Alice Miller: Remembering the child in us

I picked up Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child. I may have read this back in the 70’s or 80’s as I seem to remember bits of discussion about Miller’s work from then. I was particularly struck by this statement: “I understand a healthy self-feeling to mean the unquestioned certainty that the feelings and needs one experiences are part of one’s self. This certainty is not something one can gain upon reflection; it is there like one’s own pulse, which one does not notice as long as it functions normally.” . . . → Read More: Alice Miller: Remembering the child in us

Job Guarantee, free education, universal health care… what more could you want?

It’s worth thinking about how governments could decide to organize their finances. From New Economics Perspectives:

…nations can’t run out of money and can buy anything for sale in their own borders, including all labor resources, that means that their governments can spend what they need to spend to help solve the problems they encounter. They can afford job guarantees for anyone wanting . . . → Read More: Job Guarantee, free education, universal health care… what more could you want?

Weapons for US based drones coming soon to a sky near you

Drone manufacturers are considering offering police the option of arming remote-controlled aircraft with (nonlethal for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas… . . . → Read More: Weapons for US based drones coming soon to a sky near you

Science catches up with Buddhism

In my earlier post on Buddhist psychology I noted that the feeling sense is part of the thought process, prior to understanding, integral to the mind formation as an atom is to a molecule. Now via Kurzweil I came upon new research review which supports the fact that our feelings of attraction and repulsion are basic parts of perception:

New research from Carnegie . . . → Read More: Science catches up with Buddhism

Fukushima Mon Amour

Fukushima is still in the news. Reuters reports today that the initial estimates of the amount of radiation released are now known to have been 2 and a half times too low. Tepco will be nationalized due to the exceptionally large losses after the accident. Reuters also reports what we first surmised the clean up will probably take 30 years. In the meantime . . . → Read More: Fukushima Mon Amour

Debt: The First 5000 Years

Following up on my previous post on Debt and Civilization, I read David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 years. It is a very important book. It lays out a case that we have not yet fully heard: that debt, as a human construction, is something which has been overlaid on our social relationships in such a way as to produce confused mixtures of . . . → Read More: Debt: The First 5000 Years