Mental Health

By Mattea Kramer and Sean Fogler ( Tomdispatch.com ) – The United States has been in the throes of a mental health and overdose crisis so severe it has spanned five presidential administrations and been classified as an official state of emergency in three of them. No one knows exactly how this emergency will play […]

Congress

Crackpot U.S. Senator Threatens to Invade Netherlands over ICC Warrants against Israel’s Netanyahu

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – US Senator, Tom Cotton, has threatened military action against the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, invoking a controversial US law known as “The Hague Invasion Act”. In an inflammatory statement on social media, […]

Children

Innocence is under Siege, with a psychological Toll on Gaza’s Children

Middle East Monitor

By Aijaz Ahmad Mir | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The ongoing conflict in occupied Palestine has had a major effect on the mental well-being of Palestinian children. The trauma of living in a war-ravaged region, enduring displacement and witnessing extreme violence can result in a variety of mental health concerns, such as […]

Islam

Learning about Patience and Impatience: Top Three Principles from the Great Sufi Scholar al-Ghazali

The Conversation

By Liz Bucar, Northeastern University | – From childhood, we are told that patience is a virtue and that good things will come to those who wait. And, so, many of us work on cultivating patience. This often starts by learning to wait for a turn with a coveted toy. As adults, it becomes trying […]

Algeria

The Middle East Ranks at the Bottom of Gallup’s Happiness Index, except for Rich Oil States; is the US to Blame?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The annual Gallup report on happiness by country came out this week. It is based on a three-year average of polling. What struck me in their report is how unhappy the Middle East is. The only Middle Eastern country in the top twenty is Kuwait (for the first time in […]

Addiction

“Helping” People by Shaming Them — and Canceling Their Civil Rights

Tomdispatch

By Mattea Kramer and Sean Fogler ( Tomdispatch.com) – Amid ongoing emergencies, including a would-be autocrat on his way to possibly regaining the American presidency and Israel’s war on Gaza (not to mention the flare-ups of global climate change), the U.S. has slipped quietly toward an assault on civil liberties as an answer to plummeting […]

Ecology

How Trees and Forests Heal us and make for Well-Being,

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Korean scientists have confirmed that walking through forest areas improved older women’s blood pressure, lung capacity and elasticity in their arteries. Walking in an urban park with trees, or an arboretum, or a rural forest reduces blood pressure, improves cardiac-pulmonary parameters, bolsters mental health, reduces negative thoughts, […]

Donald Trump

One is the Loneliest Number, especially when the One is Trump

Tomdispatch

By Mattea Kramer and Sean Fogler ( Tomdispatch.com) – Consider two phenomena that might seem unrelated. This fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data showing a marked increase in overdose fatalities nationally. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told CNN that she had expected overdose deaths to […]

Apartheid

World Health Organization: Gaza faces Epidemics; 449 Israeli Attacks on Health Services in Palestine

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday confirmed more than 449 attacks on health services in Gaza and the West Bank since Oct. 7, saying “now the work of the health workers is impossible.” Speaking at a special session organised by the WHO executive board on […]