Youth Advocacy
Youth Advocacy
Year 3, Week 12 (202 total reports)
13.03.2023-19.03.2024
REVIEW and ANNOUNCEMENTS
Advocating for young people in the face of a new gilded age pitting the middle class and poor against each other and everyone against immigrants and the diverse.
Special Adolescent Care Link of the Week
The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood
When is someone emotionally mature enough for a cell-phone? As we have witnessed how Facebook and other social media giants have targeted pre-teens and teens—similar to how tobacco companies targeted them in the 50’s—we must raise awareness and generate significant warnings about a “phone-based childhood.” It is apparent that young people at least need critical thinking skills and a budding sense of a healthy personal identity before unmonitored social media is available to them. Building these skills must be a priority for parents, social services, adolescent corrections, and education.
Best Links of The Week
19.04.2024
‘We are essentially in a new Gilded Age’: As workers get laid off, CEOs and shareholders gobble up hundreds of billions in profits
https://fortune.com/2024/03/18/gilded-age-layoffs-ceos-shareholders-corporate-profits-inequality/
The economy is doing great, but the benefits are not trickling down. Those benefits are being gobbled up by a deeply embedded gilded class that has been riding a fallacy of trickle-down economics since Ronald Reagan. No administration did more to institutionalize those gains than the Republicans under Reagan and successive Republican administrations have been deepening them incrementally ever since. Greed has never looked so good or been so subtle. While CEO’s and Corporations enjoy record profits, the politicians and justices they have bribed pit the diminishing middle class against each other promoting beliefs that there is “not enough” to fund Social Security or to feed the nation’s children. As Gandhi said, “There’s enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” It’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses (the false belief that someday we will be the rich ones) and quit worshiping both wealth and the wealthy. The truth is a middle-class person is far closer to being homeless than to ever being a billionaire.
18.04.2024
What Fani Willis’s Pyrrhic Win Teaches All Working Women
This article speaks about the double standard in judging working women with which men are not held accountable. According to this author’s research, working women must be both warm AND competent to be judged effective, men can be one OR the other. The gross dichotomy in standards is exemplified in the lack of judgment regarding Clarence Thomas’ behavior (and bribes) and Fani Willis’ actions and further illustrates the duplicity of the far right.
17.04.2024
An Expert on Trust Says We’re Thinking About It All Wrong
https://time.com/6957741/rachel-botsman-trust-interview/
This article really set my brain to thinking. I’ve always thought the word “trust” was customarily misused. In relationships, we often say we “trust” someone when we really have an expectation of them being perfect—then, when they’re not, we say they ruined our trust. The truth is, we can trust someone to be true to their own character and invite them to grow, but not expect them to meet our standards. In this article the author, Rachel Botsman, says that trust is like energy, the physics of which is that energy never goes away, it is just redistributed. Her examples and insights are worth the short read and, will no doubt challenge you to examine trust in your circle as well. We must ask, “if trust is gone, where did it go?”
16.04.2024
How to Teach the Thrill of Reading
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/03/reading-school-lifelong/677784/
True freedom in life comes with the ability to read. Children learn to read because someone they love read to them and reading brings back those deep emotional memories of being loved. To have a free society, children must learn to become voracious readers, they must have a passion for reading. This is not the scrolling we have become victim to in our society, but a deep-dive into the questions and cultures we often can only understand through the written word. Perhaps we could go as far as saying that the “thrill of reading” is as important to teach as the techniques of reading, but isn’t that true for any subject we learn? Does our emphasis of education include the sharing of the passion as well as the technique?
15.04.2024
The “New Happy”: A much-needed rethink of happiness
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/the-new-happy-movement/
Post-Industrial countries have needed a complete re-set of happiness since we first started measuring it in economic terms shackled to a society of consumption. In a consumer society, happiness is about having and doing. It leads to a life of continual need; to addictively have or do more. There is never contentment, there is only emptiness and possession. The sense of finding happiness-in-being does not exist in a consumer culture. Similarly, motivation becomes swaddled in cultural aspects of domination with the primary drives of motivation being supremacy (of people, tasks, or things) or power--also the ability to subjugate people or things. It is no wonder that this leads to a life of anxiety and fear of losing control. In such societies, the greatest fear is one that is continual and even addictive; that of preventing change and protecting what one has or does. When one focuses on meaning rather than having or doing, possessing is not an integral component. Viktor Frankl tells us that meaning can sustain us when all else is taken away. When being and meaning are the key operatives in your life, fear dissipates and the need to continually control others (or your situation) is relieved. Peace can be found in the moment and not continually sought in what you have and do, or don’t have and do. Relationships become rich in meaning because people are not seen as tools to get you what you really want (more control or more possessions).
14.04.2024
You're Not Imagining It; Shrinkflation Is Real : Consider This from NPR
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1198910739/consider-this-shrinkflation-is-real
President Biden is calling out the underlying cause of the reason we “feel” the economy is so bad. The new economic markers are being driven, not by a competitive marketplace, but by CEO’s and corporations who are giving us less (value or product) while charging more. Appliances don’t last as long, cars are less safe and of poorer quality (more gadgets, less reliability). Even packages containing cereal or snacks have less product, poorer quality ingredients, but a higher price. And the money doesn’t get distributed, it goes back into the hands of CEO and boards who spend significant amounts purchasing lawmakers and justices who will decrease their social contributions—taxes.
13.04.2024
Stuttering advocates have words for Donald Trump
https://apple.news/A2bK6ahooTRma8DFBhiC7mQ
Donald Trump is a sick man, he is mentally unwell and has been most of his life. I’m alarmed to observe he is getting worse as his campaign continues and both his bills and his court appearances continue to mount. Healthy people do not make fun of disabilities, they don’t make fun of other people at all. They don’t need to. The self-esteem of healthy people is not tied up in their domination of others, it is based on how they are doing based upon their own internal sense of well-being and values. Whatever happened to cripple Don J. Trump’s emotional and mental capacity prohibit him from being a healthy model for others. He is not fit to lead. Sadly, many people find him attractive because he hates what they hate and is unconstrained (or unable to constrain himself) from stating his spite in the crudest of terms. His legacy will be one of giving credence to bullies and demeaning others.
This Week’s Links
19.04.2024
‘We are essentially in a new Gilded Age’: As workers get laid off, CEOs and shareholders gobble up hundreds of billions in profits
https://fortune.com/2024/03/18/gilded-age-layoffs-ceos-shareholders-corporate-profits-inequality/
Trump's "bloodbath" threat was literal
Harvard psychologists have been studying what it takes to raise 'good' kids. Here are 6 tips.
New book: Generational rift hits evangelical church
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/19/sarah-mccammon-the-exvangelicals-book
18.04.2024
What Fani Willis’s Pyrrhic Win Teaches All Working Women
Adult MAGA rage makes schools more dangerous for kids
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/18/adult-maga-rage-is-making-schools-more-for-students/
Opinion: The Strongman Fantasy – and Dictatorship in Real Life
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/29660
17.04.2024
An Expert on Trust Says We’re Thinking About It All Wrong
https://time.com/6957741/rachel-botsman-trust-interview/
Why Oregon’s Drug Decriminalization Failed
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/oregon-drug-decriminalization-failed/677678/
The Republican agenda to install religious chaplains in schools is appalling
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/chaplains-schools-florida-school-counselor-rcna143575
Trump says some migrants are 'not people', and warns of 'bloodbath' if he loses
The GOP is using lies to defund local LGBTQ+ centers. They’re treating our lives like a game.
‘All We Must Do Is Survive Four Years’
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/03/trump-second-term-civil-rights/677783/
Alabama IVF Ruling Is About Controlling Who Can Reproduce the Citizenry
Want to Instantly Feel Less Stressed? Science Says a 20-Second Fake Smile Reduces Feelings of Anxiety, Tension, and Even Fear
16.04.2024
How to Teach the Thrill of Reading
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/03/reading-school-lifelong/677784/
Senate Democrats introduce bill to improve mental health services for LGBTQ+ youth
Pixar’s "Inside Out" and Plutchik’s Theory of Emotions
‘Parents need to talk about this’: The best way to teach your kids about AI, according to an education expert
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/15/how-parents-can-teach-their-children-to-use-ai-responsibly.html
15.04.2024
The “New Happy”: A much-needed rethink of happiness
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/the-new-happy-movement/
Beyond The Bridge
https://newsone.com/5077093/selma-civil-rights-movement/
A study has been following 'gifted' kids for 45 years. Here's what we've learned.
Supreme Betrayal
How Capitalism Became a Threat to Democracy
13 Captivating Traits Shared By The Most Successful People
https://www.yourtango.com/self/personality-traits-most-successful-people
14.04.2024
Donald Trump Suggests Cutting Retirement Programs In Incoherent Ramble
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-entitlements-cutting_n_65ef1763e4b0bd5228d4eadd
14.04.2024
You're Not Imagining It; Shrinkflation Is Real : Consider This from NPR
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1198910739/consider-this-shrinkflation-is-real
You can start applying for the American Climate Corps next month
https://grist.org/politics/jobs-portal-american-climate-corps-opens-next-month/
13.04.2024
Stuttering advocates have words for Donald Trump
https://apple.news/A2bK6ahooTRma8DFBhiC7mQ
The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood
Republicans Aren’t Done Threatening the Hungry With Planned Cuts to Food Aid
Must see: Trump v. Biden, in 21 charts
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/must-see-trump-v-biden-in-21-charts-206399045696
21 viciously anti-LGBTQ+ bills die in Florida as DeSantis influence wanes
In GOP-led states with anti-LGBTQ+ laws, school hate crimes quadruple: report
https://www.advocate.com/news/gop-states-increase-hate-crimes