Archive for February, 2012
Show a little respect…
R-E-S-P-E-C-T Find out what it means to me…
Family is Fascism
When it comes to family, do we have a problem?According to Anna we do and I gotta agree with her because in a lot of ways she’s right. As a therapist I have seen first hand how “families” shit on and abuse each other and it ain’t pretty and what’s worse, the abuse is always justified. Even sexual abuse of four year old children can be conveniently ignored when it occurs in a “family” setting. On top of all that, children are programmed into The System by their parents. But does all this mean family is necessarily a bad thing? No, not necessarily. Personally I think family is the best bet we have of surviving, and tight knit, functioning families are pretty much the only way of meeting the deep emotional and psychological needs of children. But that holds only when the family is healthy, only when all members have equal power, only when all members are respected, and only when all members are one hundred percent free of emotional, psychological, sexual, and physical abuse. If these conditions are not met then ya, there’s a problem.
Socjourn Demystifies Sociology
The Socjourn was recently featured in the publication Open AU. I’m reposting the article here but if you want to see the original article, visit this link. As a side note, the statistics they report are a bit off. In January of 2012 the Socjourn received close to five million webserver hits, not one million as I originally suggested. Not bad for a discipline that has been, up to now, confined to the dank basements of academic inquiry.
A Book Review: Railroads in the African American Experience: A Photographic Journey (2010)
History is written by the winners, that is certainly true. Living in a nation of “winners” we never hear the stories of those who lose. We exalt those who are triumphant, tell their stories, and forget the pain and the suffering that has resulted from the struggle. But not always. Dr. Owen Brown of Medgar Evers College, CUNY introduces us to a pictorial history of America where the story isn’t about the winners, it is about the colonial disenfranchised and their epic struggles to survive and thrive in a hostile and racist world. It is a story, told in pictures, that is both enlightening and, we hope, inspiring.
Good Science Trailer
Here’s a little advertising video for the book Good Science. It’s a great little book if you ask me and its message, that scientist always look to find out the truth of things, timely and important, especially considering the collapse of POMO theory. But it’s also a challenge. As Tim points out, accessing the truth of things is not always so straightforward. What’s more, in order to get to the truth, scientists often have to be revolutionaries. We never take the world “as it is” but always challenge ourselves, and others, to work towards the truth. Some might call it a calling, I just call it bloody hard work.
Six myths about the foundations of modern education, and six new principles to replace them
This article was originally published in The Learning Revolution (IC#27), but was published before that in Annals of Earth (1990), and was a commencement address before that. It’s been around a long time and though the author says some really important things, it doesn’t seem to have sunk in. So, here it is again in the hopes that twenty years later ears will be open and eyes will be primed to see.
What to know about the nature of money, the value of money, and money's role in our modern economies of exchange, then download The Rocket Scientists' Guide to Money and the Economy and let the truth set you free. [download]
Statistics for the rest of us. Afraid of math? Not sure how you're going to get your social statistics credit without permanent damage to your mental health? Consider Sociology 301: Social Statistics from Athabasca University. This course is designed for you, as a grounded and thorough introduction to social statistics. Learn everything you need to know in a sophisticated, well designed, and gentle package. Credit in Sociology 301 is fully transferable.
