Post No. 3,514 - Some (hopefully) interesting reading / viewing / listening - Saturday 22nd August, 2026

I recently found the following interestingoand/orouseful, and am posting them here inocase anyoneoelse does asowelll.   

• “The Human Family Tree Has No Beginning”   https://youtu.be/OeHaG6EsOhQ   “Scientists once believed they could pinpoint the moment when humans first appeared. But as new fossils have filled in our evolutionary history, that defining moment has begun to disappear – replaced by a far stranger picture of what it means to be human.   Lucy is one of the most famous fossils ever discovered, but in recent years her spotlight has dimmed. She was part of the species Australopithecus afarensis and for decades was considered one of our earliest known human ancestors. To understand Lucy is to understand the story of discovery, human evolution and, ultimately, the changing story of us.”   Chapters include:   “The Human Leap That Never Happened,   The Evolutionary Gap In The Human Record,   So... What Counts as Human?,   The Line We Invented”   

• This is utterly unacceptable - as a former sailor, I acknowledge that the ocean is theirs first, and we’re second. (It possibly is actionable under international animal welfare conventions [or maybe even the bans on whaling?] - I hope whoever did this is found and punished under whatever laws do apply)   “Iberian orca known for ramming boats seen with suspected gunshot wounds | Whales | The Guardian”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/14/iberian-orca-known-for-ramming-boats-seen-with-suspected-gunshot-wounds   

• “Women’s physical and mental health ‘inseparable’, new endometriosis research finds”   https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/womens-physical-and-mental-health-inseparable-new-endometreosis-research-finds/lhvljp9zo   “New research has exposed an "enormous" gap in Australia’s women’s healthcare system.”   AND ALSO   “For Indigenous people, connection to Country can be a preventive health measure”   https://theconversation.com/for-indigenous-people-connection-to-country-can-be-a-preventive-health-measure-289306   “Studies show that when Indigenous people are displaced from or denied access to Country, measurable declines in mental health, physical health and social and emotional wellbeing follow.   And when Country is damaged, Indigenous people feel it.   It’s more than a connection to nature”    

• “My Bare Face Really Bothered This Woman”   https://youtu.be/YywsrxeA0VM   “woman left a comment on my video about not wearing makeup, calling women like me sloppy and lazy—and describing herself as “classic classy chic.”   I have no problem with women wearing makeup. Wear as much or as little as you want. But when did a bare face become proof that a woman has stopped caring about herself? And why do some women feel the need to insult other women just to defend their own choices?   In this video, I’m responding to the comment, the assumptions behind it, and the rather surprising contradiction I discovered afterward. The real conversation goes much deeper than this one person.”   

• “This Farmer Spent 15 Years Doing What Everyone Said Was Impossible”   https://youtu.be/o8uk25_P8Ww   “Ernst Götsch, a Swiss plant geneticist who walked away from a federal research career in Zurich, spent the next four decades on land everyone else had written off   ...   This is what happens when you stop fighting the land and start learning how it wants to recover.   🌿 In this video, we cover:   How Götsch planted 500 hectares by hand in a single year — layering 40+ species the way an actual forest layers itself, without a published guide, because none existed yet;   Why he cut healthy branches off thriving trees on purpose, and the plant hormone cycle that made it the fastest way to rebuild fertility in stripped soil.”   AND ALSO   “Rewilded land remains green amid drought-stricken English countryside, images show | Rewilding | The Guardian”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/21/somerset-rewilding-holnicote-estate-wetlands-rivers-resilience   

• “Our Paranormal Afterlife : Finding Proof of Life After Death: Parallel Lives”   https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/our-paranormal-afterlife-finding-proof-of-life-after-death/id1354455555?i=1000784756475   “This week I'm talking to Mira Kelly about her book, 'Beyond Past Lives: What Parallel Realities Can Teach Us about Relationships, Healing, and Transformation'. In this book, regressionist Mira Kelley shares the life-changing lessons she has learned from her clients to help you find support and understanding, and to empower you in your own growth. Mira teaches you how to connect with your Higher Self in any moment to receive guidance. You’ll come to understand how everything around you is just a reflection of yourself, why is it important to forgive, why you have the right to love yourself, and how the Universe always supports you lovingly and unconditionally. The stories contained in these pages will help you discover how to heal your body, mind, and spirit as you learn about the nature of time, karma, destiny, and free will—as well as how each choice creates a new reality for you.”   Note that forgiveness must not be toxic, and First Peoples’ communal approaches to solving problems is, IMO, better than patriarchal/capitalistic/neoliberal individualistic work   

• “Pentagon UFO Files Show Why Declassification Is Not Verification - WHITLEY STRIEBER'S UNKNOWN COUNTRY”   https://unknowncountry.com/headline-news/pentagon-ufo-files-show-why-declassification-is-not-verification/   AND ALSO   “An Alien Abduction of the Communist Kind”   https://ryansprague.substack.com/p/an-alien-abduction-of-the-communist    

 

On neurodivergenceoand associatedomatters:    

• “Inside the Government’s NDIS Reform Briefing”   https://snarkygherkin.substack.com/p/inside-the-governments-ndis-reform   “I’ve been sent the FOI release briefing behind the latest NDIS reforms. Here’s what it actually says, in normal language.”   This is an EXCELLENT critique and analysis of the proposed changes to the NDIS   FROM LATER IN THE WEEK:   “Controversial NDIS changes get last-minute green light as Labor cuts deal with Coalition”   https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/controversial-ndis-changes-last-minute-green-light-labor-deal-coalition/js08pvtlm   “The government unveiled 63 changes in response to community concern, just hours before the final vote was due to take place.”   One of the major remaining concerns is cuts to funding about social connection - but isolation can kill. See:   https://www.aihw.gov.au/mental-health/topic-areas/health-wellbeing/social-isolation-and-loneliness ,  https://www.who.int/news/item/30-06-2025-social-connection-linked-to-improved-heath-and-reduced-risk-of-early-death ,  https://www.cdc.gov/social-connectedness/risk-factors/index.html ,  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201901/can-you-die-loneliness (“Loneliness is as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes per day”) ,   “Social disconnection and mortality: new evidence for old truths”   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661323001973   “In an updated meta-analysis of 90 prospective studies with over two million adults, Wang et al. found that social isolation and loneliness were linked to a substantial increase in all-cause mortality in the general population” ,   https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/social-challenges-such-as-isolation-linked-to-earlier-death ,   “How social isolation, loneliness can shorten life”   https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/how-social-isolation-loneliness-can-shorten-your-life/   “Researchers show two are not same thing but can be connected, sometimes in surprising ways”   

• “ADHD is a social construct, but so too is cancer”   https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/08/18/adhd-is-a-social-construct-but-so-too-is-cancer/#gsc.tab=0   

• “The CBT Problem Nobody Talks About | Autism & ADHD”   https://youtu.be/tWazmp-358I   “Have you tried cognitive behavioral therapy, coping skills, or multiple therapists, only to be told that you are “treatment-resistant”? Sometimes the problem is not the person. Sometimes it is a mismatch between the therapy model and the person’s nervous system”   In my case, I find the dismissive attitude of CBT towards emotion extremely concerning   

• “Can Level 1 Autism Become Level 2? What Autistic Burnout Changes”   https://youtu.be/6bjcGfK1K-U   The answer is yes, levels (support needs) CAN change      

 

On society, governance, humanorights, etc:    

• “PBS should fund drug to treat breast cancer, endometriosis and gender dysphoria, experts recommend”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/18/pbs-breast-cancer-endometriosis-gender-dysphoria-puberty-blocker-drug-triptorelin-ntwnfb   AND ALSO   “Biological sex is neither binary nor a spectrum – a biologist explains how it’s multidimensional”   https://theconversation.com/biological-sex-is-neither-binary-nor-a-spectrum-a-biologist-explains-how-its-multidimensional-289786   

• “Race Discrimination Commissioner welcomes decision in Hanson v Faruqi appeal”   https://humanrights.gov.au/about-us/media-centre/media-releases/race/race-discrimination-commissioner-welcomes-decision-in-hanson-v-faruqi-appeal   “In its judgment, the Full Federal Court said: "The issue of intersectionality was the subject of helpful submissions by the Race Discrimination Commissioner, which drew attention to a long history of learning around the nature of identity and intersectional discrimination."   The primary judge correctly found that “Senator Hanson’s anti-Muslim comments were … directed at Muslims as immigrants and as being different to Senator Hanson’s conception of what it is to be Australian”.  In the circumstances of this case, “Senator Hanson’s anti-Muslim rhetoric was directed at Muslims because of their race, colour and immigrant status, as much as because of their religion”.   ‘This decision reflects the reality of how discrimination and vilification are experienced in the real world,’ Commissioner Sivaraman said.   ‘Everyone has different characteristics that make up who they are. For many people, their cultural, ethnic and religious identities are deeply interconnected. They cannot always be separated, and people are often targeted for multiple reasons at once.”   

• “NSW Supreme Court criticises IHRA definition as ‘detached from reality’”   https://www.deepcutnews.com/p/nsw-supreme-court-criticises-ihra   “Justice Fagan says Zionism 'open to criticism' in decision on graffiti case”   There are questions about the professional competence of those who chose to lay charges, IMO   

• “Making a Choice | "Ordinary Men" and Resistance History”   https://youtu.be/PW22tET0Vc4   “One day in Poland in 1942, ordinary German men were ordered to murder 1,500 people, and their commander told them they could step out of the ranks instead. Thirteen did. The rest stayed.   What happened that day matters for how we understand those men, in that place, in that war. But it also opens a harder question, the one I'm chasing in my work on resistance: if doing the right thing requires an action — not declining to go along, but visibly, physically acting — and most people won't take that step even when it costs nothing, what does it take to act when it could cost everything?   Standing still was never neutral; the killing went forward through the men who merely stayed put. The people who resisted did something more than refuse. They acted — with something real to lose and no promise it would work. And then they acted again the next day. That's the psychology I want to understand.”   This is disturbing - but important.   

• “What should the AFL do when players face sexual assault allegations?”   https://theconversation.com/what-should-the-afl-do-when-players-face-sexual-assault-allegations-289965   “Every time a major sporting organisation appears to minimise an allegation, hide behind an unclear process, or prioritises a season over safety, it sends a message to women and girls about who our community values.   It also sends a message to men and boys about what institutions will tolerate.   Conversely, a fair, transparent and independent response can model something different: that sexual violence is taken seriously, that it has consequences and that authorities can support victim survivors while also following due process.   Ideally, Australia needs a national strategy for preventing and responding to gender-based violence in sport, aligned with the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children.”   AND ALSO   “Boys are rarely taught to be caring. If they were, we could better prevent domestic violence”   https://theconversation.com/boys-are-rarely-taught-to-be-caring-if-they-were-we-could-better-prevent-domestic-violence-288698   

• “3M knew for more than 50 years that its products could harm humans, Australian government alleges in court documents”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/18/3m-knew-for-more-than-50-years-that-its-products-could-harm-humans-australian-government-alleges-in-court-documents   “Exclusive: Federal government court filings claim internal company documents included warnings about products being toxic”   

• “Report supporting Australia’s teen social media ban appears to contain AI hallucinations, Senate hears | Social media ban | The Guardian”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/17/australia-social-media-ban-report-ai-hallucinations-ntwnfb   “Exclusive: Guardian analysis finds one section of report includes links to academic articles that do not exist, but authors deny the references were made up by AI”   

• “Alarm raised over ‘privacy dilemma’ of facial recognition technology at Coles and Woolworths”   https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/18/concerns-security-privacy-facial-recognition-technology-coles-woolworths   “Supermarkets say they are exploring ways to keep people safe, but experts claim the tech is ‘normalising surveillance’”   

• “Social Democracy Without Social Connection?”   https://www.fabians.org.au/social_democracy_without_social_connection?      

 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlightopossible flaws / issues youoshouldoconsider: 

• there mayobe flawedologicaloarguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ freeoonline course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinkingocaps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

Gnwmythr 

teaching the "good" (balancedopositive and spirituallyomature) 
safer ways to counter the "bad" (outoofobalance, spirituallyoimmature) 

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Remember: we generallyoneed to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgenderingois an act of activeotransphobia/transmisiaothat 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 descriptoroto prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and  

  

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here, and Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear  

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2026     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. AI was NOT used to write this article. 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/  

 

 

Post No. 2,964 - some unhappy insights into Australians

The following article was quite disturbing   -   in part because it shows the gullibility/lack of independence/lack of critical thinking of a concerning number (perhaps a majority, but in any case, a significant portion) of Australians,   in part because it shows more of the lingering (evil, in my opinion) influence of John Howard,   and   in part because there doesn’t appear to be an effective response ...  

“Taking tips from John Howard, Peter Dutton knows the barbecue stopper is key to shaping the national conversation”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/15/taking-tips-from-john-howard-peter-dutton-knows-the-barbecue-stopper-is-key-to-shaping-the-national-conversation      

 

Working through those, the first thought which comes to mind is that the success of this strategy is evidence that Donald Horne’s contention six decades ago in “The Lucky Country” (goodreads, Penguin) (which I commented on here and here * ) was right:   Australia as a whole seems to be (or gives a strong impression of) a nation with mediocre leadership. 

But the thing about that is:   why are Australians overall (this does NOT apply to all Australians) so apathetic/amathiac/easily misled that they allow that sort of incompetent leadership to continue (at all levels of society - this applies to too many businesses and community organisations as well [and even some aspects of the justice system, perhaps? - see here and here])?

To put that another way, how are those faults of character and thinking being allowed to continue? As one of the earliest and most cost-effective places to address that is in schools, I have to ask:   are our teachers incompetent or blinded by having the same problems? Do we need international teachers who haven’t been sucked in to this?  

This also requires consideration of the social (and psychic) soup that we all live in. My experience is that forcing newspapers to stop misleading the public is probably the most promoted solution (others experience will no doubt be different - which does NOT invalidate the fact of my experience being my experience), but the best inoculation is to make people invulnerable to it - and that requires teaching critical thinking, beginning in schools.

On the second item, I have written about Howard previously on my political blog (e.g., see here, here, and here). He did good with the gun ban, but in every other way the damage he did to Australia was, in my opinion, massive - especially on racism and landlordism.

 

On the lack of a response, I note that there have been good responses against, for instance, transphobes (prompt, articulate, etc), but there seems to be an attitude that when problematic attitudes/behaviour are officially or semi-officially in another party, there is a risk of political insiders writing that behaviour - and the real life harm it is actively causing - off as “normal political business/skulduggery” ... but it most definitely is not, and dealing with some backwardness early and effectively is vital - as an example of what happens when that isn’t done, consider World War (part) Two and its legacy - including a former n_ z_ who had a leading role in setting up the mass torture systems in Syria under the al-Assad regime ... 

With regard to the responses themselves, they have to address the attitudes etc of voters - not the clique who are proposing any particular response, but they could and should validly include education. 

OK, so what can we do? 

Well first and foremost, be politically active to the extent that you can - especially around promoting both critical thought and emotional competence. 

Secondly, those who do the work of this blog should continue to BPM  support those who can respond, and also weaken the problems by clearing nonBPM units.

 

 * My original mention in that post was:   

“And a very noteworthy article this week is:   “Australia and much of the world is on the cusp of profound change. What happens next is up to us”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/01/australia-and-much-of-the-world-is-on-the-cusp-of-profound-change-what-happens-next-is-up-to-us   This article compares Australia in 1964, when Donald Horne’s book “The Lucky Country” (goodreads, Penguin) was published (and the nation-state Australia’s failure to develop a native space industry then is comparable to the nation-state Australia’s failure to become a powerhouse exporter of renewable energy over the last couple of decades - not to mention the nation-state Australia’s failure to match the innovations of the First Peoples of this island-continent, IMO - and the nation-state Australia’s follow-the-leader adoption of neoliberalism is a further example of mediocre leadership/management), with Australia now - and argued that Australia and the world globally now are on the edge of major change, but   “... if it is the beginning of a period of autocracy, new methods of transformational advocacy, already modelled by the community independents, we will need to reassert the best of humanity; signing online petitions will not be enough.”   Definitely some good food for thought in that article - on several matters.” 

 

 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram. 

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

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).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   

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/