One almost gets the impression that the Republican and Democratic parties are still unaware of the non-corporately-commissioned polls showing that a majority of Americans favor the governmental implementation of some public programs, especially universal health care.

One would think the Democrats would finally support thus implement the latter, so why is the DNC refusing to allow it — if only by disallowing the genuinely fiscally progressive Senator Bernie Sanders to run as its presidential nominee, however many Democrat-voters want him? I mean, other than the DNC being afraid of crossing the corporate lobbyists, especially those hired to represent the healthcare industry’s unlimited-profit interests, who make some of the largest donations to the party election coffers.

(Every county in West Virginia voted for Sanders in the 2016 primaries, yet the DNC declared them as wins for Hillary Clinton. The voters there wanted Sanders, but the DNC overruled them. That's not democratic; that’s complacency and arrogance. And the 'Democratic' party needs to change that, otherwise such great election defeats can/will reoccur.)

... As for their election loss, the DNC (via candidate Kamala) did rely too much on her promises to ‘protect democracy’ and constitutionally enshrine abortion rights nationwide motivating enough voters to her side. This, while there’s a very large and likely still growing electorate who, due to their formidable unaffordability difficulties, don’t have the luxury to make democracy and/or abortion their primary vote-determining concern(s). That many people are financially struggling that much. And, of course, the bad optics and damage resulting from the Biden/Harris administration's essentially-open-borders migration policy only exacerbated political matters.

Quite frankly, one could get the impression that the Democrats and Kamala, etcetera, felt entitled to win; thus, their immense election-loss shock.

Therefore, unless such unaffordability significantly improves, it may no longer be sufficient for a campaigning candidate to focus on non-fiscal social issues, which, besides abortion, mostly consist of race, sexuality and gender. ... Then again, according to ‘Calamity’ Jane Bodine in the film ‘Our Brand Is Crisis’: “If voting changed anything [in favor of the weak/poor/disenfranchised] they’d have made it illegal.”

Though sympathetic, I used to look down on those who had ‘allowed’ themselves to become heavily addicted. Yet I myself have suffered enough unrelenting PTSD symptoms to have known, enjoyed and appreciated the great release upon consuming alcohol and/or THC.

Typically societally overlooked is that intense addiction usually doesn’t originate from a bout of boredom, where a person consumed recreationally but became heavily hooked on a self-medicating substance that eventually destroyed their life and even those of loved-ones.

More accurately: the greater the drug-induced euphoria or escape one attains from its use, the more one wants to repeat the experience; and the more intolerable one finds their sober reality, the more pleasurable that escape will likely be perceived. In other words: the greater one’s mental pain or trauma while sober, the greater the need for escape from reality, thus the more addictive the euphoric escape-form will likely be.

Especially when the substance abuse is due to past formidable mental trauma, the lasting solitarily-suffered turmoil can readily make each day an ordeal unless the mind is medicated.

Meantime, neglecting and therefor failing people struggling with debilitating addiction should not be an acceptable or preferable political, economic or religious/morality option. But the more callous politics and politicians that are typically involved with lacking addiction funding/services tend to reflect conservative electorate and representatives’ opposition, however irrational, against making proper treatment available to low- and no-income addicts.

Meanwhile, western pharmaceutical corporations had intentionally pushed their own very addictive and profitable opiate resulting in immense suffering and overdose death numbers yet got off relatively lightly and only through civil litigation.

While John the Baptist believed in him as the one true savior, Jesus’ nature and teachings nevertheless left John troubled by his apparently contradictory version of the Hebraic violent-conqueror messiah, with which John had been raised.

Most perplexing may have been the Biblical Jesus’ revolutionary teaching of non-violently offering the other cheek as the proper response to being physically assaulted by one’s enemy.

Jesus also most profoundly washed his disciples’ feet, the act clearly revealing that he took corporeal form to serve, which of course included saving. As such a hopeful example of the humility of the divine, Jesus joined humankind in our miseries, joys and everything in between.

In large part, Jesus was viciously killed because he did not in the least behave in accordance to corrupted human conduct and expectation — and in particular because he was nowhere near to being the vengeful, wrathful and even bloodthirsty God.

Followers of Islam and Judaism generally believe that Jesus did exist but was not a divine being [albeit Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet]. After all, how could any divine being place himself/itself down to the level of humans — and even lower, by some other standards? How could any divine entity not be a physical conqueror — far less allow himself to be publicly stripped naked, severely beaten and murdered in such a belittling manner?

Yet, for many Christians this makes Jesus even greater, not less.

Institutional Christianity seems to insist upon creating their creator’s nature in their own fallible and often angry, vengeful image; for example, proclaiming at publicized protests that ‘God hates’ such-and-such group of people.

One can imagine that many followers of institutional Christianity — those ‘Christians’ most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth — likely find inconvenient, if not plainly annoying, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the New Testament’s Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s Creator.

Often being the most vocal, they make very bad examples of Christ’s fundamental message, especially to the young and impressionable.

What's bitterly ironic is that some of the best humanitarians I’ve met or heard about were/are atheists or agnostics who’d make better examples of many, if not most, of Christ’s teachings than too many institutional 'Christians' (i.e. those apparently most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth).

Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout believers/preachers of fundamental Biblical theology.

It seems the superfluous-wealth desires of the few, and especially the one, increasingly outweigh the life-necessity needs of the many. And our corporate news-media deems that reality ‘unfit to print’.

Perhaps the unlimited-profit objective/nature is somehow irresistible. It brings to mind the allegorical fox stung by the instinct-abiding scorpion while ferrying it across the river, leaving both to drown.

Corporate CEOs will shrug their shoulders and defensively say their job is to protect shareholders’ bottom-line interests. The shareholders, meanwhile, shrug their shoulders while defensively stating that they just collect the dividends and that the CEOs are the ones to make the moral and/or ethical decisions.

The more that corporations make, all the more they want — nay, need — to make next quarterly. It's never enough. Maximizing profits at the expense of those with so much less, or nothing, will likely always be a significant part of the nature of the big business beast.

Still, there must be a point at which that inhumane corporate practice can/will end up hurting big business’s own monetary interests. One can imagine that many living and healthy consumers are needed.

Palestinian supporters and human rights activists around the world are quite understandably frustrated and even angry about so many nations’ political inertia and apparent apathy towards the Palestinian non-combatants’ worst nightmare.

However, I find that much of the mainstream news-media I consume daily, even the otherwise progressive outlets, are largely replacing daily Gazan deaths and suffering with relatively trivial domestic news, especially as leading stories. Sadly, that's what most of those news outlets’ subscribers or regular patrons likely want [not that it necessarily morally justifies it].

Without doubt, growing Western indifference towards the mass starvation and slaughter of helpless Palestinian civilians will only further inflame long-held Middle Eastern anger towards us. Some countries’ actual provision, mostly by the U.S., of highly effective weapons used in Israel’s onslaught will likely turn that anger into lasting hatred that's always seeking eye-for-an-eye redress.

Meanwhile, with each news report of the daily Palestinian death toll from unrelenting Israeli bombardment, I feel a slightly greater desensitization and resignation. I’ve noticed this disturbing effect with basically all major protracted conflicts internationally, including present Ukraine, ever since I began regularly consuming news products in 1988. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this nor that it’s willfully callous.

It has long seemed to me as a news consumer that the value of a life abroad is typically perceived according to the abundance of protracted conditions under which it suffers, especially during wartime, and that this effect can be exacerbated when there's also racial contrast. Therefore, when that life is lost, even violently, it typically receives lesser coverage.

And then there are the ugly external politics of polarization, perhaps in part for its own sake. Within social media the polarized views are especially amplified, including, if not especially, those of non-Jews and non-Palestinians.

While the conflict can and does arouse a spectator sport effect or mentality, many contemptible news trolls residing outside the region actively decide which ‘side’ they like more or hate less thus ‘support’ via politicized commentary posts. I anticipate many actually keep track of the bloody match by checking the day’s-end death-toll score, however heavily lopsided those numbers are.

I have long been, and still am, publicly critical [mostly via published letters to editors] of what I see as clear maltreatment of the general Palestinian people by the state of Israel [i.e. its government and security/defense agencies] and, with few exceptions, Western mainstream news-media’s seemingly intentional tokenistic (non)coverage of it.

By doing so, that media, whether they realize it or not, have done a disservice to its own reputation and the Israeli/Jewish people themselves [the road to hell, after all, is also paved with good intentions]. Not as widely criticized thus publicized as the violence are the considerable fossil fuel reserves beneath long-held Palestinian land that are a plausible motivator for war.

Perhaps mostly because I have no Jewish heritage thus experience, I still never expected the level of anti-Semitic attacks in the West since the initial Hamas attack against Israelis. For one thing, the Jewish people in Israel and especially around the world must not be collectively vilified, let alone physically attacked, for the acts of Israel’s government and military, however one feels about the latter’s brutality in Gaza.

It’s blatantly wrong for them to be mistreated, if not terrorized, as though they were responsible for what is happening there. And it should be needless to say that diaspora Palestinians and Western Muslims similarly must not be collectively blamed and attacked for the acts of Hamas violence in Israel or Islamic extremist attacks outside the Middle East.

There seems to have been much latent animosity towards Jewish people in general, perhaps in part based on erroneous and disproven stereotypes thus completely unmerited. Also, incredible insensitivity was publicly shown towards Jews freshly mourning the 10/7 victims, especially when considering that young Israelis and Jews elsewhere may not be accustomed to such relatively large-scale carnage (at least not as much as is seen in other parts of the Middle East) in post-9/11 times.

But also concerning about all of the highly publicized two-way partisan exchanges of fury is: what will young diaspora Jewish and Palestinian children think and feel if/when they hear such misdirected vile hatred towards their fundamental identity? Scary is the real possibility that such public outpour of blind hatred may lead some young children to feel very misplaced shame in their heritage.

Understanding the science behind every child’s healthy/functional development can at least enable a prospective parent to make an educated decision on how they wish to go about rearing any future children.

Also, I wonder whether children’s mind/emotional development may begin as early as gestation. It seems that inside the womb, children are already aware of their mother’s emotions, good and bad.

According to a 2003 online article by Linda Marks [a body-centered psychotherapist]: “When a mother both consciously and subconsciously wanted to be pregnant and welcomed her baby, the child thrived. When the mother either consciously or subconsciously wanted the baby, the child was fine.

When the mother neither consciously nor subconsciously wanted the baby, the child felt the effects of this hostile emotional climate. I remember a story of a woman who not only didn’t want her baby but also resented his intrusive presence in her body.

“When the Italian doctor would use an ultrasound to view the baby as the mother talked about her resentments of him and the pregnancy, the baby would curl up in a tiny ball in a corner of the uterus, trying to make himself very small.

Even in-utero, a baby can feel the power of his/her mother’s heart. When considering having children, making a thoughtful, heartful, integrated decision is important for the overall wellbeing of a child.”
http://www.healingheartpower.com/power-heart.html

I feel it's not enough to try solving the societal problem of unwanted pregnancies with abortion alone. It is similarly irresponsibly insufficient to just give students the condom-and-banana demonstration along with the address to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic as their sex education.

As liberal democracies, we cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, including those who insist upon procreating regardless of their inability to raise children in a psychologically functional/healthy manner.

Due to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude, however implicit or subconscious, basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my family is immediately alright?’ or ‘What’s in it for me, the taxpayer?’

While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when such progress is so desperately needed — notably, trying to moderate manmade global warming thus extreme weather events.

Although societal awareness of and concern over man-caused global warming is gradually increasing, collective human existence is still basically analogous to a cafeteria lineup consisting of diversely societally represented people, all adamantly arguing over which identifiable person should be at the front and, conversely, at the back of the line.

Many of them further fight over to whom amongst them should go the last piece of quality pie and how much they should have to pay for it — all the while the interstellar spaceship on which they’re all permanently confined, owned and operated by (besides the wealthiest passengers) the fossil fuel industry, is on fire and toxifying at locations not normally investigated.

And if the universal availability of green-energy alternatives will come at the profit-margin expense of traditional 'energy' production companies, one can expect formidable obstacles, including the political and regulatory sort. If it conflicts with big-profit interests, even very progressive motions are greatly resisted, often enough successfully.

As a species, we can be so heavily preoccupied with our own individual little worlds, however overwhelming to us, that we will miss the biggest of crucial pictures. And it seems this distinct form of societal penny-wisdom but pound-foolishness is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay.

The world is on fire, literally and figuratively. Collectively, we humans are hopelessly prone to the politics of scale and differences, both real and perceived, especially those involving color, nationality, race and religion.

It's plausible that if the world’s population was somehow reduced to just a few city blocks of seemingly similar residents, there’d eventually be some form of notable inter-neighborhood hostilities.
Still, from within ourselves we, as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalized human/societal nature thus behavior.

Still, from within ourselves we, as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalized human/societal nature thus behavior. Perhaps relevant to this are the words of sociologist Stanley Milgram [of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy]: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”

In late October, a Globe and Mail columnist wrote how during a recent concert at Vancouver’s Hollywood Theatre,“a band member said something about a free Palestine. This, according to attendee Hanah Van Borek, led to a few shouts from the audience: ‘Fuck the Jews!’

“It was clearly audible in her area of the crowd, a person who was with her confirms, but nobody around them shut this down. There were some cheers of support, though. ‘My whole body went into shock,’ says Ms. Van Borek, who is Jewish.

“Ms. Van Borek left the venue and explained why to security staff. She says a worker encouraged her to go back inside and reassured her she was safe. ‘Nobody will be able to tell that you’re Jewish,’ he said, according to Ms. Van Borek. (Oy.)

She did return to the show, but Ms. Van Borek was — and is — rattled. She supports the band’s right to make political statements. It was the shouts from this group — and the silence around them — that were alarming.”

For many years I’ve been and likely will continue to be a critic of the maltreatment of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel [i.e. its government and security/defense agencies] and, with few exceptions, Western mainstream news-media’s seemingly intentional tokenistic (non)coverage of it. By doing so, that media, whether they realize it or not, have done a disservice to its own reputation and the Israeli/Jewish people themselves. The road to hell, after all, is also paved with good intentions.

Having said that, I still never expected the level of anti-Semitic attacks in the West, notably in Canada and the U.S., since the Oct.7 Hamas assault against Israel. For one thing, the Jewish people in Israel and especially around the world must not be collectively blamed for the acts of Israel’s government and military, however one feels about the latter’s brutality in present Gaza. It’s blatantly immoral for them to be mistreated, if not terrorized, as though they were responsible for what is happening there.

[Needless to say, diaspora Palestinians and Western Muslims similarly must not be collectively blamed and attacked for the acts of Hamas violence in Israel or Islamic extremist attacks outside the Middle East.]

There seems to have been much latent animosity towards Jewish people in general, perhaps in part based on erroneous and disproven stereotype thus completely unmerited. Also, incredible insensitivity was publicly shown towards Jews freshly mourning the 10/7 victims, especially considering that young Israelis and Jews elsewhere may not be accustomed to such relatively large-scale carnage (at least not as much as is seen in other parts of the Middle East) in post-9/11 times.

Having the top-mentioned (in The Globe and Mail) ugly and scary occurrence playout in my mind’s eye and ear left me disgusted. Also scary is the real possibility that this public outpour of blind hatred may lead some young children to feel very misplaced shame in their heritage.

Meantime, there also were/are the ugly external politics. Particularly with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, one can observe widespread ideological/political partisanship via news and commentary. Within social media the polarized views are especially amplified, including those of non-Jews and non-Palestinians.

While the conflict can and does arouse a spectator sport effect or mentality, many contemptible news trolls residing outside the region actively decide which ‘side’ they hate less thus ‘support’ via politicized commentary posts. I anticipate many actually keep track of the bloody match by checking the day’s-end death-toll score.

American, Canadian [and perhaps British] governance, unlike China's, is heavily steered and therefore disadvantaged by corporate interests, sometimes through economic intimidation (and I'm not just talking about huge party donations come election time).

It’s as though the elected heads are meant to represent huge money interests over those of the working citizenry and poor. Accordingly, major political decisions will normally foremost reflect what is in the influential corporations’ best interests.

For example, if China gets offended, it can threaten to disallow/discontinue access by the offending Western nation's privately-owned big businesses to China’s huge consumer base, the world's singularly largest. Predictably, the big businesses' corporate lobbyists will unleash their fullest manipulation efforts on their home-nation's government to capitulate to Beijing's demands. And China's control over its own industry/business sector thus market may even give it an additional edge over Western free-market nations.

Anyone who doubts the potent persuasion of huge business interests here need to consider how high-level elected officials can become crippled by implicit/explicit threats to transfer or eliminate jobs and capital investment, thus economic stability, if corporate ‘requests’ aren’t met.

It’s a crippling that’s made even worse by a blaring news-media that’s permitted to be naturally critical of incumbent governments, especially in regards to job and capital transfers and economic weakening.
Seriously, why wouldn't China take advantage of this Western-way weakness?

Maybe some securely allied nations, including the U.S. and Canada (and Taiwan, of course, if that's even possible), combining their resources could go without the usual Beijing-bully trade/investment tether they'd prefer to sever, instead trading necessary goods and services between themselves and other interested non-allied, non-China-bound nation economies.

Then, again, maybe such an alliance has already been covertly discussed but rejected due to Chinese government strategists knowing how to ‘divide and conquer’ potential alliance nations by using door-wedge economic/political leverage custom-made for each nation.

Indeed, perhaps every country typically placing its own economic and big business bottom-line interests foremost may always be its, and therefore collectively our, Achilles' Heel to be exploited by huge-market nations like China.

Meantime, our Western big businesses would still very much desire access to China's nearly 1.5 billion consumers. We’ve seen how the big-business representatives snivel whenever China gets agitated by thus implies potential banishment of any of them who dares refer to Hong Kong or Taiwan as anything other than belonging 100% to the Chinese motherland and Beijing’s whim.

Even then, China's restrictive control over its own business sector thus market may give it an edge over Western free-market nations.

Maybe animal-eating is as bad for one's spirit as it seemingly is for one's body.

Much, if not most, of the plentiful violence committed by humankind is against God’s animals, their blood literally shed and bodies eaten in mind-boggling quantities by people. That fact even leaves me wondering whether the metaphorical forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.

I can see that really angering the Almighty — a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. I’ve yet to hear a monotheist speak out against what has collectively been done to animals for so long.

(Just to be clear, I’m not vegetarian. Though I seldom eat mammal meat, I do enjoy eating prawns or shrimp pretty much on a weekly basis.)

Scripture was written by human beings who unwittingly created God’s nature in their own fallible, typically angry and vengeful image – especially the part insisting, via publicized protest pickets, that God hates or condemns this or that group of people. Too many of today’s monotheists believe and/or vocally behave likewise.

Maybe the general need for vengeance-is-mine retributive justice is intrinsically linked to the same terribly flawed aspect of humankind that enables the most horrible acts of violent cruelty to readily occur on this planet, perhaps not all of which we learn about.

Much, if not most, of the plentiful violence committed by humankind is against God’s animals, their blood literally shed and bodies eaten in mind-boggling quantities by people. [It leaves me wondering whether the metaphorical forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.]
I can see that really angering the Almighty – a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. I’ve yet to hear a monotheist speak out against what has collectively been done to animals for so long.

Albeit, there may be many monotheists who cannot help but feel hopelessness in a fire-and-brimstone angry-God-condemnation creator that requires literal pain-filled penance/payment for Man’s sinful thus corrupted behavior. (It’s somewhat like an angry father spanking his child, really).

It wasn't until Russian men began being drafted to fight an apparently losing violent invasion that these major protests fired up. Very few Russians, likely humane progressives, protested when it was just Ukrainian lives being threatened or obliterated.

The Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset basically follows: ‘Why should I care about other people’s troubles and turmoil — my family and I are alright.’

While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY mentality can and does debilitate progress, even when it is most needed. And it seems this distinct form of societal penny wisdom but pound foolishness is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay.

Winnipeg-based Canadian Centre for Child Protection recently stated they're concerned that "adolescent boys are being targeted primarily on social media giants Instagram and Snapchat as part of an ongoing sextortion crisis ... The offender will then threaten to report the victim to police, claiming they are in possession of child sexual abuse material." ... But so far I've seen this CCCP media release printed in only one Canadian newspaper.

My understanding is that male victims of sex-related harassment and/or abuse are still more hesitant or unlikely than girl victims to report their offenders. Boys refusing to open up and/or ask for help due to their fear of being perceived by peers, etcetera, as weak or non-masculine.

Also, I've noticed over many years of news-media consumption that, for example, when victims of sexual abuse are girls their gender is readily reported as such; but when they're boys they're usually referred to gender-neutrally as children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male. Additionally, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17-year-old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’.

[Interestingly though not convincingly, one online reader suggested to me that since most sexual offences against boys are committed by men and therefore are homosexual in nature, the mainstream news-media will typically deliberately omit this information out of some misplaced concern for a potential resultant increase in hate-motivated violence against the collective gay community.]

Additionally, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17-year-old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’. Could it be that this is indicative of an already present gender bias held by the general news consumership, since news-media tend to sell us what we want or are willing to consume thus buy?

It's as though boys are somehow perceived as basically being little men, and men of course can take care of themselves.

Meanwhile, a New York Times feature story (“She Was a Big Hit on TikTok. Then a Fan Showed Up With a Gun”, February 19, 2022) written by reporter Elizabeth Williamson, at one point states: “Instagram, owned by Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has … been accused of causing mental and emotional health problems among teenage female users.” A couple paragraphs down, it is also stated that “Teen girls have been repeatedly targeted by child predators.”

The plain fact is, teen boys are also targeted by such predators. Another plain fact is that mental and emotional — along with physical — health problems are being suffered by teenage boys directly due to social media use. Revelatory of the latter is the extensive March 9, 2022, feature story headlined “Bigorexia: Obsession with muscle gain increasing among boys” (which originally appeared in The New York Times).

But a collective mentality may still societally persist, albeit perhaps a subconscious one: Real men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men.

And without doubt, writes the author of The Highly Sensitive Man (2019, Tom Falkenstein, Ch.1), societal ‘real-man’ conformity stubbornly persists.

There are “numerous psychological studies over the last forty years that tell us that, despite huge social change, the stereotypical image of the ‘strong man’ is still firmly with us at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and among all socio-economic backgrounds. In the face of problems, men tend not to seek out emotional or professional help from other people. They use, more often than women, alcohol or drugs to numb unpleasant feelings and, in crises, tend to try to deal with things on their own, instead of searching out closeness or help from others.”

Liberal democracies cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, including those who insist upon procreating regardless of their inability to raise children in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. We can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high-schoolers who plan to remain childless. If nothing else, such curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.

Yet, owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or ‘What is in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support programs for other people’s troubled families?’ While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed.

Maybe the health of all children needs to be of real importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing?

A physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. … Now, if only as much concern was given to the already born and breathing as is given the unborn, some real progress could be made.

During my teens [in the 1980s], I observed how, in general, by ‘swinging first’ a person potentially places himself (or herself) in an unanticipated psychological disadvantage — one favoring the combatant who chooses to patiently wait for his opponent to take the first swing, perhaps even without the fist necessarily connecting.

Just having the combatant swing at him before he’d even given his challenger a physical justification for doing so seemed to instantly create a combined psychological and physical imperative within to react to that swung fist with justified anger. In fact, such testosterone-prone behavior may be reflected in the typically male (perhaps unconsciously strategic) invitation for one’s foe to ‘go ahead and lay one on me,’ while tapping one’s own chin with his forefinger.

Yet, from my experience, it’s a theoretical advantage not widely recognized by both the regular scrapper mindset nor general society. Instead of the commonly expected advantage of an opponent-stunning first blow, the hit only triggers an infuriated response earning the instigator two-or-more-fold returned-payment hard hits. It brings to mind an analogous scenario in which a chess player recklessly plays white by rashly forcefully moving his pawn first in foolish anticipation that doing so will indeed stupefy his adversary.

I’ve theorized that it may be an evolutionary instinct ingrained upon the human male psyche — one preventing us from inadvertently killing off our own species by way of an essentially gratuitous instigation of deadly violence in bulk, which also results in a lack of semen providers to maintain our race. Therefore, in this sense, we can survive: If only a first strike typically results in physical violence, avoiding that first strike altogether significantly reduces the risk of this form of wanton self-annihilation.
In short, matters should remain peacefully peachy, or at least non-violent, when every party shows the others their proper, due respect. It’s like a proactively perfect solution.

It should also be noted, however, that on rare occasion (at least from my many years of observation) an anomalous initiator/aggressor will be sufficiently confident, daring and violently motivated, perhaps through internal and/or external anger, to outright breach the abovementioned convention by brazenly throwing the first punch(es).

Perhaps with the logical anticipation, or hope even, that his conventional foe will physically respond in kind by swinging at or hitting him, the unprovoked initiator/aggressor will feel confident and angered enough to willfully physically continue, finishing what he had essentially inexcusably started. It was as though he had anticipated that through both his boldness in daring to throw the first punch and then furthermore finish the physical job he himself had the gall to unjustifiably start in the first place, he will resultantly intimidate his (though now perhaps already quite intimidated) non-initiator/non-aggressor foe into a crippling inferior sense of physical-defense debilitation, itself capable of resulting in a more serious beating received by that diminished non-initiator/non-aggressor party.

Or, another possibility remains that the initiator/aggressor will be completely confident that when/if he strikes first and the non-initiator/non-aggressor responds with reactor’s fury, he, the initiator/aggressor will himself respond to that response with even greater fury thus physically/psychologically overwhelm the non-initiator/non-aggressor with a very unfortunate outcome for the latter party.

P.S. It has always both bewildered and sickened me how a person can throw a serious punch without any physical provocation; and equally disturbing were the girls clamoring for front-row viewing of the almost-always-male after-school scraps.

Although some identifiable groups have been brutally victimized throughout history a disproportionately large number of times, the victims of one place and time can and sometimes do become the victimizers of another place and time.

People should avoid believing, let alone claiming, that they are not capable of committing an atrocity, even if relentlessly pushed. Contrary to what is claimed or felt by many of us, he said, deep down there’s a tyrant in each of us that, under the just-right circumstances, can be unleashed; and maybe even more so when convinced that, God's on my/our side.

While I don't hold much faith in scriptural teachings, I do give credence to the Biblical claim (Jeremiah 17:9) that base corporeal human nature is “desperately wicked”. ... Meanwhile, many contemptible social-media news trolls internationally decide which 'side' they hate less thus 'support' via politicized commentary post.

There are people who fear a fiery 'eternal life' in that other place, unaware that the burning may not be literal. ...

A few decades ago I learned from two Latter Day Saints missionaries that their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the truly wicked actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. I concluded, accordingly, that upon an atrocity-committing monster’s physical death, not only would he (or she) be 100 percent liberated from the anger and hate that blighted his physical life; also, his spirit or consciousness would be forced to exist with the presumably unwanted awareness of the mindbogglingly immense amount of needless suffering he personally had caused.

The human soul may be inherently good, on its own; however, trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through. While the heart may be what keeps the soul grounded in this physical world, I believe that it is the brain and any structural or chemical-imbalance flaws within that, unfortunately, essentially defines one’s character/behavior while the soul is confined within the bodily form.

It may be the case that the worst mass-atrocity-committing people throughout history had been thoroughly corrupted by a seriously flawed cerebral structure thus mind (or state of mind). Though, admittedly, that would likely be, even if true, no consolation to their countless brutalized victims.

How about a corp-ocracy? ... I've long viewed such figureheads as U.S. presidents and Canadian prime ministers as being mostly symbolically ‘in charge’, beneath the most power-entrenched and saturated national/corporate interests and institutions. The elected heads ‘lead’ a virtual corpocracy, i.e. “a society dominated by politically and economically large corporations”.

Powerful business interests can debilitate high-level elected officials through implicit or explicit threats to transfer or eliminate jobs and capital investment, thus economic stability, if corporate ‘requests’ aren’t accommodated. [Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s SNC-Lavalin affair/corruption scandal is a prime example of this.] It’s a political crippling that’s worsened by a blaring mainstream news-media that are permitted to be naturally critical of incumbent governments, especially in regards to job and capital transfers and economic weakening.

Also, every nation and culture has its own propaganda and core beliefs, true and false; though some culture/nations — usually the biggest, most powerful — are much more corrupt and brutal than the smaller, weaker ones. And western mainstream news-media are a significant part of this moral problem. Yet, the editors/journalists likely sleep well at night, nonetheless. One can still hear or read praise, or conservatives' scorn, heaped upon The New York Times for their supposed uncompromised integrity when it comes to humanitarianism and ethical journalism.

Yet, did they not help create the Iraq War, through then-U.S.-VP Dick Cheney’s self-citing via The Times' website? That would be the same Cheney who monetarily benefitted from the war via Iraqi oil fields — a war I consider to have been much more like a turkey shoot, considering the massive military might attacking the relatively weak country.

I recall reading that The Times had essentially claimed honest-ignorance innocence on the grounds that it was its blogger’s overzealousness that was/is at fault. But is it really plausible that The Times did/does not insist upon securing the non-publishable yet accurate identity of its writers' anonymous information sources — in this case, a devious Cheney — especially considering that Cheney himself would then use that anonymous source’s (i.e. his own) total BS about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify a declaration of war that inevitably resulted in genuine gratuitous mass suffering and slaughter, both abroad and domestically?

I believe that The Times jumped on this atrocity-prone Iraq-invasion bandwagon also because of their close proximity to the massive 9/11 blow the city took only a few years prior. There was plenty of that particularly bitter bandwagon going around in Western circles back then. Quite memorable was Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman’s appearance on Charlie Rose’s show (May 29, 2003), where he ranted about the war’s justification and supposed success: “… We needed to go to that part of the world; and what they needed to see [was that] American boys and girls going house to house, from Basrah to Baghdad, [and] simply saying, ‘suck on this’.”

It's as though they all decided: ‘Just to be on the safe side, let's error in favor of militarily assaulting, invading and devastating Iraq’.

[As an aside: I'd have much greater respect for Liz Cheney regarding the brutal January 6 political aftermath she's suffered (though I've read that her Congressional-riding electorate have mostly remained behind her and therefore her seat essentially secure) — if only she’d come out and denounce her then-VP father's part in fraudulently manufacturing American consent for the 2003-11 attack on Iraq. Not surprisingly, many people (including me) would place Dick ahead of D. Trump on the Mr. Evil scale. ... And that's without getting into 9/11 itself.]

I don't know about animals, but higher human intelligence seems to be accompanied by a proportionate potential for evil, or malice for malice’s sake.

And there's a subconscious yet tragic human-nature propensity to perceive the value of animal life (sometimes even human life in regularly war-torn or overpopulated famine-stricken global regions) in relation to the conditions enjoyed or suffered by that life. With the mindset of unwanted-cats disposability, it might be: ‘Oh, there’s a lot more whence they came’.

Yet these mammals’ qualities, especially their non-humanly innocence, make losing them such a great heart break for their owners.

Putin-Russia’s apparent fear of NATO expansion, though especially the deployment of additional U.S. anti-nuclear-missile defense-system batteries, further into eastern Europe is typically perceived by the West as unmerited paranoia. Surely he must realise that the West, including NATO, would never initiate a nuclear-weapons exchange.

But how can he — or we, for that matter — know for sure, particularly with the U.S.?

For example, while Ronald Reagan postulated that “Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong,” who can know what may have historically come to fruition had the U.S. remained the sole possessor of atomic weaponry. There’s a presumptive, and perhaps even arrogant, concept of American governance as somehow, unless physically provoked, being morally/ethically above using nuclear weapons internationally. After all, absolute power can corrupt absolutely.

After President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur as commander of the forces warring with North Korea — for the latter’s remarks about using many atomic bombs to promptly end the war — Americans’ approval-rating of the president dropped to 23 percent. It was still a record-breaking low, even lower than the worst approval-rating points of the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.

Had it not been for the formidable international pressure on Truman (and perhaps his personal morality) to relieve MacArthur as commander, could/would Truman eventually have succumbed to domestic political pressure to allow MacArthur’s command to continue?

When a federal government promises Canadians universal generic-brand medication coverage (and such promises are extremely rare here), the pharmaceutical industry reacts with threats of abandoning their Canada-based R&D (etcetera) if the government goes ahead with its ‘pharmacare’ plan. Why? Because such universal medication coverage, generic brand or not, would negatively affect the industry’s plentiful profits. The profits would still be great, just not as great. Meanwhile, we continue to be the world’s sole nation that has universal healthcare but no similar coverage of prescribed medication, however necessary.

Recouping research and development (R&D) costs is typically cited by the powerful industry to justify its exorbitant prices and stiff resistance to proposed universal medication coverage public plans, the latter which it's doing in Canada. However, according to a Huffington Post story, a study conducted by the British Medical Journal found that for every $19 dollars the pharmaceutical industry spent on promoting and marketing new drugs, it put only $1 into its R&D. (“Pharmaceutical Companies Spent 19 Times More On Self-Promotion Than Basic Research: Report,” updated May 8, 2013)
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/pharmaceutical-companies-marketing_n_1760380

Meanwhile, a late-2019 Angus Reid study found that, over the previous year, due to medication unaffordability, almost a quarter of Canadians decided against filling a prescription or having one renewed. Not only is medication less affordable, but other research has revealed that many low-income outpatients who cannot afford to fill their prescriptions end up back in the hospital system as a result, therefore costing far more for provincial and federal government health ministries than if the medication had been covered.

Ergo, in order for the industry to continue raking in huge profits, Canadians and their health, as both individual consumers and a taxpaying collective, must lose out big time. People's health must come second to the pharmaceutical industry further maximizing its already bloated profits. And our elected representatives, be they federal (neo)Liberals or Conservatives, shrug their figurative shoulders in favor of the pharmaceutical industry — time and again. Such facts should frequently be made widely public.

Yet, I've noticed that our elected leaders and mainstream news-media seem to not find such heavy corporate lobbyist manipulation of our governments a societal problem requiring rectification. I fear it has become so systematic thus normalized that those who are aware of it, notably politicians and political writers, don’t bother publicly discussing it.

As one who has taken three COVID-vaccine injections, I basically believe the mainstream science behind the vaccines’ safety and reliability. Still, I'm cautious of blindly buying into (what I call) speculative science, in general. Also, I feel the term 'science' gets used a bit too readily/frequently, especially by government.

Due to increasingly common privatized research for corporate profit aims, even ‘scientific fact’ can be for sale. Research results, however flawed, can and are known to be publicly amplified if they favor the corporate product, and accurate research results can be suppressed or ignored if they are unfavorable to business interests, even when involving human health.

Also, Health Canada was established to act in Canadian consumers’ best interests, yet it's susceptible to corporate lobbyist manipulation. For one thing, it allowed novelty-flavored vaping products to be fully marketed — even on corner stores’ candy counters — without conclusive independent scientific proof that the product, as claimed by the tobacco industry, would not seriously harm consumers but rather help nicotine addicts wean themselves off of the more carcinogenic cigarette means of nicotine deliverance.

A few years before that, Health Canada had sat on its own research results that indicated seatbelts would save lives and reduce injury; it wanted even more proof of safety through seatbelts before ordering big bus manufacturers to install them in every bus. To me, those examples smell of science-be-damned lobbyist manipulation — something that should not prevail in a government body established primarily, if not solely, to protect consumers’ safety and health rather than big businesses’ monetary concerns.

Powerful business interests can debilitate our high-level elected officials through implicit or explicit threats to transfer or eliminate jobs and capital investment, thus economic stability, if corporate ‘requests’ aren’t accommodated. It’s a political crippling that’s worsened by a blaring news-media that’s permitted to be naturally critical of incumbent governments, especially in regards to job and capital transfers and economic weakening.

In Canada and the U.S., our First Past The Post electoral system, which I find barely qualifies as democratic rule within the democracy spectrum, seems to well-serve corporate interests over those of the general populace. I believe it's basically why those powerful interests generally resist attempts at changing from FPTP to proportional representation electoral systems of governance, the latter which dilutes lobbyist influence.

From my understanding, when it comes to big-business friendly thus favored electoral systems, low-representation FPTP-elected governments, in which a relatively small portion of the country's populace is actually electorally represented, are the easiest for lobbyists to manipulate or 'buy'. A much more proportionately representative (PR) electoral system should create a greater challenge for the lobbyists. A PR-elected government, which much more proportionately represents the electorate as a whole, should be considerably harder for big business to steer — if at all, in some cases.

Here (Canada), big thus powerful corporations actually write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and have implemented, supposedly to save the elected officials their own time. I believe the practice has become so systematic here that those who are aware of it (that likely includes mainstream news-media political writers) don’t bother publicly discussing it.

I came upon a study that formally discovered what should have been the obvious. The following quoted text was taken from the study’s 13-page report: “The future of any society depends on its ability to foster the health and well-being of the next generation. Stated simply, today’s children will become tomorrow’s citizens, workers, and parents. When we invest wisely in children and families, the next generation will pay that back through a lifetime of productivity and responsible citizenship. When we fail to provide children with what they need to build a strong foundation for healthy and productive lives, we put our future prosperity and security at risk …

All aspects of adult human capital, from work force skills to cooperative and lawful behavior, build on capacities that are developed during childhood, beginning at birth … The basic principles of neuroscience and the process of human skill formation indicate that early intervention for the most vulnerable children will generate the greatest payback.” (The Science of Early Childhood Development, 2007)

In the report’s entirety, the term “investment(s)” was used 22 times, “return” appeared eight times, “cost(s)” five times, “capital” appeared on four occasions, and either “pay”/“payback”/“pay that back” was used five times. While some may justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed; and it seems that distinct form of societal penny wisdom but pound foolishness is a very unfortunate human characteristic that’s likely with us to stay.

Due to the OIIIMOBY mindset, the prevailing collective attitude, however implicit or subconscious, basically follows, “Why should I care—I’m soundly raising my kid?” or “What’s in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support child development education and health programs for the sake of other people’s troubled families and bad parenting?” Meantime, too many people procreate regardless of their (in)capacity to raise children in a psychologically sound manner, according to child-development science; and consequential dysfunctional parenting occurs considerably more often than what is officially known thus acknowledged.

If society is to avoid the most dreaded, invasive and reactive means of intervention — that of governmental forced removal of children from dysfunctional/abusive home environments — maybe we then should be willing to try an unconventional proactive means of preventing some future dysfunctional/abusive family situations.

Being free nations, society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children; society can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high-schoolers who plan to always remain childless. One can imagine that greater factual knowledge of what exactly entails raising and nurturing a fully sentient child/consciousness in this messed-up world — therefore the immense importance and often overwhelming responsibility of proper rearing — would probably make a student less likely to willfully procreate as adults.

Also, I've heard criticism that such curriculum would bore thus repel students from attending the classes to their passable-grade completion; however, could not the same reservation have been put forth in regards to other currently well-established and valued course subjects, both mandatory and elective, at the time they were originally proposed? (Also, currently well-established and valued course subjects, such as algebra and chemistry, likely won’t be of future use to students.)

Additionally, such curriculum — which could be wholly or in part based upon the four parenting styles: Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive and Uninvolved — may actually result in a novel effect on student minds, thereby stimulating interest in what otherwise can be a monotonous daily high-school routine. Some exceptionally receptive students may even be inspired to take up post-secondary studies specializing in child psychological and behavioral disorders.

They may ascertain that a psychologically and emotionally sound (as well as a physically healthy) future should be every child’s foremost right, especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. Mindlessly minding our own business on this matter has proven humanly devastating.

Mass addiction to fossil fuel products by the larger public undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest they feel and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical. Meanwhile, neoliberals and conservatives remain preoccupied with vocally criticizing one another for their relatively trivial politics and diverting attention away from some of the planet's greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused.

Industry and fossil-fuel friendly governments can tell when a very large portion of the populace is too tired and worried about feeding/housing themselves or their family, and the virus-variant devastation still being left in COVID-19’s wake — all while on insufficient income — to criticize them for whatever environmental damage their policies cause/allow, particularly when not immediately observable. (In fact, until a few weeks ago, I had not heard Greta’s name in the mainstream corporate news-media since COVID-19 hit the world.) Needless to say, big polluters most likely will not be made to account for their environmental damage while they're already paying out (kickbacks?) to big politicians' election budgets, etcetera. And who knows what else?

As individual consumers, far too many of us still recklessly behave as though throwing non-biodegradable garbage down a dark chute, or pollutants flushed down toilet/sink drainage pipes or emitted out of elevated exhaust pipes or spewed from sky-high jet engines and very tall smoke stacks — even the largest toxic-contaminant spills in rarely visited wilderness — can somehow be safely absorbed into the air, water, and land (i.e. out of sight, out of mind); like we’re inconsequentially dispensing of that waste into a black-hole singularity, in which it’s compressed into nothing.

Collectively, we need environmentally conscious and active young people, especially those approaching or reaching voting age. In contrast, the dinosaur electorate who have been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades are gradually dying off thus making way for voters who fully support a healthy Earth thus populace.

Since bad news is what sells, what we typically get from the mainstream news-media are unending cases of interracial disharmony. ...

While there’s research indicating that infants demonstrate a preference for caregivers of their own race, any future racial biases and bigotries generally are environmentally acquired. Adult racist sentiments are often cemented by a misguided yet strong sense of entitlement, perhaps also acquired from one’s environment.

One means of proactively preventing this social/societal problem may be by allowing young children to become accustomed to other races in a harmoniously positive manner. The early years are typically the best time to instill and even solidify positive social-interaction life skills/traits, like interracial harmonization, into a very young brain. Human infancy is the prime (if not the only) time to instill and even solidify positive social-interaction characteristics into a very young mind.

Irrational racist sentiment can be handed down generation to generation. If it’s deliberate, it’s something I strongly feel amounts to a form of child abuse: to rear one’s impressionably very young children in an environment of overt bigotry — especially against other races and/or sub-racial groups (i.e. ethnicities). Not only does it fail to prepare children for the practical reality of an increasingly racially/ethnically diverse and populous society and workplace, it also makes it so much less likely those children will be emotionally content or (preferably) harmonious with their multicultural/-racial surroundings.

Children reared into their adolescence and, eventually, young adulthood this way can often be angry yet not fully realize at precisely what. Then they may feel left with little choice but to move to another part of the land, where their race or ethnicity predominates, preferably overwhelmingly so. If not for themselves, parents then should do their young children a big favor and NOT pass down onto their very impressionable offspring racially/ethnically bigoted feelings and perceptions, nor implicit stereotypes and ‘humor’, for that matter. Ironically, such rearing can make life much harder for one’s own children.

I typically receive the annual influenza vaccination every fall, but for the last few years I’ve specifically asked for a placebo

... to which I receive a serious look by the injection administer, who's clearly not amused.

Many migrants from the southern hemisphere are fleeing from climactic-change-related chronic crop failure that is mostly caused by the northern hemisphere’s chronic fossil-fuel burning, which began with the Industrial Revolution. While the U.S.-border Haitian-refugee situation, for example, may not be climate-change related, the border-guard physical confrontations sound/look scary and definitely 'un-Christian'. It's as though they are perceived as being disposable human life, their suffering somehow less-worthy. One can read so many mean-spirited posts about these human beings on numerous mainstream news websites. ...

So many migrants and refugees are rightfully desperate human beings, perhaps enough so to work very hard for basic food and shelter. And they very much want to work. ... Here in southwestern B.C., I've noticed over decades the exceptionally strong work ethic practiced by migrants, especially in the produce harvesting sector. It's typically back-busting work that almost all post-second-generation Westerners won’t tolerate for ourselves. Such laborers work very hard and should be treated humanely, including timely access to Covid-19 vaccination and proper work-related protections, but often enough are not. …

While I don’t support U.S./Canada-based businesses exporting labor abroad at very low wages if there are unemployed Americans/Canadians who want that work, I can imagine such laborers being much more productive than their born-and-reared-here counterparts. I’m not saying that a strong work ethic is a trait racially/genetically inherited by one generation from a preceding generation. Rather, I believe, it is an admirable culturally determined factor, though also in large part motivated by the said culture’s internal and surrounding economic and political conditions.

I anticipate that if they (as citizens) resided here for a number of decades, their strong work ethics and higher-than-average productivity, unfortunately, likely would gradually diminish as these motivated laborers’ descendant generations’ young people become accustomed to the relatively easier Western way of work. One can already witness this effect in many of them getting caught up in much of our overall liberal culture — attire, lingo, nightlife, as well as work. I’ve also found that ‘Canadian values’ assimilation often means the unfortunate acquisition of a distasteful yet strong sense of entitlement.

I sometimes wonder whether general male violence, philandering, sexism and controlling behavior toward girls/women is related to the same constraining societal idealization of the ‘real man’ (albeit perhaps more subtly than in the past)?: He is stiff-upper-lip physically and emotionally strong, financially successful, confidently fights and wins, assertively solves problems, and exemplifies sexual prowess. Perhaps we need to be careful what we wish for. After all, I recall that, shortly after Donald Trump was sworn-in as president, a 2016 survey of American women — conducted not long after his abundant misogyny was exposed to the world — revealed that a majority of the respondents nonetheless found attractive his alpha-male great financial success and confidence. ...

As a teen, I knew two of the toughest, testosterone-laden and, like myself, straight guys around (whom I always tried to emulate), who also cherished their pet cats, though privately. Given the tough-guy environment of that place and time, however, no male would have dared openly express his cat enthusiasm to his large peer group, lest he seriously risk having his reputation permanently besmirched as ‘a wuss’. Even today, three and a half decades later, that ‘real man’ masculinity mentality may not have diminished much. Perhaps revelatory is the June 24, 2020, Toronto Now article headlined “Keep Cats Out of Your Dating Profile, Ridiculous Study Suggests” and sub-headlined “Men were deemed less masculine and less attractive when they held up cats in their dating pics, according to researchers”. A bit too sensitive for the ladies?

The author of The Highly Sensitive Man writes in Chapter 1 [2019, Tom Falkenstein, pgs.11-13]: “You only have to open a magazine or newspaper, turn on your TV, or open your browser to discover an ever-growing interest in stories about being a father, being a man, or how to balance a career with a family. Many of these articles have started talking about an apparent ‘crisis of masculinity.’

The headlines for these articles attempt to address male identity, but often fall into the trap of sounding ironic and sometimes even sarcastic and critical: ‘Men in Crisis: Time to Pull Yourselves Together,’ ‘The Weaker Sex,’ ‘Crisis in Masculinity: Who is the Stronger Sex?’ and ‘Search for Identity: Super-Dads or Vain Peacocks’ are just a few examples. They all seem to agree to some extent that there is a crisis. But reading these articles one gets the impression that no one really knows how to even start dealing with the problem, let alone what a solution to it might look like. One also gets the impression from these articles that we need to keep any genuine sympathy for these ‘poor men’ in check: the patriarchy is still just too dominant to allow ourselves that luxury …

At the same time, academics are telling us that ‘we know far less about the psychological and physical health of men than of women.’ Why is this? Michael Addis, a professor of psychology and a leading researcher into male identity and psychological health, has highlighted a deficit in our knowledge about men suffering from depression and argues that this has cultural, social, and historical roots. If we look at whether gender affects how people experience depression, how they express it, and how it's treated, it quickly becomes clear that gender has for a long time referred to women and not to men. According to Addis, this is because, socially and historically, men have been seen as the dominant group and thus representative of normal psychological health. Women have thus been understood as the nondominant group, which deviated from the norm, and they have been examined and understood from this perspective. One of the countless problems of this approach is that the experiences and specific challenges of the ‘dominant group,’ in this case men, have remained hidden.”

Although there’s research indicating that infants demonstrate a preference for caregivers of their own race, any future racial biases and bigotries generally are environmentally acquired. Adult racist sentiments are often cemented by a misguided yet strong sense of entitlement, perhaps also acquired from one’s environment.

One means of proactively preventing this social/societal problem may be by allowing young children to become accustomed to other races in a harmoniously positive manner. The early years are typically the best time to instill and even solidify positive social-interaction life skills/traits, like interracial harmonization, into a very young brain. Human infancy is the prime (if not the only) time to instill and even solidify positive social-interaction characteristics into a very young mind.

Irrational racist sentiment can be handed down generation to generation. If it’s deliberate, it’s something I strongly feel amounts to a form of child abuse: to rear one’s impressionably very young children in an environment of overt bigotry — especially against other races and/or sub-racial groups (i.e. ethnicities). Not only does it fail to prepare children for the practical reality of an increasingly racially/ethnically diverse and populous society and workplace, it also makes it so much less likely those children will be emotionally content or (preferably) harmonious with their multicultural/-racial surroundings.

Children reared into their adolescence and, eventually, young adulthood this way can often be angry yet not fully realize at precisely what. Then they may feel left with little choice but to move to another part of the land, where their race or ethnicity predominates, preferably overwhelmingly so. If not for themselves, parents then should do their young children a big favor and NOT pass down onto their very impressionable offspring racially/ethnically bigoted feelings and perceptions, nor implicit stereotypes and ‘humor’, for that matter. Ironically, such rearing can make life much harder for one’s own children.

Too many people will always find an excuse to despise and abuse those who are superficially different, including religious wear. That was evident recently when a non-white man wearing a red “Keep America Great” cap (with “45” on the side) called a nine-year-old girl wearing a hijab a “f-----g Muslim terrorist” at a (Surrey, B.C., Canada) grocery store a few months ago. The girl’s father rightly confronted the man and repeatedly called him a racist. (One can imagine the shameful pleasure felt — and rampant media posts left — by white supremacists upon learning the accused racist is not Caucasian!) As far as terrorism goes, the girl's family is far more likely to be fleeing extremist violence abroad than planning to perpetrate it elsewhere. But that fact may not matter, anyway; ‘their kind’ still not welcome.

Although some identifiable groups have been brutally victimized throughout history a disproportionately large number of times, the victims of one place and time can and sometimes do become the victimizers of another place and time. Meanwhile, during civil unrest/wars and internal persecutions, many contemptible social-media news trolls internationally decide which 'side' they hate less thus 'support' via politicized commentary post. ...

After 34 years of news consumption, I have found that a disturbingly large number of categorized people, however precious their souls, can be considered thus treated as though disposable, even to an otherwise democratic nation. When the young children of those people take notice of this, tragically, they’re vulnerable to begin perceiving themselves as beings without value. When I say this, I primarily have in mind indigenous-nation and Black Canadians/Americans. But, tragically, such horrendous occurrences still happen on Earth, often enough going unrealized to the rest of the world.

Remove race/color and left are less obvious differences over which to clash, such as ethnicity, language, nationality and religion. Therefore, what humankind may need to suffer in order to survive the long term from ourselves is an even greater nemesis (perhaps a multi-tentacled extraterrestrial) than our own politics and perceptions of differences, against which we could all unite, attack and defeat — all during which we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and witness just how humanly similar we are to each other. For however long that purely human allegiance lasts.

The bitter irony is that some of the best humanitarians I’ve met or heard about were/are atheists or agnostics who’d make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings than too many (whom I refer to as) institutional Christians (i.e. those most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, unconditional compassion and non-wealth). Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout practitioners of institutional Christian theology.

As for religion/theism (much of which I also disapprove of), I believe that if it wasn't religion/theism, a different form of fanaticism or extremist belief system would take its problematic place. One might look at Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge concept of the righteous society as a scary example of this.

Having said that, however, I can see how there could be no greater perceived justification for or the-end-justifies-the-means motivator of inhumane/immoral behavior than ‘the Almighty has willed it!’

Big Pharma has become morally and ethically corrupt. (Yes, morally; for one thing, the corporate decision-makers would hardly deliberately push their very addictive opioids onto their own children and grandchildren.)

Whenever a Canadian federal government promises universal medication coverage (the last such promise was made following the last election, October 2019) the pharmaceutical industry reacts with threats of abandoning their Canada-based research and development (R&D), etcetera, if the government goes ahead with its ‘pharmacare’ plan. Why? Because the universal medication coverage would negatively affect the industry’s plentiful profits. Of course profits would still be great, just not as great, which apparently bothers the industry greatly.

Once again promised universal medication coverage was conspicuously yet quietly missing from the federal budget, released a couple weeks ago. We continue being the world’s sole nation that has universal healthcare but no similar coverage of prescribed medication, however necessary. Recouping R&D costs is typically cited by the powerful industry to justify its exorbitant prices and stiff resistance to universal medication coverage public plans, the latter which it's doing in Canada. However, according to a Huffington Post story (“Pharmaceutical Companies Spent 19 Times More On Self-Promotion Than Basic Research: Report,” updated May 8, 2013), a study conducted by the British Medical Journal found that for every $19 dollars the pharmaceutical industry spent on promoting and marketing new drugs, it put only $1 into its R&D.

A late-2019 Angus Reid study found that about 90 percent of Canadians — including three quarters of Conservative Party supporters specifically — champion universal medication coverage. Another 77 percent believed this should be a high-priority matter for the federal government. The study also found that, over the previous year, due to medication unaffordability, almost a quarter of Canadians decided against filling a prescription or having one renewed. Not only is medication less affordable, but other research has revealed that many low-income outpatients who cannot afford to fill their prescriptions end up back in the hospital system as a result, therefore costing far more for provincial and federal government health ministries than if the medication had been covered.

So, in order for the industry to continue raking in huge profits, Canadians, as both individual consumers and a taxpaying collective, must lose out huge. And our elected representatives, be they federal Liberals or Conservatives, seem to shrug their figurative shoulders in favor of the pharmaceutical industry — time and again. Considering it is such a serious health affair for so many people, impressed upon me is the industry lobbyists’ potent influence on our top-level elected officials — manipulation that our mainstream news-media apparently fail to even try to fully expose, let alone condemn — for the sake of large profit-margin interests.

At a very young and therefore impressionable age, I was emphatically told by my mother (who's of Eastern European heritage) about the exceptionally kind and caring nature of our Black family doctor. She never had anything disdainful to say about people of color; in fact she loves to watch/listen to the Middle Eastern and Indian subcontinental dancers and musicians on the multicultural channels.

I believe this had a notably positive effect upon me.

Had she (for whatever reason) told me the opposite about the doctor, however, I could have aged while blindly linking his color with an unjustly cynical view of him and, eventually, all Black people.

When angry, my (now deceased) father occasionally expressed displeasure with Anglo immigrants, largely due to his own experiences with bigotry as a new Canadian citizen in the 1950s and ’60s.
He, who also emigrated from Eastern Europe, didn’t resent non-white immigrants, for he realized they had things at least as bad. Plus he noticed—as I also now do—in them an admirable absence of a sense of entitlement.

Therefore, essentially by chance, I reached adulthood unstricken by uncontrolled feelings of racial contempt seeking expression.

Not as lucky, some people—who may now be in an armed authority capacity—were raised with a distrust or blind dislike of other racial groups.

Regardless, the first step towards changing our irrationally biased thinking is our awareness of it and its origin.