Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Winter of Our Discontent - It's Official; Our Lost Generation
As previously noted here, it has been my firm contention (since I did this college thesis in 1981) that the spiritual, mental, emotional and social demise of our nation began in 1948; the year prayer to YHWH God in our public schools was outlawed by our Supreme Court (How strange this was the same year Israel became a nation). Bible reading was banned in class here in 1963. Let me further note that this was the year of Kennedy's assassination and followed by a decade of more assassinations, race riots, youth rebellion, Viet Nam protests, inflation, and a host of other turmoils & calamities.
Today's America experiences incidents such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, "goin' postal", mass shootings, Jeffrey Dahmer, terrorism...and the likes previous generations never envisioned (Nevermind the divorce rates, personal crimes, dropout rates and the rest).
This latest study is further evidence supporting our continued decline as we've produced yet another generation separated from redemption and salvation in Christ since then.
In many ways, I fault our mainline denominations, churches, pastors, Bible colleges & seminaries for bowing to the US Gov't after the 1954 501c3 Act, legislated by none other than a young senator, Lyndon B. Johnson. The government licensing of churches with the carrot of tax exemption status while giving up the right of free speech has crippled America's pulpits. Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel would never have been silenced by such a law, or be compromised by such a paltry bribe. The pastors of early America also spoke out against both individuals and current issues that affected congregations & communities alike. Dr. William Smith, pastor of the Christ Church in Philadelphia, ignited a firestorm of revolution with his June 23, 1775 sermon, "The Present Situation of American Affairs". Would it be today that our pulpits exuded such conviction?
"Choose you this day Whom you will serve,...but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" Joshua 24:15
"Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?" Job 4:17
"... I will answer thee, that God is greater than man." Job 33:12
America, if believers in Christ do not stand forth for His Gospel, His Holiness, His righteousness, His redemption and Salvation in Him alone, and conviction against sin, & wickedness in the high places across our land, we have no excuse but to bow & cower to the gods we have set before us and to reap what we have sown...And, while I rejoice greatly in my God, my family and friends, there is NO mistaking what is happening to our nation, and I cannot sit idly by watching it occur.
_______________NEWS__________________
Today's US youth have more serious mental health issues than previous generations
CHICAGO — A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students in the U.S. are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues than youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.
The findings, culled from responses to a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938, confirm what counselors on campuses nationwide have long suspected as more students struggle with the stresses of school and life in general.
"It's another piece of the puzzle - that yes, this does seem to be a problem, that there are more young people who report anxiety and depression," says Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor and the study's lead author. "The next question is: what do we do about it?"
Though the study, released Monday, does not provide a definitive correlation, Twenge and mental health professionals speculate that a popular culture increasingly focused on the external - from wealth to looks and status - has contributed to the uptick in mental health issues.
Pulling together the data for the study was no small task. Led by Twenge, researchers at five universities analyzed the responses of 77,576 high school or college students who, from 1938 through 2007, took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI. The results will be published in a future issue of the Clinical Psychology Review.
Overall, an average of five times as many students in 2007 surpassed thresholds in one or more mental health categories, compared with those who did so in 1938. A few individual categories increased at an even greater rate - with six times as many scoring high in two areas:
-"hypomania," a measure of anxiety and unrealistic optimism (from 5 per cent of students in 1938 to 31 per cent in 2007)
-and depression (from 1 per cent to 6 per cent).
Twenge said the most current numbers may even be low given all the students taking antidepressants and other psychotropic medications, which help alleviate symptoms the survey asks about.
The study also showed increases in "psychopathic deviation," which is loosely related to psychopathic behaviour in a much milder form and is defined as having trouble with authority and feeling as though the rules don't apply to you. The percentage of young people who scored high in that category increased from 5 per cent in 1938 to 24 per cent in 2007.
Twenge previously documented the influence of pop culture pressures on young people's mental health in her 2006 book "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before." Several studies also have captured the growing interest in being rich, with 77 per cent of those questioned for UCLA's 2008 national survey of college freshmen saying it was "essential" or "very important" to be financially well off.
Experts say such high expectations are a recipe for disappointment. Meanwhile, they also note some well-meaning but overprotective parents have left their children with few real-world coping skills, whether that means doing their own budget or confronting professors on their own.
"If you don't have these skills, then it's very normal to become anxious," says Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City who hopes the new study will be a wake-up call to those parents.
Students themselves point to everything from pressure to succeed - self-imposed and otherwise - to a fast-paced world that's only sped up by the technology they love so much.
Sarah Ann Slater, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Miami, says she feels pressure to be financially successful, even when she doesn't want to.
"The unrealistic feelings that are ingrained in us from a young age - that we need to have massive amounts of money to be considered a success - not only lead us to a higher likelihood of feeling inadequate, anxious or depressed, but also make us think that the only value in getting an education is to make a lot of money, which is the wrong way to look at it," says Slater, an international studies major who plans to go to graduate school overseas.
The study is not without its skeptics, among them Richard Shadick, a psychologist who directs the counselling centre at Pace University in New York. He says, for instance, that the sample data weren't necessarily representative of all college students. (Many who answered the MMPI questionnaire were students in introductory psychology courses at four-year institutions.)
Shadick says his own experience leaves little doubt more students are seeking mental health services. But he and others think that may be due in part to heightened awareness of such services. Twenge notes the MMPI isn't given only to those who seek services.
Others, meanwhile, say the research helps advance the conversation with hard numbers.
"It actually provides some support to the observations," says Scott Hunter, director of pediatric neuropsychology at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital. Before his current post, Hunter was at the University of Virginia, where his work included counselling a growing number of students with mental health concerns.
While even Twenge concedes more research is needed to pinpoint a cause, Hunter says the study "also helps us understand what some of the reasons behind it might be." He notes Twenge's inclusion of data showing that factors such as materialism among young people have had a similar upswing. She also noted that divorce rates for their parents have gone up, which may lead to less stability.
Amid it all, Hunter says this latest generation has been raised in a "you can do anything atmosphere." And that, he says, "sets up a lot of false expectation" that inevitably leads to distress for some.
It's also meant heartache for parents.
"I don't remember it being this hard," says a mother from northern New Jersey, whose 15-year-old daughter is being treated for depression. She asked not to be identified to respect her daughter's privacy.
"We all wanted to be popular, but there wasn't this emphasis on being perfect and being super skinny," she says. "In addition, it's 'How much do your parents make?'
"I'd like to think that's not relevant, but I can't imagine that doesn't play a role."
____________________MORE NEWS______________________
Op-Ed:Invitation to Disaster, $350B in States Budgets Shortfalls in 2010, 2011
Today's America experiences incidents such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, "goin' postal", mass shootings, Jeffrey Dahmer, terrorism...and the likes previous generations never envisioned (Nevermind the divorce rates, personal crimes, dropout rates and the rest).
This latest study is further evidence supporting our continued decline as we've produced yet another generation separated from redemption and salvation in Christ since then.
In many ways, I fault our mainline denominations, churches, pastors, Bible colleges & seminaries for bowing to the US Gov't after the 1954 501c3 Act, legislated by none other than a young senator, Lyndon B. Johnson. The government licensing of churches with the carrot of tax exemption status while giving up the right of free speech has crippled America's pulpits. Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel would never have been silenced by such a law, or be compromised by such a paltry bribe. The pastors of early America also spoke out against both individuals and current issues that affected congregations & communities alike. Dr. William Smith, pastor of the Christ Church in Philadelphia, ignited a firestorm of revolution with his June 23, 1775 sermon, "The Present Situation of American Affairs". Would it be today that our pulpits exuded such conviction?
"Choose you this day Whom you will serve,...but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" Joshua 24:15
"Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?" Job 4:17
"... I will answer thee, that God is greater than man." Job 33:12
America, if believers in Christ do not stand forth for His Gospel, His Holiness, His righteousness, His redemption and Salvation in Him alone, and conviction against sin, & wickedness in the high places across our land, we have no excuse but to bow & cower to the gods we have set before us and to reap what we have sown...And, while I rejoice greatly in my God, my family and friends, there is NO mistaking what is happening to our nation, and I cannot sit idly by watching it occur.
_______________NEWS__________________
Today's US youth have more serious mental health issues than previous generations
CHICAGO — A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students in the U.S. are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues than youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.
The findings, culled from responses to a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938, confirm what counselors on campuses nationwide have long suspected as more students struggle with the stresses of school and life in general.
"It's another piece of the puzzle - that yes, this does seem to be a problem, that there are more young people who report anxiety and depression," says Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor and the study's lead author. "The next question is: what do we do about it?"
Though the study, released Monday, does not provide a definitive correlation, Twenge and mental health professionals speculate that a popular culture increasingly focused on the external - from wealth to looks and status - has contributed to the uptick in mental health issues.
Pulling together the data for the study was no small task. Led by Twenge, researchers at five universities analyzed the responses of 77,576 high school or college students who, from 1938 through 2007, took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI. The results will be published in a future issue of the Clinical Psychology Review.
Overall, an average of five times as many students in 2007 surpassed thresholds in one or more mental health categories, compared with those who did so in 1938. A few individual categories increased at an even greater rate - with six times as many scoring high in two areas:
-"hypomania," a measure of anxiety and unrealistic optimism (from 5 per cent of students in 1938 to 31 per cent in 2007)
-and depression (from 1 per cent to 6 per cent).
Twenge said the most current numbers may even be low given all the students taking antidepressants and other psychotropic medications, which help alleviate symptoms the survey asks about.
The study also showed increases in "psychopathic deviation," which is loosely related to psychopathic behaviour in a much milder form and is defined as having trouble with authority and feeling as though the rules don't apply to you. The percentage of young people who scored high in that category increased from 5 per cent in 1938 to 24 per cent in 2007.
Twenge previously documented the influence of pop culture pressures on young people's mental health in her 2006 book "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before." Several studies also have captured the growing interest in being rich, with 77 per cent of those questioned for UCLA's 2008 national survey of college freshmen saying it was "essential" or "very important" to be financially well off.
Experts say such high expectations are a recipe for disappointment. Meanwhile, they also note some well-meaning but overprotective parents have left their children with few real-world coping skills, whether that means doing their own budget or confronting professors on their own.
"If you don't have these skills, then it's very normal to become anxious," says Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City who hopes the new study will be a wake-up call to those parents.
Students themselves point to everything from pressure to succeed - self-imposed and otherwise - to a fast-paced world that's only sped up by the technology they love so much.
Sarah Ann Slater, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Miami, says she feels pressure to be financially successful, even when she doesn't want to.
"The unrealistic feelings that are ingrained in us from a young age - that we need to have massive amounts of money to be considered a success - not only lead us to a higher likelihood of feeling inadequate, anxious or depressed, but also make us think that the only value in getting an education is to make a lot of money, which is the wrong way to look at it," says Slater, an international studies major who plans to go to graduate school overseas.
The study is not without its skeptics, among them Richard Shadick, a psychologist who directs the counselling centre at Pace University in New York. He says, for instance, that the sample data weren't necessarily representative of all college students. (Many who answered the MMPI questionnaire were students in introductory psychology courses at four-year institutions.)
Shadick says his own experience leaves little doubt more students are seeking mental health services. But he and others think that may be due in part to heightened awareness of such services. Twenge notes the MMPI isn't given only to those who seek services.
Others, meanwhile, say the research helps advance the conversation with hard numbers.
"It actually provides some support to the observations," says Scott Hunter, director of pediatric neuropsychology at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital. Before his current post, Hunter was at the University of Virginia, where his work included counselling a growing number of students with mental health concerns.
While even Twenge concedes more research is needed to pinpoint a cause, Hunter says the study "also helps us understand what some of the reasons behind it might be." He notes Twenge's inclusion of data showing that factors such as materialism among young people have had a similar upswing. She also noted that divorce rates for their parents have gone up, which may lead to less stability.
Amid it all, Hunter says this latest generation has been raised in a "you can do anything atmosphere." And that, he says, "sets up a lot of false expectation" that inevitably leads to distress for some.
It's also meant heartache for parents.
"I don't remember it being this hard," says a mother from northern New Jersey, whose 15-year-old daughter is being treated for depression. She asked not to be identified to respect her daughter's privacy.
"We all wanted to be popular, but there wasn't this emphasis on being perfect and being super skinny," she says. "In addition, it's 'How much do your parents make?'
"I'd like to think that's not relevant, but I can't imagine that doesn't play a role."
____________________MORE NEWS______________________
Haiti's capital shattered by powerful 7.0 earthquake
Priest states Holocaust toll much higher
Report suggests a year of high unemployment aheadNYC:Further Slide Seen in Commercial Real Estate
Geithner's NY Fed told AIG to keep quiet on deals
Winter Breaks Budgets and Rules the Road
Race Riots Grip Italian Town, and Mafia Is Suspected
3 Malaysian churches attacked in 'Allah' dispute
Op-Ed:Invitation to Disaster, $350B in States Budgets Shortfalls in 2010, 2011
Oxford, Cambridge universities face 'meltdown'
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Profits of Doom - The Jackals always lurk in the shadows
For many Americans in these times, realizing the consequences of excess has become a bitter, harsh reality. For more than a few, having a job, making your house payment and having food on the table are now daily reasons for giving thanks for Providential grace. Yet, even in the worst of days for many, jackals emerge from the shadows to take spoil at the expense of the less fortunate. Such has ever been the case throughout history, whether it be a conquering nation, or neighbors pillaging an evicted neighbor's curbside belongings.
It seems we never thought it would happen to us...maybe to someone else in another country, or in another city, or across town, but not on our street, not in our homes. As "For Sale" signs pop up like dandelion weeds, and linger for months on end, many worry they are the next victim. Hopelessness and despair have become unwanted companions many never wanted, nor envisioned...
Ya know? I pray for those who profit from doom, as well as the prophets of doom. It is never my intention nor design to be either, but to wake up those who would take heed as to what is happening in us, and around us. I pray for our nation and our leaders to realize the folly of their ways, and to seek the face of God in repentance and forgiveness. Our land can be healed, but only through His power, mercy and grace. Our own efforts are failing miserably. We have set other gods before us, and they have no power at all...
_____________________NEWS_____________________
It seems we never thought it would happen to us...maybe to someone else in another country, or in another city, or across town, but not on our street, not in our homes. As "For Sale" signs pop up like dandelion weeds, and linger for months on end, many worry they are the next victim. Hopelessness and despair have become unwanted companions many never wanted, nor envisioned...
Ya know? I pray for those who profit from doom, as well as the prophets of doom. It is never my intention nor design to be either, but to wake up those who would take heed as to what is happening in us, and around us. I pray for our nation and our leaders to realize the folly of their ways, and to seek the face of God in repentance and forgiveness. Our land can be healed, but only through His power, mercy and grace. Our own efforts are failing miserably. We have set other gods before us, and they have no power at all...
_____________________NEWS_____________________
Real Estate in Cape Coral, Fla., Is Far From a Recovery
Mortgage rates keep rising; 30-year ends year at 5.14%
U.S. stocks may struggle in 2010 as stimulus money ebbs
U.S. Loan Effort Is Seen as Adding to Housing Woes
For Some in Japan, Home Is a Tiny Plastic Bunk
Living on Nothing but Food Stamps
Monday, December 21, 2009
Peace, Peace, Yet there is no peace...I remember
I remember the seventh grade, 1968, the last year of Bible reading and prayer in our school. Our homeroom teacher, a part-time minister, always opened the morning with a verse and prayer. It was a time of lost innocence, as puberty and hormones were in full overdrive, and would continue for some time to come.
But, it was more than that, it was a time of both personal and national confusion. It seemed everything started to lose its way; Our home life, our school, our community, and very much, our nation. In the years following, it didn't get better, only worse. Over the next several years, a host of calamities rocked my own little world, and my nation at large: The continuing Viet Nam "police action" (and our disillusionment with it), Kent State (our National Guard firing upon university students), a national economic crisis (gas embargo, groceries and interest rates skyrocketing), Israel attacked, escalating another war and Middle East tensions, and in my own school, racial riots destroyed an institution and a community. Was there any correlation between our spiritual disconnect from Almighty God and the chaos afterwards? In retrospect, it seems altogether a certainty.
Yet, we strived for peace; a pull-out in Viet Nam, the Camp David Peace Accord, a petro deal with OPEC, and things looked like they might get better, or at least, subside. But then, Congress had a budget crisis, and paralyzed our government for three months, an arms embargo with Turkey heightened more tensions, and most direly, Iran seized our Embassy, and took hundreds of hostages. Confusion, calamity and chaos ruled again. Even in this time of grave darkness, God in His infinite mercy, gave us a man of faith and hope, Ronald Reagan. Yet, we didn't heed the spiritual warnings, but used RR for our own prosperity and gain. Although pockets of revival broke out, and the Christian right was born, our nation still wanted to seek its own way; materialism, atheism, abortion rights, living off credit, greater government spending, socialization, and intrusion were what the masses AND the power brokers wanted. And we pursued that end even to this day.
Yet the warnings still came; our ships and more embassies attacked by Muslim radicals, violent hurricanes pounded the Southeast, fires in California, droughts in the West & Mid-West, floods in the Ohio valley region, record snows and blizzards in the Northeast, invasion of Kuwait and a short "war", and then, the first bomb attempt on the World Trade Center. Our leaders believed peace through negotiation, appeasement and consolation would set it all aright... But the worst was yet to come, and we hold our breath even now.
Sept. 11, 2001 shocked us to the core. Wall St. was already reeling from the tech and dot.com bust in April. And we went to war, first in Iraq, then Afghanistan...and we're still there. Two years ago, the mortgage and real estate markets collapsed, and are still treading water. The commercial real estate, bond & Treasury markets are waiting in the wings to implode. Rampant government spending and ensuing inflation are already in the works. We're in the worst financial, economic, social, educational, government AND Spiritual crisis in our history, and yet, we still don't remember...the God of our fathers.
____________________NEWS______________________
Feds shutter 7 banks for a total of 140 failures this year
FDIC Billions in the Red
China Warns Obama Deficit Spending Must Stop
Citadel Broadcasting files bankruptcy protection
Dubai Wavers On Debt Default
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Generation of Fear
American generations past, our grandparents & great-grandparents, never knew retirement, Social Security, Medicare, instant gratification, and all the other amenities & entrapments of our present day society. What made our parents, us, and our children think it would always be so?
Now we see it all slipping away, eroding daily by selfishness, greed & overindulgence by every American who has the means & will to do so. But, it's not just an American failure, it's a global failure. Although third-world nations have suffered continually, now nearly every industrialized nation is experiencing the aftermath of extreme gluttony; inflated wealth & prosperity, too fast growth & girth, over abundance of credit & flatulence, irresponsible spending & binging, along with the heartburn of bankruptcies, foreclosures, too many bills, and runaway taxation. And yet, we're still stuffing ourselves...
Sadly, all levels of government are not only partakers in this gluttony, they are enablers as well. Their social programs not only encourage gluttony off the public teat, but promote sloth, apathy, indifference and parasitism from one generation to the next. Although they isolate themselves, along with their power & money broker cronies, in their halls & mansions of conspicuous consumption, their ideas and enactments of wealth redistribution only apply to the masses. They think that as long as they toss the moldy bread and fatty hamburger to the piranhic populace, the crisis is abated while they engorge on filet mignon. Yet, their filet mignon came with a huge price tag and fraudulent financing which even now they are unable to sustain. So, now they must mandate stricter rules, regulations and taxation to bleed the nation dry in order to maintain their existence.
_________________NEWS__________________
American Rural Elderly Eke Out a Different Life
George Burgess, 96, drives into Torrington, Wyo., every day for a hot lunch, but worries about renewing his driver's license.
Georgia Unemployment Funding Nearly Gone
Greece on the Brink of National Bankruptcy
Op-Ed: The Do-it Yourself Recession
Now we see it all slipping away, eroding daily by selfishness, greed & overindulgence by every American who has the means & will to do so. But, it's not just an American failure, it's a global failure. Although third-world nations have suffered continually, now nearly every industrialized nation is experiencing the aftermath of extreme gluttony; inflated wealth & prosperity, too fast growth & girth, over abundance of credit & flatulence, irresponsible spending & binging, along with the heartburn of bankruptcies, foreclosures, too many bills, and runaway taxation. And yet, we're still stuffing ourselves...
Sadly, all levels of government are not only partakers in this gluttony, they are enablers as well. Their social programs not only encourage gluttony off the public teat, but promote sloth, apathy, indifference and parasitism from one generation to the next. Although they isolate themselves, along with their power & money broker cronies, in their halls & mansions of conspicuous consumption, their ideas and enactments of wealth redistribution only apply to the masses. They think that as long as they toss the moldy bread and fatty hamburger to the piranhic populace, the crisis is abated while they engorge on filet mignon. Yet, their filet mignon came with a huge price tag and fraudulent financing which even now they are unable to sustain. So, now they must mandate stricter rules, regulations and taxation to bleed the nation dry in order to maintain their existence.
_________________NEWS__________________
American Rural Elderly Eke Out a Different Life
George Burgess, 96, drives into Torrington, Wyo., every day for a hot lunch, but worries about renewing his driver's license.
Georgia Unemployment Funding Nearly Gone
Greece on the Brink of National Bankruptcy
Op-Ed: The Do-it Yourself Recession
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