SuddenDownpour

For whoever is out of the loop, Biden has drop out and endorsed Harris, and this is somewhat of a catchphrase of hers.

"Notably, Chang's report claims that biological females develop earlier than males do, so requiring girls to enter school at younger ages will create classes in which the two sexes are of more equal maturity as they age. This, the author posits, makes it more likely that those classmates will be attracted to each other, and marry and have children further down the line."

(...)

"The report does not include evidence of any correlation between female students' early enrollment and the success rate of their romantic relationships with men. The author also does not detail specific mechanisms by which his proposed policy would increase romantic attraction or birthrates."

Hi everyone. I don't have ADHD, but someone who joined my family some time ago does (we'll call him T), and is currently going through some trouble which I find quite perplexing.

Some background: T has two daughters (8yo and 6yo) under shared custody with his ex-wife (they spend roughly the same time with each of them during the week). T has had some serious difficulties through his life, some of which are structural and will likely stay with him forever, such as difficulty to hold onto a job or keeping his house tidy (even less so when his kids are home), and others of which are temporary by nature, such as the recent death of his mother.

His daughters had been having some issues for quite some time, including school performance and very frequent misbehaving. I don't particularly dislike kids, but holy shit, the very moment they got used to me, they became imps, almost constant screaming, fighting each other, not attending to reason, and so on. And I've barely seen them a handful of times. Anyhow, T decided to seek the root of these issues, discussed with his ex-wife the possibility of getting them evaluated for ADHD, and the ex-wife refused. T went forwards anyway, and the girls are now diagnosed with ADHD, and assigned to a psychologist who should theoretically have a session with them each month, but in practice, they're given less than 5 appointments a year. In general, T's complaints that he wanted more guidance on what to do with them have fallen on deaf ears.

A few weeks ago, social services knock into T's home, and naturally, they find that the house is a mess, because it always is. They take note of it all, and recently summoned him for a meeting.

T's current partner recently told me how the meeting went: social services claimed that the kids are sometimes late to class and they sometimes don't go at all, attributed all the responsibility to him, and he refuted that, while he's sometimes late when it's his turn to take them to school, they only completely miss class when they're staying with their mother. Social services disregarded this (shouldn't they have the means to corroborate it?), and proceeded to explain that, as a person with ADHD who cannot keep his life in order, he doesn't seem to have the competencies to raise the kids, so they want to impose a change in custody where they would stay with him less than 33% of the time.

What I'm getting from this is that the only thing the administration will take into account when determining whether you should be raising your kids or not is your medical conditions and how disorganized is your house. The kids have some issues, sure (I'm not arguing that they being late to class or missing at all is ok), but if there are two separated parents, and one has an ADHD diagnosis and the other doesn't, is it ok to attribute all issues on the diagnosed parent rather than checking where the problems are coming from? Shouldn't the fact that the kids have ADHD a reason to want to make sure and the parent who does also have it to be more involved in their upbringing, since the one who doesn't will have less experience with it and its difficulties?

Art obviously by HappyRoadKill, beware the rampant NSFW furry art though

Swift-Godzisz is among the 1 in 3 adults in the United States who have suffered from religious trauma at some point in their life, according to a 2023 study published in the Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry Journal. That same study suggests up to 1 in 5 U.S. adults currently suffer from major religious trauma symptoms.

Religious trauma occurs when an individual’s religious upbringing has lasting adverse effects on their physical, mental or emotional well-being, according to the Religious Trauma Institute. Symptoms can include guilt, shame, loss of trust and loss of meaning in life. While religious trauma hasn’t officially been classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), there is debate among psychiatrists about whether that should change.

Experts say LGBTQ people — who represent more than 7% of the U.S. population, according to a 2023 Gallup poll — experience religious trauma at disproportionate rates and in unique ways. Very little research has been done in this field, but a 2022 study found that LGBTQ people who experience certain forms of religious trauma are at increased risk for suicidality, substance abuse, homelessness, anxiety and depression. And as political animus toward the LGBTQ community intensifies ahead of the 2024 presidential election, many queer people say their pain is resurfacing.

I actually want to aggregate several articles from the last couple of days, for good reason. Let's hope the mods understand:

Biden says he is pushing for six-week Gaza pause

China Calls on Israel to Halt Military Operations in Gaza as Soon as Possible

Macron calls for 'lasting ceasefire' in Gaza

German foreign minister heads to Israel to urge for ceasefire as IDF prepares to enter Rafah

Egypt, Slovenia call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

UK Foreign Secretary calls for ‘immediate pause in the fighting’

Notice that even countries that have taken a favorable position towards Israel have asked for a ceasefire in the last couple of days. This is due to the imminent Israeli attack on Rafah, where most of Gazan displaced population is currently located, which to any rational observer is a giant warning that we may soon see a catastrophe.

Rafah’s 1 million refugees fear Israeli onslaught after night of bombardment

[ I would have liked to link to an article that relates both the latest diplomatic moves by so many countries and what's just about to happen, but unfortunately the only one I have is in Spanish, so I'm trying to do this is whatever way the community's rules allow. Please consider the possibility of allowing news aggregations in the same post. ]