Comment: Guest: 'Absolutely simplistic and typical of people who don't "think" beyond what other people tell them to think. Imagine yourself as the Minotaur. Born as a creature no one wanted, born from the lust of a goddess to a bull, hated from conception to birth. Instead of given pitty or love when born, was imprisoned in a horrible place with no human contact other than the ones he fed on. What choice did he have, eat something that didn't look like him, or starve to death. He was born without education of morals or philosophy. He was treated as a monster, so he behaved like one to the eyes of other humans. To him, he was just trying to live, fearing his whole existence, surviving on, yes, instinct. And one day a "hero" comes to kill him. For the Minotaur, he probably was scared beyond his imagination. Something stronger than him was trying to kill him and he didn't know why. One has to ask, how long was the Minotaur in the maze, why were only children sent down there. Most likely cause the Minotaur was young himself, and probably lame. The only thing I read from this myth was that of a deformed outcast who was lost, weak and fearful, to be only killed by someone who was "normal" and be called a "strong and powerful hero" for it.' -- When you cut the throat of the abyss...

'The narcissist ultimately starves for love because he or she can never get enough in the present to compensate for the past. -- Pathological narcissism is related to narcissistic rage: a furious, reflexive, unrelenting need to repay any perceived slight or insult. Neurotic narcissism starts out as normal narcissism, a healthy, natural childhood need for attention and appreciation which, when continually frustrated, becomes fixated and pathological. Neurotic narcissism stems from inadequate, insufficient or traumatic parenting and resulting narcissistic injury, especially prior to five years of age, during what Freud called the pre-Oedipal period. Children at this tender age find any serious lack of attunement and attention – or certainly, any outright abuse, neglect or emotional, if not physical, abandonment – an insult, a psychological injury, a traumatic psychic wound which distorts perceptions of both themselves, the world, and their relationship to it. When children experience parents or caretakers as unloving, rejecting or hostile, they respond to this narcissistic wounding by creating a shell-like false self – which replaces, protects and conceals the unaccepted, unloved and damaged true self – presenting instead a persona (Jung) based on what they perceive the parents and world want them to be. A great deal of what pathological narcissism in adults disguises is unresolved infantile anger, resentment and rage about not being recognized, accepted, and loved for who we are. This anger – along with feelings of being unlovable and unworthy of love – is buried beneath the false self. It is repressed, but not forgotten, nor forgiven. Narcissistic rage from the past tends to be re-stimulated by intimate relationships in the present. In romantic relationships, feelings are inevitably re-injured, and the childhood anger suddenly resurfaces – with a vengeance.'

'For over ten years Gabor Mate has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. His patients are challenged by life-threatening drug addictions, mental illness, Hepatitis C or HIV, and in many cases all four. But if Dr. Mate's patients are at the end of the spectrum, there are many others among us who are also struggling with addictions. drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, compulsive work habits, sexual seeking or spending: what is amiss with our lives that we seek such destructive ways to comfort ourselves? And why is it so difficult to stop these habits, even as they threaten our health, jeopardize our relationships and corrode our spirits?'

'Fabric-store manager Bonnie Reedner told reporters Monday that her 18-year-old son, Pfc. Matthew Reedner, is "over there, fighting in Iraq, or something." "I guess he's stationed in Baghdad or Basra—some place beginning with a B," Reedner said. "I don't really know. I should check the return address on one of his letters. I think there's another one over on the microwave with the unopened mail." Though Reedner said she hopes for her son's safe return, she admitted she should probably pick up a newspaper one of these days to get an idea of when that might be.'

"The most destructive thing that we've allowed to have an expectation of each other is that we will instantly respond to each other ... and almost without thinking." "If you need to be constantly responding, you can only answer in little bits that really show no thought." -- "The kid comes out of the school, is desperately trying to make eye contact with the parent, and the parent is sitting there glued to the phone..." "This generation has grown up seeing technology as the competition. I don't think they're going to raise their children this way."

'For the Avoidant, external disruptions of the autoregulatory state are experienced – to a greater or lesser degree – as a shock to the nervous system. First there is the sensory intrusion aurally, visually, or tactically by an approaching person which may be experienced as startling, followed by a social demand to state shift from an autoregulatory‐timeless (dissociative) mode to an interactive‐realtime mode. One is more energy‐conserving and the other more energy‐expending. For the distancing group, both are experientially non‐reciprocal, meaning neither state involves expected rewards from another person. In autoregulation, no other person is required or wanted. However, during the initial shift to interactive‐realtime mode the other person is viewed as demanding with no expected reward or reciprocity. -- To make this clearer, picture a mother‐baby relationship that is dismissive‐avoidant (mother‐ baby, respectively). The avoidant baby has reoriented away from interactive play with the mother to solitary play with toys. Mother’s departures are less upsetting and her returns are less exciting. Her approach, however, is also less appreciated due to a chronic lack of attuned, reciprocal play. The mother’s approach may be met with anger because it is not experienced so much as a reunion as it is an unwanted invasion of his time and space. If the baby could talk he might say, “I’m busy here, what do you want?”'

"What I do think we should be thinking is, at our loss and at our peril do we just perceive this situation as simply large numbers of kids simply being morally flawed. I think that explanation falls short. If there is such a thing called childhood then surely adults should be taking responsibility for it. -- It’s not just about poverty, actually. I completely agree and there are lots of people out there that will tell you that they’ve been to Oxford and Cambridge and university and succeeded, and they came from poor backgrounds. I’m not talking about material poverty alone. You can just about survive material poverty if you have some kind of an emotional care around you. But these children have a double-whammy damage. Their carers are disturbed and dysfunctional, addicted to substances often – and they live in the ghettos of Britain where civil society doesn’t offer them a way out." -- Interview MP3: http://www.mediafire.com/?bdgmdceo1dtdxvz

"Politics is all about getting unmet needs met through the state. And the unmet needs are childhood needs. What people are really trying to do when they want political solutions is they are trying to avoid the pain of dealing with what was missing in their childhoods."

'Are opportunities available to everyone in today's society?' -- "...is that an individual who simply made a bad choice?"

'At the beginning of our lives we were, as very small children, totally dependent on our parents. And we believed, we HAD TO believe, that we were loved by them. Even when we were abused we couldn't realize this. ...transference is unavoidable if we were once abused children. We can ... strive to feel the fear of the small baby, scared to death by the two big human beings holding our body and soul in their hands and doing or saying to us whatever they wanted, totally careless about our future, about what consequences their abuse might have on our lives. They acted like robots, directed by their own childhoods, unable of any kind of reflection whatsoever. ...the transference becomes our guide that will enable the small child in us to BELIEVE what their body KNEW its whole life but his mind could never believe: that so much evil and hatred can be directed towards a small, innocent child only because the parents have endured the same and have never questioned this.'

'Alone Together is the result of hundreds of interviews that Turkle has carried out over the last 15 years with a broad cross section of children, adults and old people. What Turkle finds is that, out of a sense of disappointment with each other, we’ve turned to robots as a substitute for human interaction.' -- "[The robotic moment] is the moment when we think that robots care about us. It's the moment when we ratchet up our expectations that we can put robots in the place of human beings." -- ("6 year-olds aren't disappointed, are they?") [Neglect] "There's this seduction by the robotic... Children attach to these robots and want to love them... there's a slide from better-than-nothing to better-than-everything: I want to robot dog because it's better than nothing. Then: a robot dog, it can always stay a puppy and that is kind of nice. And then only few conversations down the road: this robot will never die." -- "We've invented a form where we propose to substitute for our selves."