One Vote for Salad

It speaks for itself, via Maggie's Farm:

My Fundraising Campaign Continues

My annual fundraising campaign continues. 

I have been putting up daily posts on this blog for more than eleven years now. I trust that some people will consider that to be praiseworthy. Obviously, it takes time and work to do the job, and I could not have done it without the financial support of you, the readers.

So, allow me to thank you for your past and future generosity. It is much appreciated.

In principle, this blog attempts to keep you informed of the latest from the psycho world. It has tracked the influence of therapy culture, its effects on individuals and its political and social fallout. We would be wrong to limit the influence of therapy to individual cases. So, I have expanded the coverage to include questions involving political psychology, social psychology, organizational psychology and so on.

Precious few writers are doing this job, but surely it needs to be done. It is important that we recognize the way therapy has come to define our culture, direct our actions and  influence our thoughts.

Anyway, this project does require financial support. You can contribute by clicking on the orange Donate button, on the left side of this page. Then, the folks at Paypal will help you to contribute as much as you would like.

This year, as a special service, you can also fund the blog by doing your Christmas shopping at Amazon. If you enter the Amazon site by clicking the Amazon ad at the left of this page, a percentage of each purchase price will be credited to your humble blogger. In that way, you can support the blog-- at no extra cost.

If you do not wish to use Paypal, I gratefully accept checks or cash sent to my address:

            310 East 46th St. 24H

            New York, NY   10017

If you have a friend or a relative who is a psychoanalyst or who still clings to Freudian theory, you can do him a great favor by sending a copy of my book, The Last Psychoanalyst. 

When I wrote it, I suggested that it shows how a pseudoscience became a pseudo religion. But, I also showed how Freud created something that resembles what we now call a rape culture. The term was not in use five years ago, but if you read the book carefully you will see that I was somewhat prescient. The book is a perfect holiday gift. You can buy a copy by using the link at left.

Since this is a week long fundraising campaign, I will be repeating this post several other times throughout the week. Be prepared.

My thanks to those who have already contributed. For others, thank you in advance.

Hillary in Epsteinland

Tell me you are not surprised. Tell me you are not surprised to discover that Bill Clinton was not the only member of the Clinton family hanging out with notable pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Tell me you are not surprised to discover that Hillary herself, the dowager duchess of Chappaqua, used to travel to Epstein’s New Mexico ranch, to do what…. I will leave it to your imagination.

The story comes to us from the Daily Mail. Most American news outlets, for all their huffing and puffing about pedophilia, will scrupulously cover up the fact that both of the Clintons spent much time hanging out with Epstein. 

If it doesn’t fit the narrative, it must be suppressed.

Here, from The Daily Mail:

Bill and Hillary Clinton stayed at Jeffrey Epstein's notorious 'baby-making ranch' almost every year after they left the White House, according to the disgraced financier's estate manager.

The former president was Epstein's closest 'celebrity mate' and the Clintons, along with daughter Chelsea, visited Zorro Ranch 'a whole bunch of times', a former contractor who ran the IT system at the property told DailyMailTV in an exclusive interview.  

The family visited the 10,000-acre estate in the New Mexico desert often, but never stayed in the main house. 

Instead, the Clinton family bunked down in a special cowboy-themed village created by Epstein, which is a mile south of his own luxury mountaintop villa. They'd use one of the two guest houses, which look like they're straight out of the 19th century.

Seen in exclusive DailyMailTV images, the guest homes are next to other traditional Wild West-style buildings such as an old schoolhouse and saloon bar. An American flag is raised high above the village, which is next door to Epstein's private airstrip, where he arrived on his private planes, including his infamous 'Lolita Express'.

This is all according to security expert Jared Kellogg, who was brought in by long-standing ranch manager Brice Gordon to improve security and set up a camera system at the main house and 'cowboy village'.

As for what else was going on at the Epstein compound, the Daily Mail reminds us:

The ranch is one of several Epstein's homes where underage girls were flown in from all around the world. 

America's Chronic Educational Underachievement

When it comes to education, America is not doing very well. The New York Times reports the results of the latest international test of academic achievement. The results have been disappointing:

The performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000, according to the latest results of a rigorous international exam, despite a decades-long effort to raise standards and help students compete with peers across the globe.

And the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening. Although the top quarter of American students have improved their performance on the exam since 2012, the bottom 10th percentile lost ground, according to an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency.

The disappointing results from the exam, the Program for International Student Assessment, were announced on Tuesday and follow those from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an American test that recently showed that two-thirds of children were not proficient readers.

For all the time and energy placed into educational reform, by federal, state and local governments, something is not working. Even Common Core, whose promoters still believe that it will prove to be a panacea, has not produced the promised results.

Worse yet, 20% of American 15-year-olds are so far behind that they are hopeless. That means, that their future employment prospects barely exist:

About a fifth of American 15-year-olds scored so low on the PISA test that it appeared they had not mastered reading skills expected of a 10-year-old, according to Andreas Schleicher, director of education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the exam.

As for who was leading the pack, strangely, it was China. In what we are told is an authoritarian dictatorship, a communist government with fascist aspirations, children do not merely excel in math, but they are doing very well in reading comprehension.

We note that the test was only given to students in China’s coastal regions. Thus, children from inland China, who would likely have performed less well, were not tested. On the other side, the numbers of children who live in coastal China is very, very large. As it happens, they will most likely form the elites that will lead China toward the future. 

The Times reports the results of the reading comprehension tests:

The top performers in reading were four provinces of China — Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Also outperforming the United States were Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, Estonia, Canada, Finland and Ireland. The United Kingdom, Japan and Australia performed similarly to the United States.

Allies Should Act Like Allies

President Trump is in London for the NATO meetings. Naturally, the press and foreign leaders have happily mocked and derided the American president. As always happens, they delight to the urbane sophistication of European nations that live under the American military umbrella. 

When relationships sour between America and her erstwhile allies the media is quick to blame the American president. It never seems to cross their collective minds that allies should act like allies.

Consider the case of Iran. Currently, thanks to American sanctions, the Iranian regime is on its knees. Iranians have been protesting against the ayatollahs. Many protesters have been murdered in the streets.

Eli Lake describes the situation:

Iranians have been protesting their regime since last month. Only in the last few days, however, has the world begun to learn the full scope of the repression they face.

There are the videos posted to social media and aggregated by news sites that show security forces firing on demonstrators. There are statements from leading Iranian opposition figures such as Mir Hossein Mousavi, one of the leaders of the 2009 uprising who has been under house arrest since 2011. There are headlines reading, “With Brutal Crackdown, Iran Is Convulsed by Worst Unrest in 40 Years.” There is the report from Amnesty International saying that at least 208 people have been killed.

Lake remarks:

It’s too soon to say whether the latest protests in Iran are the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic. What’s clear, however, is that the current government is facing a crisis of legitimacy. Ten years ago, when hundreds of thousands of supporters of Mousavi took to the streets, it was largely the urban, educated classes expressing their fury about a stolen election. Today, the unrest in Iran has spread to the working poor. Even Kurdish parties — which have traditionally pursued their own agenda — are now working with organizers of the national movement.

Ten years ago, the Obama administration ignored the protests. It could not even bring itself to issue a statement in support of their goals. It was so hell bent on appeasing the Iranian regime that it turned a blind eye on autocratic oppression.

Now, Obama’s allies in Western Europe have done him one better. For those nations Obama is still president and the Iran nuclear deal remains in place. This, even though the United States has withdrawn from it and has been working to cripple the Iranian regime.

Naturally, Europe’s enlightened rulers have been doing everything in their power to circumvent American sanctions against Iran. And they have been doing it at a time when the regime is shooting people on the streets. What message does that send?

Lake asks the question:

So it’s puzzling that America’s European allies chose last weekend to announce that six more countries are joining a bartering system, known as Instex, designed to evade the U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden announced Saturday they were joining France, Germany and the U.K..

“Do they think we don’t see what is happening in Iran?” asked Alireza Nader, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who is closely tracking the unrest. “To push Instex at this moment reveals a remarkable lack of attention to human rights. I hope they come to their senses.”

Don't count on it.

Giving Tuesday

Today is called Giving Tuesday. What better day to contribute to my annual fundraising campaign.

I have been putting up daily posts on this blog for more than eleven years now. I trust that some people will consider that to be praiseworthy. Obviously, it takes time and work to do the job, and I could not have done it without the financial support of you, the readers.

So, allow me to thank you for your past and future generosity. It is much appreciated.

In principle, this blog attempts to keep you informed of the latest from the psycho world. It has tracked the influence of therapy culture, its effects on individuals and its political and social fallout. We would be wrong to limit the influence of therapy to individual cases. So, I have expanded the coverage to include questions involving political psychology, social psychology, organizational psychology and so on.

Precious few writers are doing this job, but surely it needs to be done. It is important that we recognize the way therapy has come to define our culture, direct our actions and  influence our thoughts.

Anyway, this project does require financial support. You can contribute by clicking on the orange Donate button, on the left side of this page. Then, the folks at Paypal will help you to contribute as much as you would like.

This year, as a special service, you can also fund the blog by doing your Christmas shopping at Amazon. If you enter the Amazon site by clicking the Amazon ad at the left of this page, a percentage of each purchase price will be credited to your humble blogger. In that way, you can support the blog-- at no extra cost.

If you do not wish to use Paypal, I gratefully accept checks or cash sent to my address:

            310 East 46th St. 24H

            New York, NY   10017

If you have a friend or a relative who is a psychoanalyst or who still clings to Freudian theory, you can do him a great favor by sending a copy of my book, The Last Psychoanalyst. 

When I wrote it, I suggested that it shows how a pseudoscience became a pseudo religion. But, I also showed how Freud created something that resembles what we now call a rape culture. The term was not in use five years ago, but if you read the book carefully you will see that I was somewhat prescient. The book is a perfect holiday gift. You can buy a copy by using the link at left.

Since this is a week long fundraising campaign, I will be repeating this post several other times throughout the week. Be prepared.

My thanks to those who have already contributed. For others, thank you in advance.

The Triumph of Human Resilience

At the very least, it’s a testimony to the power of human resilience. Researchers in Canada have discovered that two thirds of those who survive childhood sexual abuse overcome the trauma and go on to have good mental health.

It matters ... for a very simple reason. Every time we hear about childhood sexual abuse we hear the ominous warnings, to the effect that these children’s lives have been destroyed, that they will never recover.

At the very least, the message, occasionally promoted by activist therapists, must detract from recovery. No one will find it easy to recover if a physician, for example, explains that he will never recover. As I have often noted on this blog, the case of Elizabeth Smart tells us that recovery from sexual trauma is possible.

As reported by HealthDay News, via the UPI:

Two in three survivors of childhood sexual abuse have good mental health, but a new study suggests that social isolation, chronic pain, substance abuse and depression can hinder recovery.

Researchers looked at 651 Canadian survivors to identify factors associated with what the researchers call complete mental health.

"Remarkably, two-thirds [65 percent] of the childhood sexual abuse survivors in our sample met the criteria for complete mental health -- defined as being happy or satisfied with life most days in the past month, having high levels of social and psychological well-being in the past month, and being free of mental illness, suicidal thoughts and substance dependence in the past year," said lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson. She is director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging at the University of Toronto.

"While the prevalence of complete mental health among childhood sexual abuse survivors is higher than we had expected, it is still substantially less than that found in the general population [77 percent]," Fuller-Thomson said in a university news release.

It is useful to have the last statistic. Those who did not suffer sexual abuse in childhood had a somewhat better chance of achieving good mental health. Surely, this tells us that abuse does have a deleterious effect on mental health, but it also tells us that the difference is not as large as one might have expected.

As for how to treat survivors, the researchers have some ideas:

"Having a confidante was found to be the second-strongest single predictor of complete mental health, increasing the odds of past-year complete mental health nearly sevenfold," said co-author Deborah Goodman, director of the Child Welfare Institute, Children's Aid Society of Toronto. "Given the importance of family and social support systems, brief interventions to address trauma post-experience and bolster social and familial support are also called for," Goodman said.

Note the treatment program. As we saw in the case of Elizabeth Smart, family and community support systems matter enormously. They matter especially if friends and family do not define the victim by the fact of having been abused. After that, having someone you can confide in, perhaps through a brief therapy, also helps.

We note that Elizabeth Smart did not have the luxury to keep her abuse secret. For others, and in contradiction to the current insistence that people publicize and advertise their abuse, the researchers emphasize discussing the matter with one person, and, if possible, with only one person.