Articles from the Week of February 23, 2024
Interesting Quotes
When you’re 16, 30 seems ancient. When you’re 30, 45 seems ancient. When you’re 45, 60 seems ancient. When you’re 60, nothing seems ancient.
Helen Mirren
The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.
Madeleine L'Engle
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you.
Lewis B. Smedes
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
Abraham Lincoln
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
GEORGE ORWELL
The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."
HARRIET TUBMAN
“You are my everything” is a lousy pop-song lyric and an even worse relationship plan. No one can be “everything” to anyone. Create relationships outside The Relationship, or The Relationship isn’t going to work anymore.
Matt Lundquist, LCSW, MSEd
Fascinating Facts
Can Dogs Understand Human Words?
“According to the American Psychological Association, the average dog can understand 165 words, and “super dogs” — those in the top 20% of canine intellect — can understand around 250 words. Dog intelligence can be divided into three main types: instinctive (what the dog is bred to do), adaptive (what a dog learns from its environment) and working/obedience (what a dog is trained to do). Research into the levels of working/obedience intelligence in various dog breeds shows that border collies displayed the highest levels, followed by poodles, German shepherds, and golden retrievers.”
(Source: InterestingFacts.com)
Abraham Lincoln pardoned President Joe Biden's great-great-grandfather after a Civil-War era brawl.
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Some Surprising Facts about Elephant’s Trunks
Elephant’s trunks have 40,000 muscles (humans have about 650 muscles total). With their trunks they are able to smell water up to 12 miles away (because they have more scent receptors and larger olfactory bulbs than any other mammal). (Source: InterestingFacts.com)
Women wore dresses made of flour sacks during the Depression. (Source: HistoryFacts.com)
Counseling Articles
The Data-Backed Case for Marriage
This book, just released, was written by Brad Wilcox, a professor of sociology and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. According to an article in Christianity Today each chapter introduces popular negative ideas about marriage, then presents a mountain of mainstream research and anecdotes debunking those claims.
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100 Small Acts of Love
The couple writers from the New York Times asked readers to share ways that their partners show their love to them. About 1300 people responded, and they picked 100 to share. If interested, you can find them here.
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Surgeon Who Performs Transgender Vaginoplasties: Complications ‘Can Be Pretty Bad’
A medical doctor who specializes male-to-female gender-reassignment surgeries describes the process and some of the complications that can occur. An article not for the faint-of-heart, but if you’re interested, it is available here.
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Nitazenes Have Entered the Drug Scene. Now What?
A new set of drugs is appearing with increasing frequency in street drugs. Nitazenes are synthetic opioids. Some are stronger than fentanyl, some are not as strong. But if you work in the counseling field or substance abuse field expect to hear more and more about this class of drugs in the future.
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Study finds increase in young people using multiple psychiatric drugs
This study in one unnamed state in 2020 found that approximately 10% of young people were taking three or more prescribed psychotropic medications simultaneously.
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After Working with Pedophiles for Years Psychologist Advises Parents How to Protect Their Kids
This mother and psychologist has been working as a forensic psychologist for years and now has two young children herself, one two and one seven years old. Based on what she has learned from convicted pedophiles, she has developed a protection plan that she uses with her own children and offers to all parents. If you have young children or work with parents who have young children this simple plan could be used by nearly every family. The two articles from last week have ideas which complement her ideas.
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Teachers Sue Gavin Newsom Over Policy Forcing Them to Lie About Student’s Transgender Status to Parents
In what is likely to become a precursor for other states that have laws or policies that are similar, two teachers are suing Gavin Newsom and the Attorney General of California about a new policy called the “Parental Exclusion Policy,” which forbids teachers from telling parents that their child identifies as a new gender or wants to be addressed by a new name or new pronouns during the school day.
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Playing Music Tied to Better Cognition in Later Life
I included a research study a few weeks ago that concluded something similar. This is a different study that found that playing a musical instrument or singing was associated with better cognition in later life.
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Men and women's brains do work differently, scientists discover for first time
For many decades there has been a difference of opinion in whether men’s and women’s brains worked differently because of social differences or whether there were actually biological differences in the way their brains functioned. In this study, which used MRIs paired with AI, the researchers found that there are actual differences in the ways male and female brains process the world. While it remains for further research to elaborate on these findings, these findings do confirm that there are actual objective differences that can be identified. This is from a British newspaper, the Telegraph. However, its available on a Yahoo website, which is below.
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Fixation on CO2 Ignores Real Driver of Temperature, Experts Say
This is not a counseling article, but clearly has an impact on all of our lives, since the world is spending about 5.5 trillion dollars per year to reduce carbon dioxide. According to several prominent scientists, the primary driver of rising temperatures is variations in the amount of solar activity in the sun, which goes through regular cycles of change.
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Deepfake Danger: Children Who Exploit Other Kids Online Using Pornographic Imagery
Here is another thing for parents of children and teens to be concerned about. It used to be perverted adults who would use AI to paste a naked body on the head of a person. Now many teens are skillful enough with AI that they can do the same thing to a classmate in just a few moments.
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Neuralink patient controls computer mouse with thoughts
The person who received Elon Musk’s first neuralink brain implant has reportedly fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse with his thoughts. Stay tuned for further reports on this experimental study.
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When Bipolar Comes with a Plus-One (or More)
When someone has bipolar disorder the symptoms are often so striking that we stop looking for anything else, but as this article points out, many people with bipolar disorder frequently have a second diagnosis (and sometimes even a third). The most common mental disorders that are comorbid with bipolar 1 or 2 disorder include one of the anxiety disorders, ADHD, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, OCD, or PTSD. So if you have a client with one of the bipolar disorders, be alert that there may be one or more concomitant disorders.
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Richard Dawkins Says Science is Pretty Clear about Sex
Probably most evangelical Christians do not agree with atheist Richard Dawkins on most things. But on one thing we can agree, when he says science is pretty clear that sex is binary.
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How Common Is Intellectual Disability Among Adults?
This reportedly is the first study to attempt to estimate the rate of intellectual disability in American adults. If you’re looking for a way to use your degree, this could be a possibility.
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Passive video use among toddlers can negatively affect language development
Parents frequently use videos to entertain toddlers while they complete tasks. This research discusses the impact of such usage and ways to minimize negative effects.
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The Promises and Perils of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence will be part of our future whether we would like it to be or not. Here is a Breakpoint article that briefly identifies some of the promises and perils of this developing technology. I think it’s important that we all stay aware of and involved in the critical evaluation of future developments in this field.
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I hope you have a wonderful week or weekend!
Henry Virkler