Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's Journal'They're selling everything as trauma': how our emotional pain became a product: Katherine Rowland
In March 2023, Dr Gabor Maté, a retired family physician and among the most respected trauma experts in the world, boldly diagnosed Prince Harry with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), during a live interview.
Having read the Duke of Sussex’s ghost-written memoir, Spare, Maté said that he had arrived upon “several diagnoses” that also included depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. These were not evidence of disease per se, Maté went on to elaborate. Rather, he said: “I see it as a normal response to abnormal stress.”
What Maté did is nowhere near customary clinical procedure: a diagnosis requires a structured assessment and adequate time with a patient. And to render a diagnosis publicly raises obvious privacy concerns.
However, the gesture was much in keeping with the rash of diagnostic claims and self-labeling that have swept the internet and mass-market publishing, creating a space where confessional zeal and memeified pseudoscience – sometimes abetted by therapists who should know better – have become almost routine.
Today, an entire industry has spawned around the idea that everything is trauma. Once understood as the psyche’s confrontation with genuine catastrophe, trauma is now treated as a personal possession: something to be owned, narrated and curated by the individual.
This drift marks the entrance point to a broader cultural shift: the commodification of pain.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/14/trauma-mental-health
Emotional pain is not trauma is not emotional pain. One does not equal the other, and nobody should diagnose someone they don't know.
'I'm Muslim but I mark Shabbat': How an Indian man is keeping a Jewish legacy alive
Sarah Cohen's Home.
That's the sign welcoming anyone who walks into Thaha Ibrahim's shop in a narrow cobbled lane in the southern Indian city of Kochi.
The bustling street, where vendors sell everything from antiques to Persian carpets and spices, is called Jew Town - some decades ago, every house on this street had a Jewish family, and the place was known as the Jewish quarter.
Thaha now runs the last Jewish embroidery shop in Kochi.
When some American tourists walked into the shop on a humid afternoon, Thaha, 55, was stitching a kippah, the traditional Jewish skullcap. The tourists gathered around a photograph on the wall which showed the then Prince Charles meeting the residents of Jew Town in 2013.
"That's Sarah aunty," Thaha told them, pointing at a woman with short white hair in the photo.
"This was Sarah Cohen's home and embroidery shop."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g64e67n7eo
The most heartwarming story for Chanukah
Kim Jong-un admits North Korean troops clearing landmines for Russia
North Korea sent troops to clear mines in Russia’s Kursk region earlier this year, leader Kim Jong-un said in a speech carried on Saturday by state media, a rare acknowledgement by Pyongyang of the deadly tasks assigned to its deployed soldiers.
According to South Korean and western intelligence agencies, North Korea has sent thousands of troops to support Russia’s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine.
Analysts say Russia is giving North Korea financial aid, military technology, food and energy supplies in return, allowing the diplomatically isolated nation to sidestep tough international sanctions on its nuclear and missile programmes.
Hailing the return of an engineering regiment, Kim noted that they wrote “letters to their hometowns and villages at breaks of the mine-clearing hours”, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Nine members of the regiment died during the 120-day deployment that started in August, Kim said in his speech at a welcome ceremony on Friday, KCNA reported.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/13/north-korea-troops-cleared-landmines-russia-kim-jong-un
So in order to curry favor with Putin, he's using his soldiers as minesweepers. Got it.
Two girls, 9 and 11, awarded $31.5m after sister's California torture death
A lawsuit over the death of an 11-year-old California girl who was allegedly tortured and starved by her adoptive family reached a settlement on Friday totaling $31.5m from the city and county of San Diego as well as other groups.
The suit was brought on behalf of the two younger sisters of Arabella McCormack, who died in August 2022. The girls were ages six and seven at the time. Their adoptive mother, Leticia McCormack, and McCormack’s parents, Adella and Stanley Tom, are facing charges of murder, conspiracy, child abuse and torture. They pleaded not guilty to all charges, and their criminal case is ongoing.
The lawsuit alleged a systemic failure across the city and several agencies and organizations to not report Arabella McCormack’s abuse.
The settlement includes $10m from the city of San Diego, $10m from San Diego county, $8.5m from the Pacific Coast Academy and $3m from the Rock church, the sisters’ attorney, Craig McClellan, said. The school oversaw Arabella McCormack’s home schooling, and her adoptive mother was an ordained elder at the church.
“The amount is going to be enough to take care of the girls for the rest of the lives,” McClellan said. But it “isn’t going to be enough and never could be enough … to replace their sister, nor is it going to erase the memories of what they went through”.
The lawsuit said county social workers did not properly investigate abuse claims and two teachers at the Pacific Coast Academy failed to report the girl’s condition. It also said a San Diego police officer, a friend of the girl’s adoptive mother, gave the family a wooden paddle that they could use to hit their children.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/13/adopted-girl-torture-death-california-settlement
DHS is in such a hurry to get kids off their hands that they don't vet prospective adoptive parents properly and look at the wrong things.
'The holy family is in hiding': nativity scenes at US churches push back on ICE
Satirical holiday displays mocking Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, portraying the newborn Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph, as victims of heavy-handed tactics by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), have appeared across the US.
One striking retelling of the Christmas story, at Lake Street church in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, features baby Jesus lying in a manger in the snow – but wrapped in the kind of thin, foil blankets given out in emergencies and regularly as bedding to ICE detainees, and with his wrists zip-tied.
The figure of Mary stands nearby just outside the church, wearing a gas mask, which anti-ICE protesters have been wearing to protect against teargas. She is flanked by figures of Roman soldiers, which the Bible depicts as having detained Jesus prior to his execution, but with those in the display now dressed in tactical vests labeled “ICE.”
At another location in Chicago, Urban Village church, the models of Jesus, Mary and Joseph are nowhere to be seen alongside the camels, donkeys, shepherds and wise men bearing gifts in the traditional nativity scene. Instead, there is a sign that reads: “Due to ICE activity in our community the Holy Family is in hiding.”
The displays are extensions of the prominent role taken in recent protests against the aggressive federal immigration enforcement by faith leaders, especially in Chicago and New York.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/12/church-jesus-nativity-scenes-mock-ice-trump
Good for them!
Flooding remains threat in Pacific north-west as Washington declares emergency
Dangerous flood waters from historically swollen rivers in the Pacific north-west were continuing to cause a huge threat on Friday as 100,000 people in the area were under evacuation warnings and more deluges are due on Sunday.
Torrential rain triggered flooding on Thursday across much of the region from Oregon north through Washington state and into British Columbia, closing dozens of roads and already prompting the evacuations of tens of thousands of people.
The intense rain began earlier in the week, swept into the region by a storm system meteorologists call an atmospheric river, a vast airborne current of dense moisture funneled inland from the Pacific Ocean.
The governor of Washington, Bob Ferguson, declared a statewide emergency on Wednesday in response to the heavy weather that has caused mudslides and washed out roads and submerged vehicles.
Western Washington state bore the brunt of the storm, with flood watches posted across the Cascade and Olympic mountains and Puget Sound, as well as for a northern slice of Oregon, a region home to some 5.8 million people, according to the US National Weather Service.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/12/flood-water-rain-pacific-northwest-washington
How to become a tyrant in 5 steps
Back in the 5th century BCE, Herodotus was the first to break from Greek literary tradition as he captured history as accurately as possible from a wide range of sources.
Within the kaleidoscope of stories he recounted in his groundbreaking tome — simply called The History — he shared vivid descriptions of autocratic and tyrannical rulers.
"One of the shocks you get when you read Herodotus is how modern these stories seem," said Kathryn Morgan, professor of classics at UCLA.
"You can imagine this kind of thing going on in any number of power centres across the globe.
"Herodotus is crafting his narrative to make a moral point about domination and power. And what happens when you have a ruler who's not subject to any constraints."
The stories Herodotus shares read like a virtual playbook for would-be tyrants.
Step 1: Cultivate your passion for power
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/tyranny-herodotus-authoritarianism-strongman-1.7315510
I don't think Shitler read this, because he can't read, or listened to the podcast, because he gets bored after 3 minutes if it's not about him, but somebody did.....
I have to wonder
how many of Shitler's Incompetent Corps will be left when (not IF) he dies and Shady McMaybelline is president?
Shall we play a game?
Who will quit (because they can't stand him) and who will he fire?
Your guesses, please.
This is a SERIOUS GAME.
Trump says Venezuela sends US lethal drugs, but data tells different story
President Donald Trump and his top aides have justified lethal military strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats from Venezuela by accusing Venezuela and suspected criminal networks operating on its soil like the Cartel de los Soles of flooding the United States with deadly drugs.
"This mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people," Secretary of War (formally Secretary of Defense) Pete Hegseth posted Nov. 13 on X. He said the military mission has been named Operation Southern Spear.
In August, the United States doubled the reward for information leading to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to an unprecedented $50 million over allegations of drug trafficking and links to criminal groups. Attorney General Pam Bondi explained the bounty at the time by accusing Maduro in a video message of being "one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security."
That’s reason enough, Trump and administration officials say, for launching military attacks that have killed at least 87 people in recent months – including two men clinging to wreckage after they survived an initial strike Sept. 2 that killed nine other suspected smugglers. They say it might even warrant an attack on Venezuelan soil, which Trump has implied may be in the offing.
U.S. and United Nations drug data, however, show that Venezuela isn't a producer or exporter of fentanyl, a lab-made synthetic opioid, and that it plays a relatively minor role in the far-less-lethal cocaine trade.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/12/09/trump-venezuela-drug-trafficking/87573189007/?tbref=hp
Shitler will do anything to distract from the Epstein files, even start a war. He has no clue about the geography of Venezuela. This could turn into another Vietnam.
Officers at Texas immigration detention facility accused of beatings and sexual abuse
Officers at the large immigration detention camp located at the Fort Bliss army base in Texas are allegedly mistreating detainees, with accusations including beatings, sexual abuse and clandestine deportations of non-Mexican nationals into Mexico, according to a coalition of local and national US civil rights organizations.
In a 19-page letter, addressed to senior government officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and Fort Bliss military command, the coalition accuses officers at the immigration detention facility on the base, called Camp East Montana, of being “in violation of agency policies and standards, as well as statutory and constitutional protections”.
The advocates called for the immediate closure of the camp, where more than 2,700 detainees are being held in a complex of tents.
“In light of these abuses, we urge the end to detention of immigrants at Fort Bliss,” said the letter signed by eight organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Humans Rights Watch, Estrella del Paso, the Texas Civil Rights Project and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.
The letter was addressed to ICE acting director Todd Lyons and others and copied to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office of inspector general and the Senate armed forces committee.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/09/texas-ice-camp-abuse-immigration
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