Pharmageddon: The Drug Industry's Grip on Our Health and Lives | Personal Health | AlterNet

David Healy is a Professor of Psychiatry at Bangor University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and author of over 175 peer reviewed articles, 200 other pieces and 20 books, including The Antidepressant Era, and The Creation of Psychopharmacology from Harvard University Press,The Psychopharmacologists Volumes 1-3, Let Them Eat Prozac, Mania, & Pharmageddon.  He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide, suicide and birth defect legal actions involving psychotropic drugs, and in bringing problems with these drugs to the attention of American and British regulators, as well raising awareness of how pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders, ghostwriting their articles.


READ MORE.....Pharmageddon: The Drug Industry's Grip on Our Health and Lives | Personal Health | AlterNet

Yes, Romney's Vision for America Is Really That Scary / Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic

Yes, Romney's Vision for America Really Is That Scary

• Jonathan Cohn

• June 14, 2012 | 5:20 pm
• 
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• President Obama’s speech today was long on words and short on new ideas. I know some pundits are disappointed but, as I wrote earlier today, they shouldn't be. Obama has laid out his philosophy and proposals. So has Mitt Romney. The campaign is all about contrasting the two. And, boy, is the contrast stark. Obama would preserve the safety net and most other federal......

READ MORE: In Cleveland Speech, Obama Warns Of Dramatic Cuts To Safety Net And Tax Breaks For Wealthy If Romney Wins. The Facts Back Up Obama. | The New Republic

What Parents Can Learn From Prison Guards | Mother Jones

Hilarious, true and extremely well-written and balanced!




READ MORE: What Parents Can Learn From Prison Guards | Mother Jones

How to raise a “Dakota Fanning” | Soul’s Code

If your child is an 'old soul', he or she......


READ ARTICLE: How to raise a “Dakota Fanning” | Soul’s Code

Dr. Christine Jax-Castillo: How To Parent An 'Old Soul'

(A mother of seven uses a method called, “show, remind and tell” to raise a child who is an ‘old soul’)

GUEST COLUMN: DR. CHRISTINE JAX-CASTILLO — If you are a parent, you probably question if you are doing all that you can to ensure that your children find their own spiritual paths, and reach their full potential.  You wonder how you can help your children progress on their spiritual journeys, while encouraging them to follow your rules.

How can you can teach them right from wrong, while teaching them to see the good in all things?  How can you keep them safe, while relaying to them that fear is an illusion of the ego?

Now people are claiming that their children are “indigo” children or“old soul” children, and you wonder . . . are yours?

Because of your spiritual evolution and path, it is most likely that all your children, born or adopted, are “old soul” children.  But remember, we are all special and all have a reason for being on this planet at this time: we are each here for individual spiritual growthand to inspire further growth in others, and, if you are a parent, you have agreed to juggle both.  In the case of rearing an “old soul” child, you have agreed to expedite their spiritual development for their benefit, as well as for the benefit of humanity, as the children who are traveling this path have agreed to do so.

Common traits of “old soul” children

• Develop faster emotionally and intellectually than other children, yet may struggle in school due to constrictions on their creativity and critical thinking abilities
• Understand and demand justice long before such development is typically seen in children
• Demonstrate a global perspective and ask about people not like themselves
• Articulate a sense of charity and service; they want to help others
• Remember past lives
• Question the authority of adults and leaders, and demand respect for themselves
• Possess one or more “paranormal abilities:” ie. may see or communicate with non-physical beings such as angels, spirits, and ghosts; heal by touch; remember past lives; share mutual dreams with others; predict future events; sense when something is wrong; view remotely; experience astral projection
• Have a deep interest in religion or spiritual practices
• Communicate easily and actively with their guides, even if they have yet to identify what gives them knowledge about things

How to be a model parent for an “old soul” child

To raise an “old soul” child you need to model (show proper behavior), induct (bring out of the child what he or she already knows), and instruct (provide new information).  I refer to this as “show, remind, tell.”

Show your children how to be good citizens and stewards of the earth, and be mindful that they are going to emulate much of your behavior.  Also keep in mind that they will quickly recognize hypocrisy and just as quickly lose respect for you.   Do your best to walk your talk. This means not using physical force, coercion, insults or shaming to get what you want, including proper behavior, from your child.

I always tell people, “If you wouldn’t do or say something to or in front of your boss, don’t do or say it to or in front of your children.”

You can model empathy by speaking your thoughts out loud: “I guess I should pick-up this box I dropped.  It wouldn’t be nice to leave more work for the grocer.”  Show grace in how you admit mistakes and don’t blame others.  Find the good in all situations and in all people. When you are struggling with something someone has done, talk out loud to your child about how you are trying to understand their decisions without judging them.

Remember to teach love to all children

Remind your children of who they are and where they come from.  Let them know everything is made out of the same energy, love, which makes all people equal and everything worthy of care and respect.  Remind them that happiness is our right, and that it is found only in the moment because the past and present do not concurrently exist.

Help them remember that preparation for the next moment takes knowledge, good work, honesty, and faith; they will see whatever they believe and expect.  Discuss with them how forgiveness is essential for personal growth and happiness; peace can only exist if there is forgiveness. It may help to develop meditative and spiritual practices with them as part of your lifestyle.

Tell them every day that you love them, and tell them regularly that you are proud of them and amazed by them.   Let them develop with you the household rules and the consequences for breaking those rules.  Make sure they understand why there are rules, and be consistent and calm when you enforce those rules and enact punishment.  Give them opportunities to care for other people and to care for the earth.   Tell your children to follow their dreams, and then give them space and advice for how to do so.  Allow them to fulfill their dreams for themselves, not yourdreams for them.

Introduce your children to many different spiritual practices, including yours, but let them choose what is comfortable for them.  Let them experience chanting, drumming, walking a labyrinth, sitting silently with incense — experiment.  Point out to your children all that you have learned from other people and how much is achieved when people work together.  Explain that there are multiple perspectives of, and reactions to, any situation.

Create a life for yourself beyond parenting so you can allow and encourage your child to grow beyond you, your beliefs, and your needs, but always, always be your child’s biggest fan.

Dr. Christine Jax-Castillo has a B.A. in Child Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Education.  She is an author and international spiritual coach, consultant and speaker. She and her husband have seven children, ages 7 – 25, and they reside in West Palm Beach, Florida.

(Angel photo by Cyndi Ingle.)

Kevin Powell: Being a Father

I am a father. I did not know that I was one, but I am. Not even sure when it happened but, alas, it is a reality for me now. I did not ask for it, nor was it planned. And, to be brutally honest, I scratch my head and wonder how this came to me. I mean, for sure, I have a vague idea, but I am struggling to recollect what led to this.

This is especially profound for me because....... 

CONTINUE READING! Kevin Powell: Being a Father

The 44th president was his mother’s son - The Washington Post

The 44th president was his mother’s son - The Washington Post

How Obama became black - The Washington Post

How Obama became black - The Washington Post

Are Corporations and Big Banks Making a Windfall From Food Stamps? | Food | AlterNet

How much food stamp money are Coca-Cola, General Mills and Walmart getting? The government isn't telling........

June 13, 2012    

Photo Credit: AlexAnnaButs/ shutterstock.com

  

Perhaps you've heard: At a time of record need for food assistance among America's poor, the U.S. Senate is poised to cut roughly $4.5 billion from food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which 46 million Americans -- one in seven of us -- rely upon.

READ MORE: Are Corporations and Big Banks Making a Windfall From Food Stamps? | Food | AlterNet

Military Suicide Rate Surges to One per Day: 50% More Suicides Than Afghanistan Combat Fatalities!!!!! / Huff Post

This fact is one of the most compelling upon which to deliberate, when considering action to withdraw from Afghanistan ... or any other war whatsoever. Probing this horror of our sons and daughters at war, evokes such a strong response ... and requires the deepest self-interrogation of each and any citizen/official who has any influence.  Without going there, at the moment ... that citizenry also includes certainly includes you and me.  

But war is highly profitable ... let's just cut to the chase. This article should strong-arm even the hearts of those who appear not to have one .... those who send our children into death's path for money:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/military-suicide-surges-_n_1578821.html

Scott Mowry: Signs of the Golden Age Are Everywhere

EACH and every day brings more and more confirmations that something exceptionally extraordinary is happening to the human race and our planet Earth. We must realize and appreciate, at this very moment, we are living in the greatest, most spectacular times in the history of the world – bar none........

 READ MORE: Scott Mowry: Signs of the Golden Age Are Everywhere

"A Wave of Reason"/Symphony of Science/YouTube

"A Wave of Reason" is the seventh installment in the Symphony of Science music video series. It is intended to promote scientific reasoning and skepticism in the face of growing amounts of pseudoscientific pursuits, such as Astrology and Homeopathy, and also to promote the scientific worldview as equally enlightening as religion. It features Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Lawrence Krauss, Carolyn Porco, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Phil Plait, and James Randi.

More science music videos can be found at http://symphonyofscience.com.

"No Religion? 7 Types of Non-Believers" | Belief | AlterNet

As a confirmed, highly theistically-inclined pantheist of many years, I found this article by Valerie Tarico to be an excellent article, addressing several levels:


READ ARTICLE: No Religion? 7 Types of Non-Believers | Belief | AlterNet

Florida Voter Purge Will Continue, Defying Federal Warning

Florida Voter Purge Will Continue, Defying Federal Warning

By Janelle Ross, Huffington Post – June 2, 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/florida-voter-purge-federal-warning_n_1564131.html

Florida will defy a federal warning to stop purging people the state suspects aren’t U.S. citizens from voter registration rolls.

Despite a Justice Department letter, objections from county elections officials and evidence that a disproportionate number are voters of color, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s office planned to continue scrubbing the election rolls, a spokesman said Friday. Gov. Rick Scott  ordered the search for potentially ineligible voters............

KEEP READING......Florida Voter Purge Will Continue, Defying Federal Warning

NARCISSISM: Wikipedia

Many of my posts deal with narcissism.  Using a trenchant tone, punctuated by sarcasm, you just haven't lived until you have had a significant relationship with one. 


Typically narcissism is cloaked as a male, but there is a growing female head count as this present culture evolves. Many folks could sum up their definition and understanding in a few words. And, there is a healthy degree of narcissism we all need.  If that is void, we could not even successfully apply for a job.


My focus, which includes studies of several individuals whom I think address our dearth of knowledge about this personality disorder, concerns itself more with the malignant narcissist. And, in reviewing the causes of the disorder, this generation and the last of parenting falls sharply in line with being higher on the continuum.  The profiles for this are compelling as we look at our own parenting and that of others. However, this following link from Wikipedia, discusses it sufficiently (the quick and dirty approach) in few words, and merits scrutiny.
  Yet, there is so much more, and there are sites such as "The Narcissistic Continuum" I have listed in my links to the right.


READ WIKIPEDIA ON NARCISSISM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

Why Is the Conservative Brain More Fearful? The Alternate Reality Right-Wingers Inhabit Is Terrifying | AlterNet

Consider for a moment just how terrifying it must be to live life as a true believer on the right. Reality is scary enough, but the alternative reality inhabited by people who watch Glenn Beck, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or think Michele Bachmann isn't a joke must be nothing less than horrifying.

Research suggests that conservatives.........

READ MORE: Why Is the Conservative Brain More Fearful? The Alternate Reality Right-Wingers Inhabit Is Terrifying | Media | AlterNet

"Infidelity: Real Men Don't Make Excuses: ~ repost from The Narcissistic Continuum

http://n-continuum.blogspot.com/2009/12/infidelity-real-men-dont-make-excuses.html

Infidelity: Real Men Don't Make Excuses

Surprise! by Henri Rousseau, 1891

The narcissist’s infidelity is an ambush more than a surprise. A term like "Gotcha!" might be a good description of the narcissist's aggressive and intentional infidelity. Surprise and "Gotcha" work together like a charm if putting an uppity woman in her place is the goal--her place being somewhere awfully close to the floor. If the narcissist plants a flag on your chest and declares victory, you might want to pay attention to his superior position, get up off the floor, and wrap the flag around his bloated head.

In relationships that are not stunted by pathological narcissism, infidelity can be a turning point for both the betrayer and the betrayed. Normal couples say an affair was a warning sign to confront marital problems or the relationship would never last. Both people picked up their share of the problems and worked together restoring trust and mutual responsibility, which ended up enhancing intimacy. Their Love story had a happy ending despite the fact that infidelity was traumatizing for both the ‘betrayed’ and the ‘betrayer’.

In my mind, infidelity is even more traumatizing for the children than the couple, because it jeopardizes their ability to implicitly trust an intimate partner in the future. Let’s never forget that there’s more than three in the two-timing crucible. What’s good for the goose & the gander is heartbreaking for the gosling, even life altering.

If infidelity hurts so many people, then why do men cheat on their wives? It’s like asking, “Why do men beat on their wives?” Only nowadays, we’ve made progress on the sexist idea that she made him beat her. I hope we’ve progressed to the point where we realize there’s one person responsible for raising a fist and that person is the only one to blame for his choice to raise a fist. However, when it comes to sex and infidelity---that’s where things really get sticky. Society is still inclined to blame a woman as the reason for her husband's philandering. Or at least insist she take half his responsibility for choosing to betray his wife and family. We continue offering excuses as to why a man messes around with another woman when they have a perfectly well equipped partner at home. A partner with perks. Like cinnamon rolls, and happy kids, and continuity, and extended relationships, and compassion enough to care for him when he’s feeble, and respectability, and a safe place for family to call ‘home’. We say to one another, "Well, he must not have been happy at home."

So everybody learns that if Dad isn’t happy, the whole family had best be focused on making Daddy happy, Or Else.

Contrary to assumptions that only dissatisfied, unhappy men cheat, Shirley Glass says happy men cheat, too. According Ruth Houston, an infidelity expert: “This information may surprise you, but research has proven time and time again that a man’s happiness, or the quality of his marriage have no bearing on whether or not he’ll have an extramarital affair.”

So much for the pop-psychology excuse as to why men have affairs.

Infidelity is such a curiosity, though! It’s a national obsession. Affairs makes headlines on the 6 o’clock news. News about wars and financial disasters and impending global destruction take a back seat to what celebrities are doing behind the mask of propriety. I wonder if the reason we’re always asking ‘why people have affairs’ is because we want to know ‘why not.’ Why not have affairs? Perhaps our obsession with other people’s sex lives is an attempt to question the idea that infidelity is common, not-so-bad-as-long-as-you-don’t-get-caught, and that maybe restraining narcissistic impulses isn't necessary because a dalliance now & then is a victimless crime? After all, it sure looks like everybody does it which means infidelity is 'normal.' Those fidel folks are the abnormal ones. Why don't they have affairs, too?

Maybe society is struggling to understand the compulsion to have risky affairs, while we're also deconstructing the patriarchal notion of male privilege. Women are challenging the age-old double standard of fidelity by breaking the silence surrounding male privilege. Now we hear true stories from the other side of the bed: the betrayed, the children, the family, the friends, and the wife who dares speak what used to be unspeakable. Women are less reluctant to speak up when they are socially validated instead of incriminated. Unfortunately (as happens in oppressive systems): “Female infidelity has increased 50% and is rapidly approaching the rate of male infidelity.” Looks like oppressed women are catching up to privileged men. Well, equality of the sexes shouldn't mean freedom to mimic the abuses of the privileged, but transition is never easy.

Johnny Appleseed can't resist the compulsion to plant orchards

Even academics fabricate excuses for men, purporting theories about a deeply embedded evolutionary drive to spread one’s genes as far and as wide as our…..legs; suggesting we are motivated to procreate because that's how our species has survived: Hook up, impregnate, hook up elsewhere, impregnate; keep mini-me’s populating the planet; it's our moral duty to make sure our genes survive. For some reason though, these arguments fail to mention the modern neo-cortex overriding instinctual impulses.

Even if a few men act like dogs, humans in the 21^st century are very unlike chickens and cows and furry creatures that don’t have careers, kids needing stability, and 30-year mortgages for homes rather than corrals and chicken coops. Comparing us to rapidly copulating rabbits is an insult to our humanity and simply preposterous, really. What are the statistics for infidelity and viable offspring anyway? My naïve guess is that modern affairs serve the ego, not the genetic code. Maybe I could go along with the line of evolutionary thought if partners were only required to grunt at the sacred alter of commitment, “Do you take this man or this woman to be your lawfully wedded partner?”

“Ugh!”

Or if the man were still returning from the hunt with gutted rats for his stick-gathering woman to dangle over campfires. Wait, come to think of it, there may be a link between outdoorsy type personalities and their Neanderthal relatives. Maybe one of the questions we should ask a potential mate is: “Do You Like Sleeping in Caves?” If they prefer rocks to feather pillows, you might want to think twice before breeding.

I remember being a young girl in a tightly-knit rural community. We were about twenty years behind city folk’s shifting morality, though television was eroding our black-and-white standards a lot faster than it took instilling those values from one generation to the next. When my best friend’s father became dissatisfied with his wife, supposedly totally and utterly miserable, and so very sad and depressed in his marriage, he spread his blues genes elsewhere. People rolled their eyes and said, “That’s a man for ya.”

Then when Mr. GreenJean’s wife was caught sleeping with Farmer Dell, well---people started a bonfire in the center of town and collected biblical stones. Even a naïve kid like myself figured out that “Sticks and Stones may break my bones” but adultery would catch my hair on fire.

Not that the people in my community condoned male philandering, but they could understand it. What they couldn’t understand was why Mrs. GreenJeans slept with Farmer Dell when she had a perfectly nice stove, a 4-wheel drive pick-up, in-house plumbing, and all the accoutrements a woman needed to keep her busy. Like kids and an orchard full of apples to preserve, for example. There wasn’t any allowance nor excuse for an unhappy woman to seek happiness elsewhere, not like there was for an unhappy man.

Kids are exceptionally observant without realizing we’re being socialized. We don’t question our perceptions of normal adult behavior. What was normal to most of us was the idea that a man was incapable of controlling his urges and a woman was supposed to control not only hers, but her man’s lesser instincts, too. If he was a philanderer, she had failed. She was the cause. Gossiping people never asked “What’s wrong with that man?” or accused him of having a narcissistic personality disorder. Instead, they examined his wife’s deficits to explain his behavior, accusing her of having character defects---like being sexually inadequate, or scornful, or scolding, or too fat for fun.

Now I’m a grown woman and citified and my morals have become more relative than my parents believe is prudent. I have an open mind, a healing wounded heart, and the ability to be more objective about infidelity. The other thing I have that a lot of other people don’t, is direct experience with infidelity and a narcissistic spouse. So when Tiger Woods was outed as a philanderer and I saw a picture of the beauty he married…well, it was rather validating let me admit that fact right up front. She didn’t look sexually inadequate to me, and she was definitely not too fat for fun. The other difference is that Mrs. Tiger probably didn’t take her husband’s infidelity quite as personally as those of us with stretch marks and crow’s feet, our youthful beauty fading faster than a Brazilian rain forest. Mrs. Tiger probably didn’t enjoy being reduced to a cliché like the rest of her female sex, but she isn’t grieving the fact that she’ll likely spend the remainder of her life alone. When you look at her and you look at Tiger, there’s not a whole lot of blame to be placed on anyone but the man himself. And his narcissism perhaps. Narcissism being a dynamic of personality and not a clinical disorder like NPD.

Child Prodigies

Undoubtedly, Tiger grew up perceiving himself to be ‘special’, the rest of humanity being way below par by comparison. He was groomed from the age of two to see himself as exceptional, privileged, and entitled to have whatever he wanted with a righteous dose of vanity and inordinate self-preoccupation. It would be arduous work for any one to grow up in the adoring public eye without equating celebrity status as evidence of superiority.

Tiger is the golden child of a narcissistic culture that elevates him on a pedestal, isolating him from the rest of the world, essentially separating him from reality. His childhood leaves one to wonder how ‘real’ he feels himself to be. Is he an exception---meaning is he entitled to do whatever he pleases because the rules of life do not apply to celebrities of his stature? His upbringing must have been surreal, segregating him from a normal life and encouraging his narcissism to flourish, unchecked by the limitations of ordinariness. When the shit hits the proverbial fans however, when his behavior is not in sync with his image, he has an opportunity to ask himself, “Where have I gone wrong and how can I make amends to the people I have hurt?” Tangentially, his fans have an opportunity to real-ize him as a human being, not a God. He is no more than a mistake-making man with warts, urges, and failings---like the rest of his species.

The challenge of a child prodigy is to recognize their extraordinary skills without conceptualizing themselves as extraordinary people, thus extirpated from moral behavior and empathy for others. Moral laws alleviate one another's suffering through individual responsibility for our impact on partners, on family, and (by extension for celebrities in particular), their impact on the whole of society. When an icon tumbles from his lofty pedestal, he can reify his masculine archetype by doing what real men do: the Right Thing. That means taking responsibility for his failure to keep his word, going the extra mile to repair any damage he has caused, working hard to earn his stature, voluntarily sacrificing ego to higher values than the narcissistic cloddish self, and thus restoring his integrity aided by the cleansing grief of humility.

Tiger’s ability to transform arrogance into humility requires a steadfast desire to bear the humiliation of his failure rather than demand his family bear the burden for him. The inability to suffer one’s own 'sins' and mourn the demise of an omnipotent self is the hallmark of a narcissistic personality.

The truth of Tiger’s unchangeable narcissism will be in the outcome. I hope he will take the path least traveled and accept his moral duty to live up to the principles he represents. I hope he will not take the path most traveled and excuse himself from responsibility. I hope he has the character to resist socially conditioned temptations to blame his wife, or scapegoat his family in order to preserve his ego at all costs to others. If he chooses the road most traveled, he won’t get any slack from mobs of people who validate his entitlement to act without consideration for others.

Can he resist projecting responsibility, even towards his idolizing fans sustaining the isolation of his celebrity? Will he succumb to the clamor of the hollow men,justifying male entitlement as normal, even imitable? Does he realize envious fans need to keep him in his place: on a pedestal. Those hollow fans who sanction Tiger Wood's entitlement, absolve him from responsibility for a real man's life. After all, he’s a winner. And their winner can have or do anyone he wants.

The challenge for our celebrity-worshipping society is to never allow celebrity status to trump moral behavior. When we grant special privileges to the rich and famous, we set the stage for our children to normalize pathological behavior. By mimicking narcissistic behavior as normal, even glorified, we diminish the future quality of our children’s lives. If the celebrities we worship are not subject to the same rules governing a civilized society, then our children will idealize fame as the golden ticket to freedom: freedom to do what they please, when they please, to whom they please and whenever they feel like it. They will forfeit the ultimate freedom via mastery of lesser instincts and ‘feelings’ that frees the whole of society. If we do not hold stars accountable to what we know is unhealthy and dissatisfying, we encourage the proliferation of narcissism in an individualistic culture that thinks only of the self without regard for others, too special to suffer consequences for harmful behavior.

No matter how you look at it, Tiger Wood’s infidelity is the Tournament of His Life, a defining point in his maturation from a two-dimensional star to a complex human being. Taking responsibility for himself will be a defining point. Even he, a child prodigy, is not above the rules of decent behavior.

If he submits to the rules of a sport that must be obeyed or suffer disqualification, he can follow the rules of a moral life that must be adhered to, or suffer disqualification as a man. Real men bear accountability for their guilt, suffer remorse, repair the damage, and refuse to make excuses. Real men pick up the broken pieces of their pedestal and ask no one to carry the weighty burden for them. They bear the burden of their brokenness as evidence of their humanity.

Corrective life events

Tiger’s infidelity can be a ‘corrective life event’ that puts his life in order by creating a ‘real’ relationship with himself, embodying the values he represents: a good man, a trustworthy husband, a reliable father, an icon of strength worthy of emulation. Alternatively, the humiliation of infidelity can be a ‘corrosive life event’, ultimately destroying his true self, handicapped by the façade of his celebrity. At this crucial moment, the question to be considered is not how his family failed him. The question to ask is how he failed himself---as a man. A real man. One with warts and failings and mistakes to rectify.

The healing period post-infidelity is a precarious time of self discovery. At the core of Tiger Wood's character, when the false mask of superiority is lowered just enough to see a true self secreted behind the pretense, is his narcissism context dependent---or is it a state of being?

Only time will tell.

Hugs,

CZBZ