Friday, February 23, 2018
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Life after NYSC and facing depression by Evans binan
https://www.satmakdaparsblog.info/home/life-after-nysc-and-depression-living-in-our-present-day-realities-by-evans-binan
Friday, February 16, 2018
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Friday, February 2, 2018
The Real Benefits of Women’s Resistance in an Uncertain Time
By Tobey Hiller - January 17, 2018
The Real Benefits of Women's Resistance in an Uncertain Time (Adobe Stock)
Women of the American Resistance is about how to wake up on this dark morning in our country’s political life and take the future of our democracy back along with our own sense of well-being and purpose.
If you feel daily buffeted by a blizzard of news bites and a thicket of tweets, if you wonder what to do or if you feel helpless, this book is for you.
If you’ve been puzzling over where to turn, how to start, what to do, how to take effective action, what would fit for you, in these politically intense times, this is the book for you. If you’ve looked at the political scene and wondered whether you’ve wandered somehow into a strange Mad Hatter’s tea party or an Orwellian novel and feel trapped, read this.
This book is scary, thrilling, and energizing—just like our times. Vividly written, efficiently organized in short but well-researched and pithy sections, this is a book for everyone who needs both facts and inspiration to get themselves started or keep themselves going in these chaotic, often dispiriting times.
The book covers a broad territory of various issues and historical precedents with verve and clarity. And, it’s funny, to boot! Smart! And emotionally sound—because humor is part of what keeps us going in times of trouble and crisis. The book is lively and enlivening, despite the fact that McCann is honest about the many difficult, even daunting, tasks we face. The humor, the punch, and muscle of the writing will keep you reading. Enlarge your store of ideas. And remind you of what we all need right now to make our futures livable (and enjoyable, too): working together.
At one point, McCann talks about kitchen-table gatherings and how supportive they are; reading this book is a bit like getting together with a good friend—or more than one, sitting down at a table and beginning to feel, because of the conversation, the shared energy, the laughter, and the joint intention that we’re becoming part of a community on the move, that with these friends on board, we’re ready to move the world. Ready to pick up our corner of the sky.
Most of all, this book is an essential guidebook to activism, to well-being in a trying world, to the art and practice of becoming part of the solution, to the pleasures and comforts of community, and to getting on the move.
The health benefits of activism
The writer and activist Grace Paley says,
“To hope is to act.”
I am a writer and retired MFT (Marriage Family Therapist) and Certified Psychodramatist. It is widely known and written about in psychology and sociology that connection to a community, membership in groups, and certain forms of activism contribute to emotional health and mitigate against depression. The positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says, “…no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”1
Cooperative groups solve a wide variety of problems, from the numerical to the social, better than even the most intelligent and creative individuals working alone.2,3 Further, research has shown that both volunteerism and activism have beneficial effects on well-being and emotional balance.
“Going on marches, signing petitions, staging rallies and other political activism could actually improve your health and general well-being.”4
Activism and volunteering have somewhat different effects, according to Megan Glister, but both increase an individual’s sense of belonging and forge community ties that support individual and group strength and purpose.5 Many of the outstanding activists of the world—Thich Nat Hahn, for instance—have written on the maintenance of balance and the link between happiness or well-being and an activist life, where the sense of the importance of the individual’s relations to others and to the world becomes daily and natural.6
We all conceive of ourselves in particular ways. How you use your own concept of who you are in the world, how you grow and change to make the most of your own particular nature and attributes, is an indicator both of the ability to meet developmental challenges and of the ability to survive, even thrive, in a world that, despite our American predilection for romantic thought, can be a rough place.
Constructive, collaborative, and positive psychologies concentrate on bringing out an individual’s assets and resources to solve presenting problems. This aspect of the use of self, the mining and use of your own resources (and I saw this again and again in my 35 years of practice as a therapist), helps people to be resourceful and successful in their own ways in a world that is now—and perhaps always has been—difficult to negotiate. So finding a way to be active on the side you want—you really want—to win is likely to, to put it simply, make you feel much better.
It’s an old idea, but it has stayed evergreen: Even Aristotle says that happiness resides in virtuous activity. Though he may not have been thinking that the activity would be resisting a guy with dyed yellow hair and a red cap, and he knew nothing about positive psychology, he was pointing right at the target.
The variety and creativity of activism
McCann highlights that we need the kind of energetic support and vigor that supports local—and maybe even global—change. Karen has recorded interviews with women all over the U.S. doing inspiring work. She’s literally done the legwork. She tells vivid stories; she has talked to the people whose stories they are. It’s personal and real. She knows it’s different strokes for different folks, so her descriptions and suggestions cover a wide variety of resistance methods.
She investigates tyranny and its practices. One of her sections details movements all over the world and across recent history in which group actions, even group actions like singing forbidden songs, have brought down oppressive regimes. She discusses the issues and the grassroots advocacy going on in many areas of our national life (i.e., racism, civil rights, the experiences of non-white and non-Christian folk, the work of LGBTQ and disabled communities, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the environment and climate change) as well as the practical and operative mechanics of making change happen (i.e., raising money, gathering advocates, methods, including peaceful protest, the ABC’s of action).
Apparently, the tipping point for change comes at some moment where enough of us (and there is an actual percentage) stand up and make noise, where enough of us have diversified into all kinds of ways and byways so that a shift, something new, begins to happen. Karen gives example after example where these doors to change are open. It’s very heartening.
Another way this book is important to me is its emphasis on the creativity of activism. Throughout history, artists have been seminal voices in making important cultural and political change happen. Although Thoreau secluded himself at Walden Pond, he was also an abolitionist who went to jail for refusal to pay a poll tax that supported the extension of slavery into new territories, and his tract on Walden Pond and on living close to nature has become one of the progenitors of the movement to protect our environment.
As an artist and writer, I believe that creativity is an essential ingredient for effective change in individuals, and for societies. Art, like science, is an exploration, a path of discovery. Art is the soul of successful activism. Karen’s book has plenty of artfulness. The writing is fresh, muscular, witty. She includes links to her blogs, which have many wonderful visuals. The format is smart, inventive, approachable, and highly useful—you can find what you need to know quickly, and there are many roadways toward action to take, with excellent signage.
Art can be a warning and a celebration
Art can be a warning (think Orwell, 1984, or Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale) and a celebration (the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins or Mary Oliver) or both (let’s say Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison or Emily Dickinson‘s vast trove of poems). And art, as a historical record, reminds us and keeps the erasures and hypocrisies of political life from being effective (Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan trilogy, any book by James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Zadie Smith).
Obviously, these are only a few examples of a vast store. If you’re looking for inspiration, it’s there—and that’s another reason Karen’s book is so good. Her own broad knowledge of literature and history, her many travels and vivid allusions to artists, thinkers, writers, activists, street artists, people whose own lives are, in themselves, statements of artistic and creative exploration (check out the Museum of Propaganda in San Rafael, just one example of so many!) are a testament to the interweaving of creativity and action for awakening and positive change.
It’s a book about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Women of the American Resistance is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (now where have I heard that phrase?), about what we women, whoever we are, can do to make our world better and safer and more democratic—this world, the one so many of us feel is on the cusp of changes we must make our own.
Being a woman and challenging the status quo has always been a formidable task. Holding up the world (which means doing what needs to be done, whether it’s laundry or leading marches) while changing it requires fortitude—which, it seems, given what Karen has unearthed about our many successes in the past, we have! We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, as Karen McCann says.
Karen’s primer on how and where and what—which somehow manages to be both exhaustive and un-boring at the same time—will make us stronger, savvier, and more efficient in doing what needs to be done. Get this book. Read it. Tell others about it. Don’t wait. It’s a blueprint we all need.
Here’s what the great 18th century activist for the equality of women, Mary Wollstonecraft, said:
“The beginning is always today.”
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Why Parents Don’t Talk to their Children about Sex!!!!!!!!!!
There are a number of reasons why parents don't talk to their children about sex that have nothing to do with the children but are related to the parent’s “stuff.”
So why don’t parents talk to their children about sex?
1. Parents don’t know enough about sex themselves.
If you are a parent, obviously, you know enough about sex to have created a child. Even though we may be having sex, we might not know enough about it to teach healthy sexuality to a child. Most parents know the basic biology of human sexuality. We know the names of male and female anatomical parts. We know the basics of conception—the fertilization of the egg by the sperm. After these basics, there is a huge lack of knowledge. Many parents do not have adequate knowledge of sexually transmitted infections or HIV. Discussing disease transmission is a big part of discussing healthy sexuality with a child that moves beyond the biological mechanics of sex.
Another aspect of teaching healthy sexuality is teaching about healthy relationships. Teaching children about consent, healthy communication, partnership, intimacy, etc. are all part of teaching healthy sexuality. We also teach children through modeling of behavior. If parents are not talking about healthy relationships with their children and are modeling dysfunction (i.e., emotional or physical abuse, disconnection, avoidance, etc.), they are actually teaching unhealthy sexuality to their children.
2. Parents think their children will learn about healthy sexuality in school.
Many parents do not talk to their children about sex and sexuality because they think that the topic is taught to their children in school. While some schools may teach human sexuality, how and what they teach is highly variable and depends on the school district in which the family lives. According to the National Conference of State Legislators, only 22 states in the United States mandate teaching at least some sexual education in schools. Even if you live in a state where sex education is mandated, do you know what they are teaching? Only 19 states require that the information taught in sex education classes is medically accurate. This fact was mind blowing to me when I read it.
Many parents also do not get involved or ask about the information being taught to their children in sex education to find out, first, what is being taught and, second, if the information is accurate. Many schools that do provide curriculum on sex education do not teach about healthy relationships nor do they teach about sex in the digital age, skipping topics such as online pornography and sexting. If you are relying on the school to teach your children about sex, they may be getting no information, misinformation, or minimal information.
3. Parents are in denial
Denial is one of the biggest issues that I come across preventing parents from talking to their children. If a parent is in denial about what their child is doing sexually or what they have seen online, they are not going to even be thinking about my first two points. If you think that your 15-year-old child has not seen pornography online, you are quite simply wrong. The average age of first exposure to online pornography is between 10 and 11 years old. This means that if you have not had proactive talks with your child by this age, you have missed the boat.
Thinking that your sweet Johnny has never seen online pornography is denial in its truest form. Your child’s exposure to online pornography is not a judgment of them or a statement of character. It is not a reflection of your parenting skills either. It is likely a statement of fact. This does not mean that your child is actively seeking out the imagery or is a frequent user of pornography, but simply that he or she has seen it. If they have seen it, they may have questions about it or they may have confused feelings which a discussion with their parent might help them sort out.
What can parents do?
What we do know from the research is that kids do want more education about sex and relationships. They even want that information to come from their parents. So what can parents do?
Get your head out of the sand. If you are reading this, you have children who are digital natives and likely a part of the “Generation App.” Come to grips with the fact that your kids are exposed to digital sexuality on a daily basis. Get educated about what apps they use and how they are exposed to sexuality on each of these apps. Is it imagery, chatting, social networks, pornography sites? The best way to find out what your child is doing in the digital world is to actually talk to them about their digital life. Get interested and get involved.
Get some education yourself. Head to the bookstore and peruse the selection of books on sex education. There are great resources out there to refresh your knowledge of human sexuality. Read up on healthy relationships. Talk to your child from the get-go about healthy concepts such as communication, consent, and intimacy. Most of all, do your best to model a healthy relationship in your own behavior. I also highly recommend talking to the educators in your child’s school system about their sex education program. Know what your child is being taught in school as well as what they are not being taught. It is up to you to supplement and improve that education.
Talk to your child. Talk to them often. Accept that these conversations are going to be awkward at first. They will get easier. Talk to them about what they have seen online without judgment or instilling shame. Gather data about your child’s experiences and talk to them about how they feel about it. In this, too, you are modeling healthy relationships. Talk to your child both about the mechanics of sex as well as the relational aspect of sexuality. Talk to them about disease prevention. Talk to them about your family’s values about pornography. Talk to them about pornography itself and how that does or does not reflect actual sex in relationships.
So why don’t parents talk to their children about sex?
1. Parents don’t know enough about sex themselves.
If you are a parent, obviously, you know enough about sex to have created a child. Even though we may be having sex, we might not know enough about it to teach healthy sexuality to a child. Most parents know the basic biology of human sexuality. We know the names of male and female anatomical parts. We know the basics of conception—the fertilization of the egg by the sperm. After these basics, there is a huge lack of knowledge. Many parents do not have adequate knowledge of sexually transmitted infections or HIV. Discussing disease transmission is a big part of discussing healthy sexuality with a child that moves beyond the biological mechanics of sex.
Another aspect of teaching healthy sexuality is teaching about healthy relationships. Teaching children about consent, healthy communication, partnership, intimacy, etc. are all part of teaching healthy sexuality. We also teach children through modeling of behavior. If parents are not talking about healthy relationships with their children and are modeling dysfunction (i.e., emotional or physical abuse, disconnection, avoidance, etc.), they are actually teaching unhealthy sexuality to their children.
2. Parents think their children will learn about healthy sexuality in school.
Many parents do not talk to their children about sex and sexuality because they think that the topic is taught to their children in school. While some schools may teach human sexuality, how and what they teach is highly variable and depends on the school district in which the family lives. According to the National Conference of State Legislators, only 22 states in the United States mandate teaching at least some sexual education in schools. Even if you live in a state where sex education is mandated, do you know what they are teaching? Only 19 states require that the information taught in sex education classes is medically accurate. This fact was mind blowing to me when I read it.
Many parents also do not get involved or ask about the information being taught to their children in sex education to find out, first, what is being taught and, second, if the information is accurate. Many schools that do provide curriculum on sex education do not teach about healthy relationships nor do they teach about sex in the digital age, skipping topics such as online pornography and sexting. If you are relying on the school to teach your children about sex, they may be getting no information, misinformation, or minimal information.
3. Parents are in denial
Denial is one of the biggest issues that I come across preventing parents from talking to their children. If a parent is in denial about what their child is doing sexually or what they have seen online, they are not going to even be thinking about my first two points. If you think that your 15-year-old child has not seen pornography online, you are quite simply wrong. The average age of first exposure to online pornography is between 10 and 11 years old. This means that if you have not had proactive talks with your child by this age, you have missed the boat.
Thinking that your sweet Johnny has never seen online pornography is denial in its truest form. Your child’s exposure to online pornography is not a judgment of them or a statement of character. It is not a reflection of your parenting skills either. It is likely a statement of fact. This does not mean that your child is actively seeking out the imagery or is a frequent user of pornography, but simply that he or she has seen it. If they have seen it, they may have questions about it or they may have confused feelings which a discussion with their parent might help them sort out.
What can parents do?
What we do know from the research is that kids do want more education about sex and relationships. They even want that information to come from their parents. So what can parents do?
Get your head out of the sand. If you are reading this, you have children who are digital natives and likely a part of the “Generation App.” Come to grips with the fact that your kids are exposed to digital sexuality on a daily basis. Get educated about what apps they use and how they are exposed to sexuality on each of these apps. Is it imagery, chatting, social networks, pornography sites? The best way to find out what your child is doing in the digital world is to actually talk to them about their digital life. Get interested and get involved.
Get some education yourself. Head to the bookstore and peruse the selection of books on sex education. There are great resources out there to refresh your knowledge of human sexuality. Read up on healthy relationships. Talk to your child from the get-go about healthy concepts such as communication, consent, and intimacy. Most of all, do your best to model a healthy relationship in your own behavior. I also highly recommend talking to the educators in your child’s school system about their sex education program. Know what your child is being taught in school as well as what they are not being taught. It is up to you to supplement and improve that education.
Talk to your child. Talk to them often. Accept that these conversations are going to be awkward at first. They will get easier. Talk to them about what they have seen online without judgment or instilling shame. Gather data about your child’s experiences and talk to them about how they feel about it. In this, too, you are modeling healthy relationships. Talk to your child both about the mechanics of sex as well as the relational aspect of sexuality. Talk to them about disease prevention. Talk to them about your family’s values about pornography. Talk to them about pornography itself and how that does or does not reflect actual sex in relationships.
Gary Speed 'among four men coached by Barry Bennell who took own life'
One of Barry Bennell's victims has told a court he tried to contact Gary Speed's parents after he hanged himself in 2011.
Gary Speed was one of four men coached by Barry Bennell who went on to take their own lives, a court has heard.
Giving evidence at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday, a victim of the former youth team football coach said he tried to contact Speed's parents after the Wales manager hanged himself in 2011, aged 42.
The victim - who Bennell admitted abusing in 1998, when he was jailed for nine years - said he wanted to get in touch with the ex-Premier League midfielder's parents because he had read in the media that they had not been able to get closure as they had no explanation for his death.
"Four people from teams I have played with, with Bennell, have taken their own lives," he told the court.
"Whether they have taken their lives due to Barry solely I don't know but all I know is how it's had an impact on me and how it could impact on other people."
Speaking about his efforts to contact other alleged victims of the 64-year-old, the victim told the court: "When people are breaking down on the phone, on the verge of suicide, when you hear of people who have taken their own lives..."
He said he knew of former youth players who had been left "destitute" and with alcohol problems as a result of the alleged abuse by Bennell - and that there was an ongoing civil case against Manchester City.
But the victim told the court it was about "justice" and not compensation.
"I'm sick to death of this being part of my life and I just want to put it to bed once and for all," he said.
Earlier in the day, the court heard from a complainant who said senior officials at Manchester City had been aware of abuse carried out by Bennell, who scouted players for several junior sides associated with the club.
The victim said he was abused by Bennell more than 100 times during a four-year stint with one of the teams.
He claimed chief scout Ken Barnes, who died in 2010, had known about the abuse.
"I want an apology off Manchester City and anyone else, if possible," he told the court.
Giving evidence at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday, a victim of the former youth team football coach said he tried to contact Speed's parents after the Wales manager hanged himself in 2011, aged 42.
The victim - who Bennell admitted abusing in 1998, when he was jailed for nine years - said he wanted to get in touch with the ex-Premier League midfielder's parents because he had read in the media that they had not been able to get closure as they had no explanation for his death.
"Four people from teams I have played with, with Bennell, have taken their own lives," he told the court.
"Whether they have taken their lives due to Barry solely I don't know but all I know is how it's had an impact on me and how it could impact on other people."
Speaking about his efforts to contact other alleged victims of the 64-year-old, the victim told the court: "When people are breaking down on the phone, on the verge of suicide, when you hear of people who have taken their own lives..."
He said he knew of former youth players who had been left "destitute" and with alcohol problems as a result of the alleged abuse by Bennell - and that there was an ongoing civil case against Manchester City.
But the victim told the court it was about "justice" and not compensation.
"I'm sick to death of this being part of my life and I just want to put it to bed once and for all," he said.
Earlier in the day, the court heard from a complainant who said senior officials at Manchester City had been aware of abuse carried out by Bennell, who scouted players for several junior sides associated with the club.
The victim said he was abused by Bennell more than 100 times during a four-year stint with one of the teams.
He claimed chief scout Ken Barnes, who died in 2010, had known about the abuse.
"I want an apology off Manchester City and anyone else, if possible," he told the court.
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