Children’s Brains Changed by Inequality

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Editorial, Government Failure

Research finds that Inequality creates a toxic environment.

MRI scans of thousands of children found that those living in areas of higher inequality had measurable changes to the brain and it is believed that these changes may have long term effects on mental health.

This should be front page news.

I am not surprised with the results or the fact that this is not a major story. As a society we talk about children as important but when it comes to money and effort, we demonstrate a lack of concern. .

If you live in a society where basic unfairness is part of the life you lead, you are harmed. The study showed that children from different social classes, that is, the winners and losers, suffered just the same.

The old simple Biblical principle that doing evil and having evil done to you damages the soul.

Yes, it does.

What are we going to do about it. The standard playbook used by Big Tobacco and currently by the fossil fuels industry will be applied as it always is when social change threatens the established order. And so, the result will be —

Nothing.

The Right Wing media machine will spend tens of thousands of words explaining the results away. They are quite likely to produce several made up studies in which they decisively prove that inequality is good for everybody. They will endlessly discuss avoiding a culture of “dependence,” which is a scurrilous way of describing having people fed. There will be several hundred thousand bots posting derogatory attacks on the specific researches and on academics in general. And there will have to be some death threats to round out the mix. After all, the cruelty is the point.

After these attacks, politicians, public figures and regular people will consider the topic controversial and have “doubts.” that these doubts are cleverly manufactured by evil and well paid advocates will be irrelevant.

(It is possible by careful planning using God’s gift of intelligence to create great and wonderful things.)

Now, what would intelligent thinking and capable human beings do with this research?

Now, that is interesting. Obviously, we need more studies of children in societies with different levels of inequality. We also need to see if there are variations that can be achieved by different methods pf parenting and education.

We have information that leads us to see brain changes in children. So, what can we do and what are we doing now that has an effect on this process.

In other word, we as a society and a people take significant research and use it to improve our way of life.

That is what is supposed to happen.

But right now, the intelligent and cultured are under attack by an increasingly unhinged band of goons who are determined to impose their lack of breeding and intelligence on all of us.

We will see whether or not they succeed.

Here is the Guardian article explaining and linking to the research – along with a short quote.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/30/study-links-greater-inequality-to-structural-changes-in-childrens-brains

A study of more than 10,000 young people in the US discovered altered brain development in children from wealthy and lower-income families in areas with higher rates of inequality, which were also associated with poorer mental health.

The data was gathered from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study and published in the journal Nature Mental Health.

Researchers at King’s College London, Harvard University, and the University of York then measured inequality within a particular US state by scoring how evenly income is measured. States with higher levels of inequality included New York, Connecticut, California and Florida, while Utah, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont were more equal.

This article was written by Tobi Thomas for the Guardian.

One Million Year Old Skull

On By southwerkIn Editorial

New discoveries and new information appear in modern civilization from time to time.

It is a wonderful thing.

As a species, we continue to learn and develop an enormous body of knowledge that if used to think critically and carefully will result in a continued advancement of our common culture.

Sometimes, there is so much evil nonsense and fascism about that it seems like all is lost and that may yet happen. The images of the 1930’s of book burnings and exultant crowds marching in the streets celebrating the massive evil of their leader seem like a rehearsal for America today. And I know that some of us wonder if the death camps and the crematoria cannot be far behind.

But at the moment, there are still signs of science and progress. Here is a link to the story and a short quote.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/25/study-of-1m-year-old-skull-points-to-earlier-origins-of-modern-humans

Prof Chris Stringer, an anthropologist and research leader in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, said: “This changes a lot of thinking because it suggests that by 1m years ago our ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex human evolutionary split than previously believed. It more or less doubles the time of origin of Homo sapiens.”

Hannah Devlin wrote this article for The Guardian.

The Old Shakedown, Tech Companies Settle Lawsuits with Current Regime

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism

In business, if someone files a silly lawsuit, that is, one without merit, you take them to court and get it dismissed. That is the place where meritless lawsuits go. You use the fact that the law in that area is settled and clobber them in court. And go your merry way.

But what if you are a tech bro?

Now, that is a different kettle of fish, so to speak. If you defeat the current manifestation of that man behind the curtain (See, The Wizard of Oz for the cultural reference.) he might not benevolently smile on your sort of legal attempt to build an AI empire worth trillions of dollars.

So, what do you do? You grovel and fold. You settle.

You show the American people that paying off the bad guy is a legitimate way of doing business. You expose your lack of morality and backbone. You kick morality and ethics to the curb with great contempt. You cosy up to the orange manifestation of American frustrations and make purring sounds.

It is all pretty disgusting.

What do the tech bros hope to get for caving on these lawsuits? They have the developing technology of AI.

You have to understand that AI dwells in a never never land of not quite legality. In fact, that we are allowing these individuals to pursue this tech is very questionable in itself. The potential for vast and permanent harm is clearly visible. Currently AI’s data mine copyrighted material in an almost infinite abuse of intellectual property. Their content is dominating the internet and displacing actual human beings and their work. Probably not legal. The tech bros are building AI data centers whose electrical consumption borders on the wilder dreams of science fiction excess. I’m just mentioning some of the high points.

And of course, we must touch on the thousand ton elephant in the room, and that is, that the game plan involves the destruction of millions upon millions of jobs, maybe as many as ninety percent.

And so the tech bros need the government to look the other way and bless their semi-legal activities so that they make their trillions of dollars.

It is all very elementary and, not exactly, what we are taught in business school although very much inline with Milton Friedman, the great snake in the garden who reduced all business decisions to matters of money.

Here is a link to the article reported one of these pitiful settlements.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/29/youtube-trump-lawsuit-settlement

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a suit brought by Donald Trump in 2021 that alleged the platform wrongly suspended his channel after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Google subsidiary is the latest in a long string of tech companies to make a multimillion-dollar payout to the president over past decisions about his accounts.

Trump had filed the suit against YouTube and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, alleging that the platform had “accumulated an unprecedented concentration of power, market share, and ability to dictate our nation’s public discourse”. YouTube said it suspended Trump’s channel because it had violated the website’s policies against inciting violence. Because of the settlement, the case is now dismissed. Google did not immediately return a request for comment.

Every society has to deal with the results of its historical creations. The United States in the 1830’s began the process of building railroads and small industry beginning a process which resulted in mass production and the many social changes this brought about.

We through a combination of law and custom created the tech bros. A group of people whose self worship is beyond all human understanding and whose willingness to destroy the current social order an ongoing fact of American Life.

Why did we do this?

It is very simple. We worshipped a model of economic activity that deified profit as the sole goal. We failed to believe in the importance of treating our fellow citizens people with economic justice. We failed to employ any of the basic elements of Christianity into our economic way of life. We failed to believe that doing what was right was important. And we taught generations of business students to get the money first and try to live decent lives of purpose sometime later if at all.

This cannot continue, not in its present form. But that leaves the question, what are we willing to do instead.

James Alan Pilant

What Power Does Art Have In a Time of Crisis?

On By southwerkIn code of ethics, Editorial, ethics

I found this article online at the Sojourner’s web site. It is called: Can Poems Push Christians to Stop the Suffering in Gaza? The article is written by Ryan Duncan.

The article discusses a book of poetry and its author and what this use of art does. You might say, when we read this we are discussing the power of language and in particular, the power of poetic language.

Below is a link to the story and a short but effective quote.

https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/can-poems-push-christians-stop-suffering-gaza

After reading Forest of Noise, it becomes apparent why Abu Toha’s public appearances are often marked by moments of sorrow and anger. In one MSNBC interview following his Pulitzer win, Abu Toha fell into a tense back-and-forth with journalist Catherine Rampell when she pointed to some of his social media posts and suggested he was questioning the status of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.

“I’ve never denied anyone’s suffering,” Abu Toha remarked sharply, “I know that everyone is suffering, Israelis and Palestinians, but why are our sufferings not acknowledged? Why are we called terrorists? Why are we called prisoners of war while the Israelis who were kidnapped from Israel are named hostages? Does this give them more humanity, because they are Israeli, while my loved ones are being named prisoners and they are tortured?”

Why indeed. 

It’s a pretty piece of writing and I hope you read the whole article.

Now for my take on this.

We live in a period in the United States where words have been weaponized. Our current regime’s leader will reach thirty thousand documented lies in just a week or so. In addition, he has made insults a standard part of his particular brand. He likes “Low IQ,” “Communist,” Marxist”, etc. His pitiful flock hangs on every insult, every lie and every appeal to their lowest and most base instincts like hogs wallowing in mud and excrement squealing in delight.

But words don’t have to be evil and wretched to have power. How about these:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

“By sun and candle-light” is a very pretty little phrase. Words can exalt. Words can heal. And yes, words can heal and guide us.

Let’s try some healing works from history. This is Lincoln’s first inaugural address.

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Good words. Our current’s regime’s leader is incapable of forming those kinds of sentences, of attempting to unite the American people in love and common purpose.

But we can work to make this a united and great nation in spite of our lack of competent, intelligent and spiritual leadership. We can find our own words. America is full of great words and great thoughts.

Try these:

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Even before this current set of horrors we must endure end and even before our suffering is assuaged, we can still find the great and healing words here in America, in many ways more of a dream and an aspiration.

Let us remember what we are as a nation in our highest and strongest longing.

James Alan Pilant

Stupidity as Policy: the Phrase, “Climate Change” is Banned!

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism, Government Failure

I was having class one day and in the front row was a veteran of several combat tours in Iraq. The class got into a spirited discussion about a woman’s time of the month and the things you can buy like tampons and pads to help with that very common malady.

My combat veteran laid his head on the desk, covered his ears with his hands and tried to make the subject go away. I doubt if he was successful. We were friends, probably still are, haven’t heard from him in some years. I respected his service and gave him class time to talk about it.

Not everyone is going to be comfortable with every topic brought up in class. And I understand that.

But removing the phrase, “Climate Change” is different in a major and important way.

Climate Change is real, observable, and needs to be dealt with. And our government is supposed to dealing with it.

Before we go any further, let me give you a link and a quote from the current topic:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/energy-dept-adds-climate-change-184725341.html

“Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid — and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be misaligned with the Administration’s perspectives and priorities,” the directive from acting director of external affairs Rachel Overbey said.

“Misaligned with the administration’s perspectives and priorities,” the weasel words for pitiful stupidity from the reality denying loons that currently form our ruling regime.

(Admiring the latest delusion at the Dept. of Energy.)

Tell me, do you think that covering your ears and making racket will drop the earth’s temperature? Because I don’t.

What are these idiots doing? Well, they are completely devoted to chasing fossil fuel money, billions of dollars, and in pursuit of that money, there is no action no matter how obviously moronic and stupid that they won’t do.

And this is one of the stupid and moronic decisions that these people are embracing in the hope of stalling effective action against climate change so that fossil fuel companies can rake in the cash.

It is wrong. It is immoral. It is pathetic. And I hope and pray for the time when these fools are driven from the government, polite society and any hope of profit.

James Alan Pilant

Australia Acts to Curb Deep Fakes

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The Australian Associated Press published an article today detailing the punishment of a deep faker.

Entitled: Man fined $340,000 for deepfake pornography of prominent Australian women in first-of-its-kind case.

Here is a quote from the article and to the link for the article itself.

A man who posted deepfake pornographic images of prominent Australian women has been slapped with a hefty fine as a “strong message” in a first-of-its-kind case.

The federal court ordered Anthony Rotondo, also known as Antonio, to pay a $343,500 penalty plus costs on Friday after the online regulator eSafety Commissioner brought a case against him almost two years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/26/man-fined-34000-for-deepfake-pornography-of-prominent-australian-women-in-first-of-its-kind-case

(The Cathedral of Noyon no longer exists. It is fair game for new images.)

A deep fake is a created image of someone, a made up image. The “deep” adjective implies that to the unskilled eye, it appears authentic. A very good one may pass professional analysis.

The fellow punished here was publishing online deep fakes of well know Australian women and has been punished for it.

And so I ask my fellow Americans, “Shouldn’t we be punishing people for this cruel nonsense?” I think the answer is an absolute yes.

The law is pretty clear. We have sole rights to the use of our own identity and image with some thin exceptions. We should exert those rights.

That we live in an age where individuals will publish made up pictures to harm individuals is a tragedy but in the case of deep fakes, we can take action and we should.
Let us follow Australia’s actions and impose fines for such cruel acts!

James Alan Pilant

For Parents, May I suggest a Movie Night?

On By southwerkIn code of ethics, Editorial

When my son, Jake, was a little boy, we often watched movies and shows together and talked about the moral and ethical implications. We started very early. I remember when he was five asking him if it mattered if the jackals or the lions fed on the animals in “The Lion King.”

American Heroes.

A few days ago, I saw some clips from the mini-series (I believe it is an ITV production.) “Hornblower.” I am a big fan of C.S. Forester. When I was a teenager, I read all of the Hornblower stories. I have to admit as a very young person, their lessons of leadership and the importance of enduring injustice and unfairness were generally lost on me. That is one reason I think it is important to watch these programs with your children. The series is brilliant in its exposition of the moral choices confronting the young Hornblower and the choices that he made.

So, I asked Jake (now 31) what he got out of the series when we watched it so many years ago. Surprisingly he didn’t recall it that well. He told me that he felt that the most important ethical teachings he absorbed were from Star Trek. In particular, he talked about “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine.” But then the conversation turned to the one program that we both found abundant lessons from: “Babylon Five.”

Jaks, specifically mentioned Londo Mallori’s descent into evil and eventual redemption in death as one lesson in morality that he had never forgotten. I have to agree that the show delivered up a healthy dose of moral lessons and the hard, cold difficulties inherent in doing what is right. I could write a dozen articles easily about its teachings.

And so, I have decided to encourage my kind readers to spend at least one night a week watching a program with moral implications with their children. And not just that, from time to time, I will talk about specific recommendations that I want to make and suggestions about what moral lessons can be drawn from specific programming.

Let us begin with my strong recommendations for “Star Trek, the Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine,” and “Babylon Five” as well as “Hornblower.”

James Alan Pilant

P.S. You might in addition try “Sharpe’s Rifles!”

I’m Overwhelmed.

On By southwerkIn Government Failure

I haven’t written for several days and I try very hard to write every day. So, what gives?

I heard the President’s speech at the United Nations.

Let me explain.

From the time that I was in my early teens, I read speeches. I found this enormous book of famous speeches everything from Hitler to Churchill I practiced Patrick Henry, Robert Ingersoll and Woodrow Wilson among many others.

I grew up in rural Northeastern Oklahoma and I would go out in the woods and practice public speaking. The art of setting the mood and driving home your point, I studied with relish.

I’ve probably given several hundred speeches in my life and if you count lectures, several thousand.

So, what is it about our current regime’s leader that has me upset?

His speech was crazy, unhinged and total nonsense. I wracked all my knowledge, all my experience and every memory trying to think of anything like it I have ever heard and came up empty, that is, for the first day. The second day, it came to me – where I had heard that speaking style before. It was Uganda’s Idi Amin.

I went and pulled some of Amin’s speeches and there are some similarities although Amin appears to use much more complex sentences and is able to maintain a central theme for entire paragraphs. So, while they share a common theme of despising ethnic minorities and imagined enemies and a certain delight in cruelty, it is fairly obvious that as speech making go, Idi Amin is the superior speaker.

So, the worst speaker I can think of in the history of humankind is not as bad a our current leader. In my estimation no speaker have ever been this bad. I am sure he will be pleased to hear that he is best at something.

I am unhappy about this. I am depressed about the state of this nation that our leader sounds like an escaped mental patient with truly legendary delusions.

If this wasn’t upsetting enough, watching coverage of this speech on various news outlets ,I saw that they “sane washed” this monstrous presentation.

Let me repeat that. A madman uttered completely insulting and cruel nonsense to an international audience and much of American media attempted to explain what he meant as if he was expressing some kind of coherent thought.

So, I haven’t written for a few days.

I read the other day that we have some 400 days to save our democracy. It seems to me that I should write as often as possible during that period. I have a duty to my nation to not take these horrors in silence and I will not.

James Alan Pilant

The Cowardice of Disney

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism, code of ethics, Government Failure, moral philosophy, morality

When I was a little boy I used to watch “The Wonderful World of Disney,” and they had heroes. There was Fess Parker playing Davy Crockett. There was Zorro, the Swamp Fox and the Scarecrow. They fought against tyranny.

(The kind of Americans we use to have.)

They did what was right at great risk.

I was a little boy in those far off days. Those characters were my heroes.

So, I have to ask. Do the people running Disney every watch their own programs? Do they care what kind of example they set? Do they look in the mirror and wonder where it all went wrong because wrong it is?

They gave into evil.

They surrendered to an orange make up covered villain. And they did it knowing that they will be bullied again and again. Once the bad guys understand what brought fear and collapsed the spines of the management at Disney, they will do it again and again. Surrender and appeasement never stop. The crawling abasement of the defeated and the cowardly continues forever.

It is said the coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero just one. Well, Disney is on one death among many. I almost pity them.

What happened to doing what was right? What happened to facing the threat of tyranny with courage and resolve?

Was it just programming? They portrayed heroic behavior to beguile children into buying merchandise? Was that all it was, just a con? Or did they at one time believe that Americans had to stand up for what was right?

We’ll never know. For what can they say that we can trust? What can they say that we will believe?

If you don’t have a spine or courage, what won’t you say? What won’t you do to give yourself one more day, one more minute of hiding from the bully, one more desperate plea, “Please don’t hit me! I’ll do anything you want me to!”

Courage is necessary right now. Many Americans are standing up against what is happening.

But not everyone is up to the standard of men and women of courage. They prefer to crawl and we should pity them but never forget that when the time came to take a stand, they ran like hell.

James Alan Pilant

Planting Seeds

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Editorial

I want to talk about teaching and how difficult it is.

When I was teaching, there was always the “wall.” That thing that prevented what I was trying to convey from getting through.

You see, my students were generally very young, eighteen to twenty-one. There were middle aged students who returned to school and a good number of veterans, and they were wonderful students. But the great mass were the young ones. And they were inexperienced

Without perspective, they could not draw a conclusions from a similar circumstance. You could lead them to the right answer but they had enormous difficulty applying the reasoning to anything else.

I used to show a clip from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” where the learned knight leads the local peasants to a completely wrong conclusion (that witches burn because they are made of wood). And while they thought it was funny, they didn’t get the hard cold fact that leading people in the wrong direction is not that hard and the tools we depend on for teaching are not always that reliable.

It soon became evident that they had never been trained to understand the implications of what they were learning. In fact, for most of them learning was just a long boring process of getting the necessary paperwork for later employment. I taught every new class the rationale for why each major subject was part of their course of study and fit my own classes in that picture of whole trained human being.

So, I began to plant seeds. It seemed to me that if I placed an idea with wide applications in front of them several times, they would realize at some point later the implications of that idea. So, I taught the great ideas. I showed legendary movies, and I would tell the great stories of Western Culture. I was talented enough to make those things interesting.

Did the seeds grow? Probably. Ideas especially ideas deeply embedded in the culture have a lot of relevance and staying power.

But do I know that for a fact? No. You never know what effect your teaching has. You just hope.

James Alan Pilant