“Annalisa Barbieri was lucky to have been able to keep her father at home for 11 hours after he died (Family, 6 January). I found my mother (aged 90) who had died in her sleep at home. Not knowing what to do, I rang her GP. This started a legal process that whisked her body away before I had time to say goodbye.”
It’s not the sort of thing you immediately think about, when a loved one dies…It may sound kind of creepy and morbid, on some level…
…But I’m glad we hung around for an hour or so with the body, after my father died…
It may sound weird…but, there is something comforting in that time…and that peaceful exposure.
I was doing some reading on this…and, actually…since this “Death with Dignity” series was a long time in the back of my mind, this was probably two, three years back…
…some funeral homes actually open up the process to relatives, and allow them to come in and help bathe the body…
Some families handle the entire process, on their own…
I’ve also read accounts from others, as to how deeply meaningful it was to them…to be left with the body for several hours, before it being taken away.
It really makes you think differently on death…experience it differently…if you don’t immediately turn away from it…You just sort of be, and remain, with it.
01) Algorithms Identify People with Suicidal Thoughts
“Mention strong words such as “death” or “praise” to someone who has suicidal thoughts and chances are the neurons in their brains activate in a totally different pattern than those of a non-suicidal person. That’s what researchers at University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University discovered, and trained algorithms to distinguish, using data from fMRI brain scans.
The scientists published the findings of their small-scale study Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. They hope to study a larger group of people and use the data to develop simple tests that doctors can use to more readily identify people at risk of suicide.”
“In this (extremely informal) video commentary, Seth Andrews talks about weird dreams, cults and cultures, and the pitfalls of keeping others comfortable.”
Personally…the nagging stopped after a few years…
…At this point…I don’t know if they’ve just forgotten about it, or what…but it doesn’t even come up, anymore…Things are as they used to be.
Sometimes, I’ll get invited to church…or a religious themed holiday card…but, that’s the extent of it.
I’m at peace with this.
Sometimes…I wonder why we were religious, at all…
…Seth is correct…So much of it just does not make any sense…on a “we ought to know better” level.
…Why is atheism even a source of tension?…It’s such an obviously sound conclusion…if you have the courage, to be starkly honest.
01) White House Directed Bannon’s Silence During Testimony
“During Steve Bannon’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on the Trump team’s ties to Russia, Bannon’s attorney Bill Burck was on the phone with a White House lawyer who directed Bannon as to whether to answer the questions
01) Confirmed: At Least SOME of Trump Medical Report Was Lies
“–The results of Donald Trump’s medical exam are called into question, particularly the president’s height and weight, and the credibility of the Montreal cognitive assessment
01) Experts, Police, and Vigilantes Face Off Over Pedophiles on Twitter
“whenever a new measure to censor the Internet is proposed, it will be justified as being targeted at the online activities of either terrorists, or pedophiles. This justification is used so often, because it’s so effective. Nobody wants to be heard speaking up for the rights of either of these hated and feared groups.
Indeed, in order to stave off the threat of broader censorship, free speech activists are sometimes first in line to argue for the censorship of extremist material. It says a lot that the new Chair of the Internet Watch Foundation, which facilitates ISP-level blocking of child abuse imagery online, is the former head of free speech group Article 19.
So it was that Twitter’s suspension of the accounts of non-offending pedophiles last month flew under the radar for most Internet activists and free speech advocates. Although non-offending pedophiles strongly oppose child abuse imagery and adult-child sex, activists were no more inclined to defend them against Twitter’s actions than they were to defend the Nazis and alt-right hate groups whose accounts Twitter also purged.
But there’s one group that does stand against Twitter’s suspension of the accounts of these prominent online pedophiles —and it’s not who you might expect. It’s child protection workers, who together with more than twenty international clinical and forensic psychologists, sexologists, sociologists and other experts, this week sent an open letter to Twitter stating:
In our professional opinions, terminating the accounts of non-offending, anti-contact MAPs [Minor-Attracted Persons] is likely to result in the opposite effect of that which Twitter may expect or intend. Rather than reducing the incidence of child sexual abuse, if anything it increases the risk that some pedophiles will be unable to obtain the peer or professional support that they may need in order to avoid offending behaviour. It is also likely to increase the stigma and isolation associated with pedophilia and thereby increase the likelihood of some MAPs acting on their sexual feelings.”
01) We Should Call Ourselves “Male Sexualists” Because The Alternatives Suck Even More [Dead Link]
This selection from “In Self Defense: The Life and Times of An Atheist BoyLover…Memoirs and Ethos”, has been narrated by Rocco White. Please enjoy the listen, or read along if you like…or need to.
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Not everything we do is intended to be specifically for outsiders.
This is an important nuance, because pedophile issues, hebephile issues and ephebophile issues, are often times unique…and our communities need a language to communicate amongst ourselves…as well as to understand ourselves with.
This type of communication [and self introspect] has no concern, with how the outside world thinks about us…and it shouldn’t.
These are our issues…not theirs…These are our identities to own, live with and flesh out…not theirs…
Being a pedophile, hebephile or ephebophile, is nothing to be ashamed over…And outsiders who fail to judge an individual based upon their ethical conduct, have nothing of relevance to say about this.
This fight is not about the labels we use to identify ourselves…
…The fight is over how whatever lexicon is being used to reference us, is being dominated, exploited and corrupted, for the end goal of unjustly ruining people [individuals and entire groups].
Abandoning, forfeiting and retreating from any label we use, will not confront, nor overcome, this problem…And it’s a meaningless treadmill, to keep renaming ourselves.
Bad will actors will always be there, to point out that you are not adequately frothing out the mouth over “whatever”…and the new identity will be dragged back to square one.
When bad will actors are unjustly clubbing you over the head…the answer is to take that club away from them [expose them for what they are]…not allow them to keep performing the same manipulations, over and over and over.
The primary problem with what society at large might call “sex trash” minorities, is an utter lack of organized direction and unity, amongst those minorities.
We are walked all over, because of a very broad lack of vision and will amongst our own kind, to change the fact that people are walking all over us.
Until we confront and fix this…no amount of name changing is going to help.
I proudly acknowledge that I am a pedophile…because, a vast swath of the population expects me to apologize for it…And that’s a major, major problem…My pedophilia is one of the most beautiful parts of me…I will never apologize for it…I will celebrate it…and talk about it accordingly.
Nobody will ever get away with attacking me, for what makes me such a spectacular human being.
I don’t worry so much about what outsiders say…They are ignorant…I concern myself with speaking and finding the truth, and sharing it with others.
I will start to concern myself with broader public relations, when the “sex trash” minorities finally find their legs, stand up in united large numbers…and start putting muscle behind their own humanity.
I’m happy to work towards that day…but it will never come, if our kinds never realize they belong in this world, as they are.
