Humanity
A Cult Introduced Me to a More Tolerant World
I was a teenager obsessed with the unusual and the strange, looking for connection beyond the mundane. I remember spending lunchtimes in the school library reading fantasy books, and it was here I picked up a copy of Hal Lindsey's book "Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth", thinking it was a science fiction book. That started the idea of religion and prophecy and exciting things beyond the boring here and now. Not long afterwards, my brother picked up a glossy, free magazine called the "Plain Truth" in Dublin City. With attention-grabbing titles in slick fonts like "What's ahead for 1986 and beyond!" (Note the exclamation mark, no doubt in their minds), it grabbed my doubt-filled mid-1980s mind. In other words, I was hooked. It wasn't drugs or alcohol, but it was just as addictive. You could do all these free courses and books like "The United States and Britain in prophecy" and learn all about "THE TRUTH". I ate it all up. What was known as 'Armstrongism" had got a hold of me.
By Nick Tarleton4 years ago in Confessions
Finding Beauty in An Ugly Place. Top Story - April 2022.
Looking through photographs of me when I was a little girl, you would find that I was a thin girl with blonde hair and blue eyes that were very apparent to everyone. I turned from a skinny toddler to a tall, rectangle-shaped teenage brunette who is wide enough to be noticed by a lot of people. I had a lot of attention directed at me, the majority of it very negative from my peers and adults. I always thought of myself as “ugly” because my hair was cut very short, I was tomboyish, and I did not have very feminine features. I was also suffering from emotional problems due to bullying at school and also abuse in the home. I had hardly any positive role models except for my English teacher who stood by me through it all until she retired.
By Kelsey O'Malley4 years ago in Confessions
“Freedom Caravans” between the interest of the individual and the interest of the group
The wave of protests that became known as “Freedom Caravans” had started in Canada when hundreds of heavy truck drivers and thousands of protesters succeeded in blocking main roads and some vital bridges in the federal capital, Ottawa and other places, but the infection quickly crossed the ocean and spread to a number of European countries. These include France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium.
By abdo4 years ago in Confessions
Dark Armor
If you use blackmail against somebody, it can be used for your own form protection. Eventually being a sort of proverbial armor. However, since the armor was composed of dark secrets the chainmail that it’s composed of can be considered to be blackmail.
By Thavien Yliaster4 years ago in Confessions
Falling Off Track
For the last several months I have been working towards multiple goals and of course, blogging about them. In January I hit my stride and was making huge progress and feeling good about how far I had come. I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel of my Lyme Disease Journey, I was working on being more organized, getting back into a fitness routine, blogging consistently on Medium, and overall working towards a healthier lifestyle.
By Emily Forman4 years ago in Confessions
The Diverse Faces of Freedom
I was sitting at my desk, tired and unable to concentrate. I was under a lot of pressure. The software developers were blocked in their work because of me; I still haven't finished the diagrams they needed to progress with their work. "When will you be able to give it to us? It should be finished last week!" - they asked. But regardless of how much they would nag me or how much I wanted to have it done, I couldn't think anymore. My mind was blank; I needed a break.
By Janin Lyndovsky4 years ago in Confessions
Basic Concepts of Healthcare Law
Knowledge is power and I love to share what I have learned in my 40 years of roaming this earth. I enjoy learning about everything, you never know when these tools will become necessary. The more you know, the more you grow.
By The Vibe Podcast 4 years ago in Confessions
Chechnya on two fronts: the son of Mufti Kadyrov, an ally of Putin... and "Sheikh Mansour" with Zelensky
The sounds of takbeer appeared again with the scenes of the battles waged by a Chechen combat group in Ukraine, but this time it is not Kadyrov’s Chechen forces loyal to Moscow, but rather a battalion called “Sheikh Mansour” allied with Zelensky and fighting alongside Ukraine against the Russian army, to complete the paradox on the Chechen side of This Ukrainian war, between Chechens fighting each other on two opposing fronts, to transformations after the harsh Chechen defeat in the Russian wars, which made a team of Chechens fight alongside Russia, and allyed its president after years of a bloody war waged by Chechnya against Russia, which destroyed dozens of villages And the Caucasian cities, and this is a remarkable transformation that means, in one aspect, that the experiences gained by the Chechen fighters after years of their war with Russia, turned in favor of Russia.
By Abd elrhmen4 years ago in Confessions
New Russiaphobia and McCarthyism
Although the ongoing war in Ukraine reminds of the Cold War and the bipolar conflict, the West’s handling of the crisis seemed irrational in many of its actions, and reminded the audience of the era of McCarthyism’s control in the fifties of the twentieth century on cultural life and public space in the United States, as a result of the procedures of the Parliamentary Committee that It was led by the right-wing Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was the head of one of the subcommittees in the Senate, and who practiced cultural terrorism through his committee, and imprisoned a number of important figures on charges of belonging to the Communist Party, and this era was the beginning of a rightly expressive of the dominance of the Cold War laws, which extended for four decades later. .
By Zernouh abderrahman4 years ago in Confessions
The nation collectively rejects “Israel” and divided it normalizes with it
The past quarter century witnessed a clear decline in joint action at all political levels, and a steady escalation of unilateral action on the part of countries aspiring to expand their influence. At the international level, the work of the United Nations has almost disappeared after it was marginalized, as it no longer has a field presence in conflict areas, and was unable to contain political or military tensions, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations is no longer only a senior international employee who issues statements on international occasions such as International Women’s Day and today Universal Human Rights and others. With the deepening polarization in the UN Security Council, it has also become unable to influence international politics and issues of war and peace. The Ukrainian crisis is escalating, while attempts to obtain a Security Council resolution on it have failed as a result of polarization and the veto system.
By Zernouh abderrahman4 years ago in Confessions
Will the countries of the Maghreb pass the Ukraine crisis in peace?
The whole world is on the palm of an imp.. And while economists do not confirm, nor do they deny that even part of the scenario that many have summarized in the occurrence of famines in several regions of the world, including North Africa, will be followed by a wave of unrest and revolutions that may be the most violent and radical, the The question that arises sharply is, will the politicians there be able to avoid that fate before it is too late and things get out of control permanently? A few days ago, some Moroccan bloggers were disturbed by a Moroccan YouTuber named Osama Copenhagen’s talk on an Italian TV channel about hunger and poverty in Morocco, with the Algerian News Agency’s anger at a UNICEF report on “the Algerian youth’s suffering from unemployment, fragility, poor schooling and economic marginalization.” Although there was no direct link between the two issues, the common denominator between them, regardless of the accuracy or validity of these or that allegations, is that the reaction here and there revealed in both cases the existence of a kind of sensitivity in the official and popular dealing with any news or A comment indicating that there is a manifestation of a crisis that is knocking on the door of the two largest Maghreb countries. But can any one of the two countries be certain now that it has zero problems and zero crises, and that it is completely and definitively immune to all global economic fluctuations and shocks? It is true that it is about the two most populous countries, and the most powerful economies in the region, but did the Federal President of the largest economic power in Europe not refrain from saying, in his speech last Sunday via video link with Ukraine, “We will face in Germany more difficult days, and we must To be prepared to bear it, if our solidarity is not just empty promises, and if it is taken seriously” before asserting afterwards that “these days will change the world and us too, perhaps faster than we thought possible”? There is no doubt that Frank-Walter Steinmeier was not the first or the last Western official to warn his people of the harsh effects and repercussions of the Russian war on Ukraine in the course of daily life. If the man who heads the rich European country speaks with all that anxiety and apprehension about the vicissitudes that may be hidden in the coming days for his country, will the North African countries, which are less powerful and affluent than Germany, be immune to the tremors and storms that the Russian-Ukrainian war will cause? Then does the local and regional scene in the Maghreb seem to be on the verge of transformations, which this time may be deep and radical? Or will the effects that it will be affected by this crisis, and on the contrary, will be very limited and simple? Many may have heard what the Mauritanian president said in the middle of this month, in front of members of the Mauritanian community in Spain during his recent visit to Madrid, but few may have actually realized the significance of Ould Ghazwani’s words, or whether he did not only acknowledge with remarkable courage a reality that all Mauritanians know and live with. Rather, he went further when he said in that meeting: The question posed by the Mauritanian president's confessions, which were as frank as they were painful and bitter, is, was the man addressing his speech only to members of his own people? Or was he also implicitly addressing his Maghreb neighbors to tell them that his country, which, since its independence in the sixties, has paid the price of Algerian-Moroccan disputes and quarrels, is the one who pays the most today and will pay tomorrow, in the absence of a joint Maghreb project, the cost of the Russian-Ukrainian war in the North African region? There is no doubt that the last thing that can come to the minds of Libyans, Tunisians, Moroccans and Algerians is that the occurrence of a famine in Mauritania - God forbid - which is not ruled out by the Mauritanian president himself, could sooner or later affect each one of them, regardless of the size His wealth or his ability to get out of any similar problem or predicament he might face. It is not only their wrong economic calculations that make them think in this way, but also their narrow and limited political perceptions of the interests of their country, which lack any real sense of the unity of the Maghreb destiny, but can the Maghreb and its neighbor be hungry? The Europeans may well prepare for such a scenario, because they know that their countries will inevitably be the destination of thousands, perhaps millions, on the opposite bank. But what Maghreb country will really feel the seriousness of the threat and the imminent danger in the event of a famine or disaster in a neighboring Maghreb country? It is really unfortunate not only that the five countries do not have a collective and comprehensive vision for their national food security, but that part of the difficulties that one country may encounter, are usually and automatically attached to the condemnation of the other neighbour, so accusations are explicitly or implicitly behind them. What happens between Morocco and Algeria from time to time is not the only example of this. For years, for example, Tunisians have been attributing the reason for any shortage they find in some products and materials to the fact that they are smuggled into Libya. Although they did not directly accuse the Libyans of being behind the financial and economic crisis in which they are floundering, they have not yet been able to put together with them a joint plan to provide the two countries together with the basic needs of international markets. Everything that may be said here about the existence of an insurmountable obstacle standing in the way of any unified Maghreb action or endeavor, which is the political conflicts and disagreements, falls on the ground. To face the effects and repercussions of the Russian war on their economies? What political justifications might explain the failure of any Maghreb country so far to coordinate with Mauritania, which is the weakest link in the equation, and help it bear the consequences of the skyrocketing prices of energy, fuel and wheat? Unfortunately, everyone's concern is to assure his people that he will not starve, but wouldn't hunger have a domino effect? Perhaps those who said more than a decade ago that Egypt is not Tunisia and Libya is not Egypt will be better able than others to answer.
By Zernouh abderrahman4 years ago in Confessions
