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Here are some llinks that might of interest or value:

• “How Trees and Forests Heal us and make for Well-Being”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/01/trees-forests-being.html   A good article which mentions sources I respect   See also   “Post No. 131 - Forest Bathing”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2010/07/i-came-across-new-term-recently-forest.html   

• “Stress and Anxiety in the Medieval Age”   https://youtu.be/XBxmWZfgiWA?si=DlY4q0Cn5Ot_Y86-   I was interested to learn that the word “stress” is a shortening of “distress”, and dates back centuries. The discussion on old remedies is also thought provoking   

• “Meaning Doesn’t Require A God – It Requires A Choice | John Beckett”   https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2024/01/meaning-doesnt-require-a-god-it-requires-a-choice.html   Another excellent article from my favourite Druid - and a point of view I have held since discovering Buddhism as a teenager  
  

• “Sesame Street‘s Elmo sparks social media frenzy with simple check-in”   https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/health/2024/01/31/elmo-mental-health-check   “The innocent check-in unleashed a deluge of responses. The post had been viewed more than 140 million times by late Tuesday, and there were a whopping 83,000-plus likes.   Many of the responses express unhappiness at the state of the world.”   Wow - but quite credible, IMO  

• “Every Propaganda Technique Explained in 11 Minutes”   https://youtu.be/sybo484veJY?si=h9YoqqIej73Mzibs   Very brief “explanations”, but a useful summary  

• this week’s “afterlife report” by the  Zammits (see here for zoom meeting opportunities): 
  https://www.victorzammit.com/February2nd2024/  
  

• my recent posts on my political blog:  
• From the news on:   society generally, and broader issues,   the climate crisis, environmental issues, and nuclear threats/issues,   human rights and humanitarian aid,   the war in West Asia,   and   politics & democracy, and international affairs;
  
  
• “A major change: the introduction of a “positive duty” to prevent sexual harassment”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-major-change-introduction-of-positive.html  
  
  
• “An activism email on the introduction of a “positive duty” to prevent sexual harassment”   [Note: Content Warning - discusses discrimination and effects, including self harm. Reader discretion is advised]  https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/02/an-activism-email-on-introduction-of.html   
  

• from Medium and similar:
  

• “How The Tuskegee Experiments Still Impact Trust For Medical Industry”   https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/how-the-tuskegee-experiments-still-impact-trust-for-medical-industry-a933f4059216   
  

• from YouTube:

• “What if Humans Are NOT Earth's First Civilization? | Silurian Hypothesis”   https://youtu.be/vyEWLhOfLgQ?si=DezbXVIr_XVCMzab   from the PBS Space Time channel   https://www.youtube.com/@pbsspacetime   “In general this points to a bit of a paradox: a civilisation which perished due to climate change would leave such a narrow record it might be invisible. On the other hand, a much longer lived and so presumably environmentally sustainable advanced civilization might produce minimal ecological disruption over millennia, and so would similarly be almost invisible”   Also, most - not all - of the earth’s crust is recycled through subduction processes around every ½ billion years or so  
  
  
• “12 Cognitive Biases Explained - How to Think Better and More Logically Removing Bias”   https://youtu.be/wEwGBIr_RIw?si=IEO2vdhBy5WSa9mv  
  
  
• I have been catching up with my watch later list, including this:   “Obeying Authority | Unethical Psychology”   https://youtu.be/LMbuUUlSQ5w?si=kvVfWURf2IJuMsWW   The deliberate interference by Zimbardo in this infamous experiment is staggering ...  
  
  
• “EDS & Why We Misunderstand Disability”   https://youtu.be/3tr1RvErGn8?si=-BIyBlut6GiiPU_Q   This video is brilliant in many ways. One that particularly resonated with me is that if you have always lived with a something that doctors consider a symptom, how on earth are you meant to know it is a symptom? Doctors need to life their game   
  
  
• on neurodivergence: 
• “How Students With and Without Autism Can Share a Classroom - The Atlantic”   https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/12/autism-students-classrooms-asd-nest/604027/   This is an excellent article   
  
  
• “Love on the Spectrum 2024 Part 3”   https://youtu.be/140-EmpWyfA?si=YGriX9r2gu5HZnDt   About differing points of view, and how to have a debate - including a plea to NOT abuse others. (I can’t comment about the series as I haven’t watched it, having stopped watching that streaming service after they kept hosting transphobic content)  
  
  
• from NeurodiverJENNt:
  - “Commercials can be problematic for autistics”   https://youtu.be/0exwJKZWEd8?si=C4TlyiCR8H8sHJGL   Actually, the video suggests that autistics are not as susceptible to commercial propaganda   See also   “The manipulation of the American mind: Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations”   https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393   “Yet propaganda had acquired a somewhat pejorative connotation ..., so Bernays promoted the term “public relations.”   Drawing on the insights of his Uncle Sigmund ... he developed an approach he dubbed “the engineering of consent.” He provided leaders the means to “control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it.””   
   
• from Orion Kelly - That Autistic Guy:
  - “Empowering Conversations on Suicide with Autistic People”   https://youtu.be/yAa-C5QEyAg?si=vqLhNbCQQ2hz45bZ   This is probably one of the best discussions on the topic I have heard   See also (from a different channel)   “How to have hope that life can get better”   https://youtube.com/shorts/ZMGPqzCp5RM?si=lf7dEwwWPNxTAYwK  
  

 

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Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

 

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/