Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.07 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3628 days ago & DAD = 282 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.06 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3627 days ago & DAD = 280 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
And I guess that's the only one so far. I thought I had posted some of my writings on theory.
Oh, well, I did post about my grade point (4.0) and my experience at the Dharma Rain Zen Buddhism Center, too.
But not others. Perhaps I will share more. I like a lot of my essays on theory.
So, this quarter, in week one of the class on human development or Life Span, we were asked to respond as to whether or not we felt people were powerless to change.
It's a strange question because it is commonly believed that people enter into a therapeutic relationship seeking change.
Perhaps those who do not seek out therapy are powerless to change, though a better conceptualization should be that they are unwilling to change.
Others face great difficulties in changing aspects of their life, aspects of themselves. Trauma roots deep within the psyche and makes change difficult. In some cases, people are unaware of the full extent of their trauma. I should have written in my post about EMDR, especially as I know someone well who does EMDR with clients in mental health service.
There's a lot of repression out there that can be uprooted to heal people and help them change and move forward.
Also, an unwillingness to change may result from denial that a change is needed. I am told often about my deeply embedded white male privilege, and I listen and try to improve whereas others deny that such a thing even exists let alone resulting in toxic masculinity or patriarchy.
We all love to rationalize. As was stated in one of the best movies ever made, The Big Chill:
"Rationalizations are more important than sex."
At which point, someone balked and the retort was:
"Have you ever tried to go a week with a rationalization?"
It's very true.
And people use rationalizations to deny that change is needed or to believe that they have changed sufficiently.
We love to trick ourselves.
Kicking a drug or alcohol habit is very difficult.
Healing from the trauma of abuse is also extremely painful and a very long process for some people who have suffered greatly. In some cases, unearthing repressed memories so the person even knows what trauma they are holding is just the first step.
I didn't write about most of those things.
I kept it general, and I wrote about Jung, one of my favorite topics.
My short essay is below.
Thanks for tuning in.
I have used this image above so many times that I created a category for it just so I could find it and use it again.
I did not take this picture (at least I don't think I did), but I might have.
I believe it is a picture from the UK somewhere, but it's hard to verify that with what we see in the photo. I do not know what those Q signs are, and although the parking payment kiosk looks like those out here, I am pretty sure this is a picture from the UK. I can't really zoom into the picture, and my quick Internet search did turn up this image.
I did an image search (uploading the image), and though I could not find this picture, all the results were from the UK and most from locations in Scotland; however, my image file does not date from the last time I was in Scotland, so I am pretty sure I didn't take it.
All of that analysis is more for me than for you, but I hope you found it interesting if you read it.
Week One Discussion MAIN POST
COUN-6215-18 - Lifespan
I lived a lot of my life not being a friend of change. I moved out west in 2017; I didn’t want to. I had lived in Michigan my entire life, and I had built strong communities and great comfort in my home town of Kalamazoo. I had spent years avoiding or even actively resisting change in many aspects of my life. We moved our west in 2017. At first, I was deeply depressed and besieged by home-sickness; however, within a little over a year, I fell in love with my new home and decided it was one of the best decisions I ever made. We now live in a little town called Kalama, Washington, which seems fated to be given it’s similarity in name to my long-time home of Kalamazoo.
I am a lifelong Jungian, ever since my first-year college religion courses introduced me to the writing of Carl Jung. Though Freud is a good starting point for understanding the development of personality across the life span, one flaw of the first chapter of the Broderick & Blewitt (2025) text is the omission of Jung’s ideas on the development of the personality that are a bridge of more deeply developed ideas between Freudian ideology and comprehensive work of Erickson and Piaget (pp. 7-11). Other than leaving out Jung, I like our textbook very much.
People are innately oriented to change whether they feel empowered to change or not. Conscious effort to make changes that benefit a person have more dramatic results. Therapists can aid the change clients desire with proper application of theoretical frameworks, treatments, and keeping abreast of scholarly and non-scholarly writings in psychology and counseling. Some changes like developing greater empathy, allowing more laughter and smiles, and integrating unconscious contents into consciousness can be encouraged with clients in alignment with the client’s personal goals.
Are People Powerless to Change?
Throughout their lives, people can always change if they are willing to change and are willing to examine the aspects of themselves preventing them from changing or interfering with their ability to even identify that a change may be needed. The use of the word “powerless” in this assignment prompt seems strange to ask of counselors-in-training. Are we not to believe that people are never “powerless” in regards to their lives? If so, what would be the point of therapy? And so, yes, change is always possible, though it may be difficult to achieve, and people may often resist what changes would most benefit them, much like my own experience of moving west. Left to my own devices, I would still be living in Michigan and continue to rationalize that where one lives is less important than what one is doing with one’s time. Though I still believe that rationalization ion some ways, moving has transformed my life in many positive respects, proving the validity of making changes to improve one’s life.
A central axiom for therapy may be “growth mindset” in regards to the development of the individual. Carl Jung referred to the developmental concept of the personality as the process of individuation and claims that effective psychotherapy is always directed toward growth. There can be no growth without change. Jung argued that unconscious or repressed aspects of the personality need to be made conscious and integrated into the unified whole of the personality (Hall & Nordby, 1973, pp. 81-85). Jung believed that a person is naturally directed toward wholeness and balance, as such all of his structures of the personality are yin-yang type dualities with which balance can be achieved by making unconscious contents conscious. Possibly the most important of these is the ego-shadow dualism. Jung posited that a shadow (the unconscious side) that remains repressed weakens the ego and leads a person to “collapse into helplessness” (Hall & Nordby, 1973, pp. 51), very much the idea of “powerlessness” named in the assignment prompt. However, integration of the shadow into consciousness leads to vitality, creativity, and vigor. Similarly, if introverts integrate their unconscious extravert side, they grow and make progress in the lifelong process of individuation. However, people can only employ growth mindset in regards to their unconscious if they believe it exists and if they accept the need to evolve in this way. Without the commitment to change, there can be no growth.
Though early childhood was integral to Freud’s theories of personality and Erickson equalized development through the life span, Jung believed that middle age was the “second half of life” and a stage most marked by the desire for self-examination and in-depth psychoanalysis (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 75). However, Jung’s view of growth differed from those of other psychological theorists. Jung ascribed to the etymological meaning of “education” as something that draws out, molds, or brings up something inside of a person, not as a process of people as empty containers being filled with knowledge. He believed that the structures of personality exist in wholeness from the start and are in a nascent state throughout life, waiting to emerge. The middle years were the time Jung individuated the most, especially after the “dark night of the soul” he experienced serving in combat in World War One, and thus identified it as the most latent time in a person’s life for change. Jung’s beliefs about individuation, especially during middle age, align with what Broderick and Blewit (2025) describe as incremental models for development as change does not usually happen all at once but in steady ways or in key stages (pp. 11-12). Integrating Jung into my practice along with many other people’s ideas fits Broderick and Blewit’s (2025) definition of “reflective practice,” a creative and person-focused hypothesis method (p.3), one which can be argued has its origins in Jungian Analytical Psychology.
Influence on Future Work as a Counselor
Change cannot be forced. People cannot change until they are ready. I talk with my own therapist about this issue a great deal because I am curious about clients who never change and just return to therapy again and again with no progress, no growth. How do we help them? For instance, I might think a client is in an abusive relationship, and if it were my relationship, I would end it. However, it will not be my job to convince the client to end a relationship unless they say that they want to end it (or there’s some great harm at work mandating a different approach). Granted, the abused often make excuses to stay with an abuser. But it’s not my place to convince but rather to listen, to reflect, to validate as needed, and to support with unconditional positive regard. Or what if someone lacks spiritual expression in their lives, which has been shown to have significant influence on mental health? Or what if someone always dwells on the negative and never sees the positive, also a mindset that has detrimental effects? These questions provide good starting points for a therapist to uncover ways to help clients to grow and change if they are open to such changes.
My future work as counselor will be strongly influenced by current research in the field. As someone who believes as strongly in the nature side of the nature-nurture debate and agrees with Broderick and Blewit’s (2025) reminder of the “complex interdependence” (p. 20) of these two forces. Something that demonstrates this interdependence can be seen in Davila-Ross & Dezecache’s (2021) study of the phylogenetic continuity of laughter and smiles in hominids that evolved in frequent social interactions among humans. They argued that laughter and smiles “promote social cohesion and the development of cognitive and socio-emotional skills” and are expressions of “positive affect deeply grounded in human biology” (pp. 1-2). The authors concluded the evolutionary foundation of such expressions in the ancestral species dating as far back as 10-16 million years. Collecting data via brain scans, the authors confirmed the beneficial effects of such joyful outbursts and how they strengthen social relationships (p.5). However, too often stress and anxiety interfere with the ability of humans to enjoy their lives and these moments of mirthful happiness. Jung would approve of the hard-wired nature of this human trait as strong evidence on the nature side of the nature-nurture debate. Laughter swaps the anxiety-produced cortisol flooding humans with dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins, which have many positive effects from enhanced learning to empathy (NLI Staff, 2020). As Jung suggested that people work in therapy to bring out what is already within, the nascent propensity for joy through laughter and smiling is an easy change to encourage in clients without trying to leverage a more dramatic change that might not be a therapist’s place to promote.
Like joyful laughter, empathy plays a critical role in human development and can be stunted in adolescence by use of tobacco. Goering et al. (2025) investigated substance use’s effects on empathy and epigenetic aging and the GrimAge clock finding that lower (or no) tobacco use was associated with better health outcomes, higher empathy, and slower epigenetic aging, promoting health and longevity across the life span (p. 723). Though Goering et al. (2025) grounded their conclusions in data-collection and analysis, others such as Petersen (2024) warned those in the fields of psychology from errant assumptions “of continuity in behavior form, function, and/or mechanism” that lead to faulty inferences about behavior and development (p. 1992). Petersen (2024) argued that paying attention to continuity and discontinuity across the life span will lead to more accurate identification of personality constructs and their causes (p. 2004). All these articles and others I am always seeking will serve to help me best focus my efforts in helping clients to help themselves.
Circling back to the initial prompt for this assignment, when I have heard people admit to being “powerless” to change, it sounds like a cop out. I have a friend who has been in and out of therapy their entire life, hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and their reason for stopping therapy was “this is as good as it gets.” My reaction to that statement mirrors my reaction to people when they say “it is what it is,” a phrase I dislike very much. Sure, some things are unchangeable, and they are what they are, like the earth orbiting the sun... no wait, that could change. Humans needing oxygen? We could probably change that one. I am sure there’s something. But when it comes to human, anyone can change. The ultimate end of this analysis is that as therapists our goal will be to empower clients not reinforce their surrender to not growing, not evolving. I hope to empower myself in all the ways described in this post to encourage clients to have a growth mindset.
Thanks for reading.
~ peace, chris tower, your friend in learning!
“Always look on the bright side” - from THE LIFE OF BRIAN
"Please don't tear this world asunder
Please take back this fear we're under
I demand a better future" ~ David Bowie
References
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2025). The life span: Human development for helping professionals (6th ed.). Pearson Education.
Davila-Ross, M., & Dezecache, G. (2021). The complexity and phylogenetic continuity of laughter and smiles in hominids. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648497.
Goering, M., Moore, A., Barker-Kamps, M., Patki, A., Tiwari, H. K., & Mrug, S. (2025). Adolescent empathy and epigenetic aging in adulthood: Substance use as a mediator. Developmental Psychology, 61(4), 714–725. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001893.
Haley, M., Riley, P. G., & Greenan, G. (2022). Jungian Analytical Theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 165-192). American Counseling Association.
Hall, C. & Nordby, V. (1973). A Primer of Jungian Psychology. Meridian. New York, New York.
NLI Staff. (2020, September 17). “The Neuroscience of Laughter, and How to Inspire More of It at Work.” Neuroleadership Institute. https://neuroleadership.com/your-brain-at-work/neuroscience-laughter-at-work/
Petersen, I. T. (2024). Reexamining developmental continuity and discontinuity in the 21st century: Better aligning behaviors, functions, and mechanisms. Developmental Psychology, 60(11), 1992–2007. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001657.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.05 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3626 days ago & DAD = 280 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
Police said Soliman also hurled Molotov cocktails at the demonstrators.
The attack occurred 11 days after two Israeli Embassy workers were gunned down and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.
Let me start this post (one I have had in the draft queue for over a year) that Hamas is a brutal, terrorist organization.
I do not condone Hamas' murders and hostage-taking. I do not condone Soliman's attempt to burn Jews alive as they peaceful demonstrate. I do not condone assassinating two people because they work for the Israeli Embassy.
In regards to both recent attacks, it is unknown whether or not these people support the actions of the Israeli government, namely one man, desperate to cling to power, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Because to be clear, the oppression of the Palestinian people before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7th 2023 is Apartheid. It is fascist. It is de-humanizing. Human Rights violations galore.
And what Israel has done since, in response to Hamas' attacks, is clearly genocide by extreme Zionists wishing to exterminate that Palestinian people and remove all from the Gaza strip to make way for not just a new Riviera but the Third Temple of Jerusalem and the coming of the Messiah.
And so, the Colorado and Washington attacks, as well as the attacks by Hamas, make sense and have justification, even though they are horrible and condemnable.
The Colorado demonstrators simply seemed to be trying to remind people of all the hostages still in the hands of Hamas. They did not seem to be advocating for the genocide of the Palestinian people or the war crimes of the Israeli government.
The reporting by the major media outlets in the United States has been terrible in regards to what's really going on over there and what had been going on for decades.
And the New York Times faced intense backlash for its expose of Israeli misinformation about what Hamas has done.
The video and its transcript by Rebecca Watson makes clear using critical thinking what Hamas has and has not done (the decapitated babies claim is totally false) and also what Israel has done.
I encourage you to watch the video and/or read transcript as well as reading the supporting materials.
Big ol’ content warning before I start today, friends: I’m going to be talking about atrocities, including murder and sexual assault and war and genocide and, I mean, just name a terrible thing. I’m probably gonna talk about it right now.
Rebecca Watson
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Links + transcript available at
/ 99941278
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ABOUT: Rebecca Watson is the founder of the Skepchick Network, a collection of sites focused on science and critical thinking. She has written for outlets such as Slate, Popular Science, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. She's also the host of Quiz-o-tron, a rowdy, live quiz show that pits scientists against comedians. Asteroid 153289 Rebeccawatson is named after her (her real name being 153289).
Big ol’ content warning before I start today, friends: I’m going to be talking about atrocities, including murder and sexual assault and war and genocide and, I mean, just name a terrible thing. I’m probably gonna talk about it right now.
Back in December, feminists came under attack from the likes of Sheryl Sandberg, former chief operating officer of Facebook and famed proponent of solving sexism by adjusting the tilt of your upper body. Sandberg spoke in front of the United Nations to condemn “Hamas’ use of sexual violence as a war tactic,” as CNN reported at the time.
The previous month, the New York Times reported that “Israeli police officials shared more evidence on Tuesday of atrocities committed during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, saying they had collected testimonies from more than a thousand witnesses and survivors about sexual violence and other abuses.
“At a news briefing, Kobi Shabtai, Israel’s police chief, showed videos taken from the body cameras of slain terrorists, surveillance footage, crime-scene photographs and a video of an Israeli woman who said she had seen Hamas terrorists gang-raping a young woman whom they captured during a music festival in the desert.”
This was truly horrific news, of course, so why weren’t feminists rushing to condemn Hamas’s actions?
“Silence is complicity,” Sandberg said on stage in December. “And in the face of terror, we cannot be quiet. That is why we are all here today to speak about unspeakable acts.”
She invited New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to the stage, who admonished feminists for their silence: “When I saw the list of women’s rights organizations who have said nothing, I nearly choked,” Gillibrand said. “Where is the solidarity for women in this country and in this world to stand up for our mothers, our sisters and our daughters?”
Hilary Clinton joined in, “calling on the global community to respond to “weaponized sexual violence where ever it happens with absolute condemnation.”
“There can be no justifications and no excuses,” Clinton said. “Rape as a weapon of war is a crime against humanity.”
“Organizations, governments and individuals who are committed to a better future for women and girls have a responsibility to condemn all violence against women,” Clinton implored. “It is outrageous that some who claim to stand for justice are closing their eyes and in their hearts to the victims of Hamas.”
Hamas denied these allegations, but they did murder or kidnap hundreds of Israeli civilians so no one really took them seriously. Israel claimed to have “thousands of statements, photographs and video clips, including evidence of “girls whose pelvises were broken they had been raped so much.”” Must be true, then, right?
Speaking as one of those feminists who has been deafeningly silent on this topic for several months now, it turns out no, it does not appear to be true.
Later that month, the New York Times published their investigation into Hamas’s use of sexual assault as a war tactic in a piece titled, “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7,” written by three people: the Pulitizer Prize winning reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, a food writer new to journalism named Adam Sella, and Sella’s aunt by marriage who had never done any journalistic investigation, Anat Schwartz.
The piece was immediately criticized, both by experts at other institutions and by journalists within the New York Times. Unlike the previous New York Times piece claiming that Israel had vast amounts of forensic data, the new piece said there was none–only eyewitness testimony. The “Screams Without Words” headline of the piece came from one such witness; it was a quote from a man who said he witnessed a woman being raped at the Nova music festival–a man who was very clear and insistent that the rapists were just ordinary men and NOT Hamas militants at all.
Making matters much worse, the family of one supposed Israeli rape victim at the center of the New York Times story came forward to say that she was definitively not raped, with her sister stating, “At 6:51, Gal sent us a message on WhatsApp saying ‘we are at the border, and you can’t imagine sounds of explosions around us.’ At 7 o’clock, my brother-in-law called his brother and said they shot Gal and she’s dying. It doesn’t make any sense that in four minutes, they raped her, slaughtered her, and burned her?”
At the New York Times, they’ll often turn their biggest stories into podcast episodes for The Daily, but The Intercept discovered in January that the episode was put on ice due to an inability to get past basic fact-checking.
Finally, just last week The Intercept published a lengthy, detailed investigation that exposes the New York Times article, and the previous statements from Israel, as blatant propaganda. Anat Schwartz, who prior to this investigation had liked posts on social media suggesting Gaza be turned into a “slaughterhouse,” admitted that she was unable to find a single case of sexual assault reported to any hospitals, rape crisis centers, trauma recovery facilities, or sex assault hotlines, leading to her basing the entire story on testimony from people with a tenuous relationship with the truth, like a man who claimed to have seen “Arabic sentences that were written on entrances to houses … with the blood of the people that were living in the houses,” a thing that absolutely never happened. That man also claimed to have seen two sisters who had been raped and murdered, but investigators were unable to find anyone who matched the description of those girls in that kibbutz. In later interviews he changed it to a different kibbutz, which also had no girls fitting his description.
I encourage you to read The Intercept’s investigation in full because it is very, very important. There is absolutely no evidence for the idea that Hamas used rape as a weapon of war. Did Hamas militants commit any sexual assaults? Anyone who has ever studied any war in the history of humanity knows the answer is probably yes, just like it’s equally likely that IDF soldiers have sexually assaulted Palestinians, as documented in this report from experts at the UN who say there’s evidence for “Palestinian women and girls in detention (being) subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.”
Sexual violence against women will always be an aspect of war. But the New York Times, along with Sheryl Sandberg, Kirsten Gillebrand, Hillary Clinton, and many others have spread blatant propaganda that Hamas planned to specifically rape and sexually assault women as a tactic of war. That apparent lie directly enabled Israel to continue a massacre that as of this recording has resulted in more than 30,000 dead Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children, with thousands more missing and thousands more at risk of dying of starvation. These numbers are, according to researchers who published a study in December in the Lancet, extremely accurate.
And that’s why, when I first heard the terrible news about Hamas using rape as a war tactic, despite accepting that it was possible, I said exactly NOTHING. Because yes, I’m a feminist who has serious concerns about violence against women, but I’m also a critical thinker who understands that war, like natural catastrophes, by default comes with misinformation. And unlike earthquakes and hurricanes and floods, war also includes propaganda, purposeful disinformation, as a major component.
A few months back during my monthly Patreon livestream, someone asked how to go about fighting disinformation in this conflict, and the bad news is that the very best thing most of us can do is to do nothing. Do not hit that retweet button, or whatever cringey thing Elon Musk calls it now. Because there is simply no way for the average person to combat misinformation when the misinformation is something like “terrorists just beheaded 40 babies in one Israeli community.” I had friends sending me that, and all I could do was sound like an unsympathetic monster and say “well maybe we should just wait to be sure that’s confirmed.”
A friend expressed sadness that such a horrific crime had happened and that people seemed to care more about Israel’s immediate response than at this barbaric action, and sent me this strident Wonkette article published on October 11. “Raping people to death and chopping babies’ heads off is not “resisting,”” wrote Rebecca Schoenkopf, excoriating commenters who pointed out Israel’s complicity in the horror. “It amazes me that this needs to be said. And in no universe do I want to hear your acerbic asides about what Israel’s done to deserve it. Listen to your fucking self.
“I will ban the fuck out of you if you even look at me funny, if you manage to sneak in some pro-Hamas comments in a post on which I didn’t already disallow comments.”
Today we know with near certainty that the “40 beheaded babies” never existed, with no journalists ever being able to find a single scrap of evidence that it happened and the IDF never bothering to offer any, but even the day she published that piece, more serious people than me had already raised serious concerns about the validity of the IDF’s claim. It was very wholly in the “unconfirmed” bin. But here, Schoenkopf used it to stoke anger against not just Hamas, and not just against all Palestinians, but pointedly against people who quite rightly worried about Israel using the October 7th attack as an excuse to massacre Palestinians.
By the time this claim was thoroughly investigated and debunked, it had already served its purpose: disgusting the average American into supporting the BILLIONS of tax dollars we give to Israel to rain bombs down upon houses and hospitals and refugee camps. When confronted with the truth the following day, instead of deleting her post, Shoenkopf merely edited in a note saying, well, her point still stands.
But as we cried over 40 babies who never existed, within that week Israel had murdered 724 Palestinian children. By the end of November, Israel had murdered an estimated 5,500 Palestinian children. And while the IDF still refused to share video or other evidence of the 40 decapitated babies, video WAS readily available to show five premature Palestinian babies who were left to die and decompose in Al-Nasr Hospital after the IDF, according to a nurse with Doctors Without Borders, forced doctors to abandon the hospital but assured the medical staff that they would take care of the patients. Despite a whole lot of evidence for this act, including the videos and the reports from the medical staff, confirmation from forensic pathologists, and additional reporting from a journalist who visited the hospital to confirm that the corpses were still there, the IDF ironically had this to say: “these allegations are not only false but also a perverse exploitation of innocent lives, used as tools to spread dangerous misinformation.”
Every accusation, a confession it seems.
Of course, this is also the first time I’m publicly discussing THAT story. Why? Because while there is far more evidence that it happened than for the 40 decapitated babies or the systemic use of rape, there is still uncertainty. Looking at the evidence, it seems to me that the only wiggle room is whether the babies did in fact die after the IDF forced doctors to evacuate or whether they died earlier due to the IDF bombing the area into a blackout and rendering the ventilators useless, but I don’t know what I don’t know. Any specific act of brutality might be clouded by the chaos that always accompanies war. All I can state without caveat is the broader picture: that Israel is massacring vast numbers of innocent Palestinians using guns and tanks and bombs paid for with my tax dollars and there should be a ceasefire and hostage negotiation right now.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.04 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3625 days ago & DAD = 279 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.03 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3624 days ago & DAD = 278 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3758 - "Wish You Were Here" - Playing for Change - Afro Fiesta - and SIX more for June - Music Monday for 2506.02
This version of Pink Floyd's song "Wish You Were Here" from the 1975 album of the same name came up in my You Tube feed. and it was such a unique version that I decided it was worth posting for Music Monday.
Also, I miss my parents. I don't want to say I miss my Dad more than I miss my Mom, but Dad's death is the more recent one, so that could be considered the most painful.
June is a Dad month as his birthday falls on the 26th just a little over a week after Father's Day.
Though the Pink Floyd song is considered a tribute to founding band member Syd Barrett, it is universal enough to apply to anyone's experience, something Roger Waters has said many times as he's unwilling to limit the song by defining it as specifically for Syd.
I have posted two Playing For Change songs before:
What follows is a video of Afro Fiesta covering the Pink Floyd song and lyrics. After that, I am sharing six more Playing for Change songs for the sixth month of the year, June, my Dad's birth month.
I miss you, Dad, which is something I have written several times since last August, 277 days ago. I have written how I miss my Mom even more often in 3623 days since she died. It's like an incantation. Each time I say it, the saying of it (or writing of it) drains more of the pain from the experience.
And this Afro Fiesta performance is a great cover of the Pink Floyd classic.
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell blue skies from pain Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year Running over the same old ground What have you found? The same old fears Wish you were here
NOTE: I have never been a big Steve Miller Band fan. I don't own any of the albums, despite the ubiquitous appearance of the Greatest Hits albums every where. I had never really paid any attention to what songs were by this band, even though I have heard them a million times. I am sure at some point I knew that "Fly Like An Eagle" was by the Steve Miller Band, but finding this video brought the fact to the forefront of my consciousness. It is actually a really good song.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.02 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3623 days ago & DAD = 277 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
