Articles from the Week of June 9, 2023
Interesting Quotes
My doctor told me that jogging could add years to my life. I think he was right. I feel 10 years older already.
Milton Berle
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
Mark Twain
"The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one's self to others."
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t had certain setbacks. They made me open different doors and made me stronger.
Carol Burnett
Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.
John Lennon
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
William Shakespeare
You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down.
Charlie Chaplin
Fascinating Facts [
[Source: All of the following from InterestingFacts.com on various days this past week]
100 Lightning Bolts Strike Earth Every Second on Average
The Earth’s Innermost Core Is as Hot as the Sun’s Surface
Earth Is the Only Known Planet That Supports Life
We Probably Take More Photos Every Minute Than Were Taken in the Entire 19th Century
Magnolia trees are so old they coexisted with dinosaurs.
Scientists still do not understand how birds and fish migrate accurately each year to specific places. The arctic tern, for example, migrates 40,000 miles each year between the North Pole and the South Pole.
Thomas Jefferson is credited for having made ice cream popular in the United States. He reportedly was introduced to ice cream while visiting France and brought his love for the dessert to the White House, from where it became a favorite in the U.S.
Libraries Predate Books: The oldest libraries contained clay tablet writing boards covered with cuneiform writing on a wide variety of topics. Some of these ancient libraries contained as many as 30,000 tablets and writing boards. The earliest libraries were in the 7th century BCE in what is now Iraq. The earliest libraries that contained something that resembled books were found in Roman libraries in about the 2nd century BCE.
Counseling Articles
Bizarre New Marriage Trend Goes Viral
This new marriage trend is called “sologamy.” For more information see the article.
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I ‘married’ the perfect man without ‘baggage’ — he’s completely virtual
For females, in case “sologamy” is not your thing, here is another non-traditional option for marriage.
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Most Christians believe churches should provide counseling and care, but most pastors disagree: study
Here is research from Barna: worthwhile reviewing. The difference isn’t quite as stark as the headline suggests.
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Do Americans still believe in God? Shocking research on prayer, faith opens eyes about US faithful
While smaller percentages of the U.S. population definitely believe God exists or go to church regularly, a large majority still pray when going through difficult times. [Personal note: I’ve observed this in my work as a pastoral counseling volunteer at a local hospital. Most people, even those who are not regular church attenders, are quite open to being prayed for.]
This article also includes a way to get podcasts on a variety of issues.
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Could You Have Won the 8th Grade Spelling Bee?
Dev Shah, an eighth grader from Florida, became the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion on June 1, 2023 and won $50,000 by correctly spelling “psammophile,” which refers to an organism that prefers or thrives in sandy areas. He studied for three years preparing for the competition.
7 Ways to Stop the Hypomania Train
For people with bipolar disorder, hypomania feels so good that people don’t want to stop it. This author, who has bipolar disorder, explains why it is important to do so and gives seven suggestions for how to do this.
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‘They Are Not Girls’: High School Asks Boys to Stop Putting Tampon Dispensers In The Toilets
Normally I don’t condone vandalism, but boys in Oregon have been engaging in some vandalism that it is hard not to smile about. Progressive legislators have mandated that public schools in that state start putting tampon dispensers in all high school bathrooms. The boys have been nonverbally protesting this practice as unnecessary by unceremoniously removing those dispensers from the walls and depositing them in the toilets. The situation has been getting dire enough that the high schools have had to publicly ask the boys to quit doing so.
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Can AI Read Your Mind?
A recent study reported in a science periodical in May suggested that in the future AI may be able to read your mind. But do not worry: AI is a long way from doing so now. The study had three people lay in MRI machines for several hours and tried to pick up brain patterns when the subjects were exposed to various things read to them, and then tried to anticipate what words or thoughts were associated with which brain wave patterns. This might have application several years hence when it might allow people who have lost the capacity to speak to be able to communicate through having their brainwaves captured and then translated into words. There is no need to fear that AI will be able to read your mind anytime soon.
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An Idea from the city of Chicago that We Can Affirm
Although the idea of removing consequences from misbehavior (advocated by both the Mayor and Attorney General of Chicago) seems unwise (and was borne out by the unprecedented murder rate there over the Memorial Day weekend), there is one experimental approach from Chicago that seems worth considering. They have a program where, when a person seems out of control the police can call a mental health counselor using a tablet and have the counselor talk with the upset person and attempt to de-escalate the situation. In every situation where it has been used de-escalation has been successful and there have been no arrests and no violence.
Source: this was from a television news broadcast so no hypertext link is available.
‘How Great Thou Art’: The Swedish Poem That Became a World-Famous Hymn
Although not a counseling article, if you’d like to read how this poem, the first verse of which was composed by a pastor after a thunderstorm, became one of our most-beloved hymns, you can learn of its fascinating history here.
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How to Stay Hitched When Your Wife Ditches You
When one spouse decides to leave the marriage, many times the rejected spouse thinks there’s nothing they can do but accept it. This writer shares his story and the process he went through to try to win his spouse back. Although written by a man who was left, the methods he used could probably be used by either gender. If you have a client who was left by their spouse but would like to see if their marriage could be saved, this book might help them.
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Sexual Restraint While Dating Leads to Better Marriages
This research study affirms something the Bible teaches—not having sex until married is correlated with more stable marriages, more satisfaction in marriage, and less likelihood of divorce. This research study is one that I wish every teen and young adult would read before they started dating. One idea they don’t mention that I found to be true as a counselor, is that when couples become sexual before marriage, the intensity of the sexual experience often causes them to overlook or minimize issues that they should consider before making a commitment to marriage.
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Another Effort to Get People with Mental Illness Experiencing Homelessness Off the Streets—A Sound Idea?
When a violent act involves a person with mental illness there is sometimes a proposal to provide treatment and housing for the mentally ill. The mayor of New York recently said he would do so in response to some of the events there. This article in Medscape Psychiatry provides some thoughtful insights about this proposal, and also about what has been lacking in most proposals in the past.
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Matt Walsh Undercover Investigation Catches Trans Health Care Providers ‘Rubber-Stamping’ Sex-Change Surgeries
When gender dysphoria first became a more common clinical phenomenon there were multiple safeguards built in to the assessment phase before a person would be started on sex-change procedures such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries, things like a thorough psychological assessment, treatment of any other concurrent psychological issues, a certain period of time to evaluate whether treatment of other issues had minimized or eliminated the gender dysphoria, evaluation by at least two licensed mental health practitioners who would certify that the teen or young adult had long-standing gender dysphoria, etc. Matt Walsh’s undercover study found that groups in the United States who were certifying these procedures were eliminating most of these procedures and were certifying sex-change surgeries with the most minimal of evaluations.
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Any amount of alcohol could increase risk of over 60 diseases: study
It used to be widely believed that small amounts of alcohol were healthy and cardioprotective. This study by Oxford University of more than ½ a million people in China and published in the journal Nature Medicine found that even small amounts of alcohol were associated with higher levels of 60 diseases, many of which were not previously associated with alcohol consumption. So it seems that we should put to rest the previous belief that alcohol in small amounts is perfectly safe.
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Have a wonderful day or week,
Henry Virkler