Rising Political Violence: Authoritarians, Mass Psychosis, and Waves of Terror Make More Violence Inevitable

Calico Jack – Ominous trends

The Psy of Life

Headlines from the news recently include these stories:

The Dallas Morning News

Texas women attack NYC restaurant hostess over vaccine status request

Three women from outside Houston attack a restaurant hostess because she was doing her job. They committed physical violence because a low-level low-wage frontline employee who has no policy-making authority whatsoever was doing her job as her management and state law demand.

US News and World Report

Police: Man Assaulted Walmart Worker Over Mask Request

Throughout 2020 and into 2021, we were frequently treated to headlines like this one from April when a man in Rhodes Island assaulted a 16 year-old low-level low-wage frontline employee who has no policy-making authority whatsoever was doing his job as management directed and asked him to put a mask on his child. Real physical violence against committed by one everyday American against another.

All the while, GQP “leaders” keep ratcheting up the…

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Monday Poetry

Two poems of hearts for a Monday from Pattimouse

Pattimouse

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A Daily Prayer

Tara Caribou – A simple prayer for two

Raw Earth Ink

May the Light of Love blind us
to the faults and imperfections
we each have, now and forevermore.

---

tara caribou | ©2017-2021

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Whaz Up!?! 20 Monday 2021

Calico Jack offers his weekly collection of internet and blog finds and tips.

The Psy of Life

Howdy y’all!

We ran out of coffee!?! It’s Sunday morning way before the stores open, and I get up to finish this post like I do every Sunday only to discover the most important ingredient to blogging missing. Why do bad things happen to good people, god? Why? Oh, wait. Maybe it means… but I scores a Shockingly Saintly on the dark tetrad personality quiz, so that’s not it.

From the good news file: We’re up to $10.00 whole dollars from the ads on the site. It’s only take us a year to get enough money from them so I can take Ma Belle Femme to Starbucks on date night and get a small coffee each. You can let me know how envious you are of me in the comments.

The rains have come: It has been raining constantly for about two weeks. The Mekong has finally started to rise…

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Call YOUR Senators: The PUSH to End the Filibuster is on!

Calico Jack – Why and how to call your senators

The Psy of Life

Earlier this week we all awoke to the news — that’s AWOKE, not “woke,” y’all — that President Handsome Joe Biden was at Senator Majority Leader’s Chuck Schumer’s disposal as soon as he wanted to end the filibuster. Biden was ready to work the phones and bring what pressure the President and White House could to bear on those senators who were recalcitrant on ending or reforming the filibuster.

The national progressive political roller coaster was finally starting to climb that majestic mountain that would get us over the hump and plunge us headlong into progressive nirvana of an actual protected right to vote, limiting climate change, building infrastructure, reforming immigration, lifting the middle class, and reducing poverty. Some of us even dared to hold hands and share our heart-shaped cupcakes and sing a few halting bars of Kumbaya.

After saying he won't vote for the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill…

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The Light Triad vs. Dark Triad of Personality — SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Calico Jack – The Dark Side and The Light Side — We knew there had to be a Light Side, right?

The Psy of Life

Trolls from the Dark Side

Regular readers and the casual peruser alike probably realize that Ye Olde Blogge loves themselves some dark tetrad, so imagine how we felt about finding out that there was a LIGHT TRIAD! Well, we kinda laughed up our sleeves reflecting on how thin, paltry, and downright unpopular Dante’s Paradiso was, especially when compared to Dante’s Inferno. Nobody is interested in reading about the good. Pah! We want sin! Disaster! Pain! Suffering! Just desserts!

Good thing we’re talking about sober scientists and not some common 14th century pulp fiction swilling tabloid consuming readers of obscure blogs, right? But, it stands to reason that if there are those among us who have no sense of shame or guilt or humility and are willing to manipulate anyone and everyone to get their way and either not care who they hurt along the way or, worse, revelle in…

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The Myth of Happiness

Candice Louisa Daquin muses on “happiness” at Borderless

Borderless

By Candice Louisa Daquin

Have you ever heard that happiness is much like a drug? This can be seen as a positive (euphoria) or a negative (addiction to) and like with most things, there are differing ways to consider the concept of happiness, which I will examine here, ultimately concluding, the value lies in reframing the concept of happiness, rather than abandoning it or over-emphasizing it.

The myth of happiness is simple. Our society pressures us to be happy all the time. Anything less is failure. Obviously if someone we love dies, we are ‘allowed’ a period of mourning and then we’re supposed to move on. We pay lip service to mental health and familial dysfunction and abuse and rape and other factors that can cause/worsen depression, but we mostly minimize them. The approach is — get on with it, be strong, anything less is weak.

This only builds up…

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Late again. Poetry.

Pattimouse – Two poems – struggles

Pattimouse

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I Never Could

Tara Caribou – Trapped

Raw Earth Ink

“You are more than the sum of your pasts…
you are your future as well”

His words whispered in my ear
One warm summer evening
And the tears that shone in his eyes
Told me all I needed to know:
I had already lost him

He saw more in me than I ever could
The reflection in his eyes
I never could get there
What I witnessed disgusted me
I hated myself
I still do
Where he saw a future possible
I saw nothing but my former life
Our hands never could meet in the middle
The now

And I knew what I had done
Sabotaging myself
And him
Yet I never could get myself turned around
Facing his direction
The pull of history had too firm a grasp
I had given it so much power
Breaking its grip
Meant breaking myself

While I know I need to tear myself…

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Whaz Up!?! Monday 13 September 2021

Calico Jack finds such interesting things on the internet.

The Psy of Life

Howdy Y’all!

It continues to be an exhausting school year. The “worst” I’ve ever dealt with. Now, we have students back in school, but only half at a time while the other half Zoom in to the class. That’s taking the worst of both worlds and making a job that is twice as difficult and stressful as doing either alone. Trying to develop learning activities that will work for students in person and those on Zoom or just making two versions of the same activity is really hard. Trying to be present for students on Zoom and those in the classroom simultaneously takes much more attention and conscious thought than when doing either individually. Having two schedules to follow for each class makes just figuring who should be where when, twice as difficult. Anywho. That’s my professional reality that I will continue to deal with professionally. So, sssshhhh. Not a…

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