SpeakTruth (Page 37)

 The Kitchen – The Ancient Greeks, who gave us many of the founding principles upon which we base our modern societies – democracy; logic; philosophy; literature and poetry to name but a few salient examples, had  a rich collection of gods and goddesses. In this excerpt from – House Therapy we will focus on – Hestia was the goddess of hearth and home, older sister to Zeus and first born of the titan’s, Kronos and Rhea, perhaps not as well known today as her siblings Demeter, Hera, Haides and Poseidon.  This may have been due to the fact that she was swallowed first by her titan father Kronos, who in  a bid to avoid being overthrown by one of his children, as prophesied, ate all his children, she was thus the last to be regurgitated, once Zeus had forced his father to do so. Families and mealtimes are, as we all know, never easy.Continue Reading

Online reflections. In my first chosen post I was inspired to recollect, and share, the experiences of my wife and myself, during and after the birth of our children. I particularly remember the passion, with which my wife embraced these online communities (Hamilton, Robert, Online Communities Post, Oct 19, 2010), and it was really my first conscious experience of the power of the Internet to forge and foster real communities. These online communities defied geography to bring together parents from all over Australia, to share their fears, excitement, opinions, knowledge and prejudices. I saw firsthand how the Internet serviced these community members by creating a portal, which uniquely provided for a subsection of society, who traditionally were often isolated by their condition – expecting mothers are often at home and out of the workforce. The 24/7 nature of the Internet and these website based forums – joyousbirth.org and naturalparenting.com.au – allowed members to share at any time of day or night, getting answers to questions about the health of expecting mothers and babies when they needed them.Continue Reading

Internet sex study. In this essay I will be describing and explaining how everyday sexual experiences are now often accessed through the Internet by a broad cross section of community members in our developed western countries. I will be showing that the Sex Industry, in all its multitude forms, has embraced the Internet more fully and effectively than any other industry. I will also be illuminating the links that show the Internet to be an active agent in diminishing the power of sexual taboos by exposing more people to a greater variety of depicted sexual experiences and information. The Internet as a tool of communication and information has greatly increased accessibility to a much wider range of sexual choices and therefore fostered growing sub-communities, who base their exchanges on these shared peccadilloes and interests. Finally, I will be positing information which may suggest the Internet, and its visually arresting relationship to sex in our lives, has been a force for good in the reduction of sex crimes within our communities.Continue Reading

The banning of illicit drugs by governments, has, in a number of instances, involved measures  being taken against particular minority groups and racial subcultures, to limit or control their behaviour. Illicit drugs cultural conflict scapegoats. The drugs have in fact become symbolic scapegoats for a law and order response to much more complicated social conflicts. It is often, an electorally popular move by governments, to focus on a possibly disturbing aspect of minority behaviour by a certain subcultural group, and to exaggerate this as a major problem, through the media and their own law enforcement policies. It seems that nothing garners  votes, as much as picking on unacceptably different behaviour, and demonising this behaviour through the press.Continue Reading

Do you ever long for certainty? Do you wish that you had a direct line to God, especially during those times when you are really unsure about what direction to take in your life? Would you like to be able to reach deep inside yourself and just know the right answer? Well according to the theory of the bicameral mind, and its part in the origin of consciousness, we all do have that facility within our brains. In fact it was originally all we did have, as it preceded that sense of I or me, our very own subjective consciousness which we all have today. Julian Jaynes published his book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, in 1976 and the waves of influence have been spreading out ever since. The first sixty pages of his book are to me, the most immediately confronting and mind expanding – as they focus on what consciousness actually is or is not.Continue Reading