So I was reading an interview the other day with this real asshole Tom Homan who used to run ICE when Trump was president the first time around. And he's called the father of family separations. And now he's the so-called border czar And what he's saying is that he's going to do it again. He's going to deport illegal parents with or without kids. He's bad news and we really need to prepare for it. And one way of being prepared for it I think is to look at what happened the last time that Trump and Homan and his cronies set about to separate families at the border.

In this episode I try to provide some understanding of how and why so many people get depressed around Christmas time. I begin by noting that there are broad cultural and social issues here at stake, including the ways in which non-Christians can experience themselves as excluded and depressively relegated to the sidelines in a culture that, driven by the capitalist engine, literally floods us every day with commodities and the promise that if we purchase and consume these commodities we will be happy.

When we find ourselves crying at movies or when reading books and stories, it’s often at happy endings, not during the parts that are objectively sad.  The reason, it turns out, is that the unconscious mind regulates when and how we express and experience painful affects, and it does so according to its assessments of danger and safety.

The concept of “gaslighting” seems to be increasingly appearing in the media and public life.  In this webcast I discuss The meaning of gaslight and explain how exactly it works.