Greetings and welcome. My name is Michael. In this presentation I am going to talk about six related topics. I am going to talk about the myth of human independence as well as the critical importance of meeting our human needs. I am going to talk about Abraham Maslow’s early theory of human needs and I’ll also talk about some of the problems with the iconic “Pyramid” that is still to represent his theory. Then, I am going to introduce you to a new more modern theorization of human needs, the Circle of Seven Essential Needs (Sosteric & Ratkovic…

All mimsy were the borogroves, and sadly swam the air,
As Vorpal blade came snacking, trailing famsy Bander’s tail.
And in the morning yarrow was the feckless crowd warned fair.
But dimmed and daily waggled, they ignore prophetic tale.

And daily wind and rain and violence grew the rankled snatch.
And more the queries, drama grew, as fate imposed the latch.
And panic ‘neath the surface began to birth a Beast anew.
And Jaberwock came snapping, apocalypse is what we view.

And the magazines raise questions, and the “prophets” prowl about,
And the pedophiles spin spider’s web, and politicians spout,
And another…

Back in the 1960s, a Yale psychologist by the name of Stanley Milgram conducted the infamous “obedience” experiments. Milgram, perhaps looking back on the fascism of WWII, was concerned about authority and compliance. He wanted to know just how compliant humans could be. In order to study compliance, he brought subjects into his laboratory and asked them to apply an increasingly intense, and ultimately deadly (or so they thought) shock to a total stranger to see just how they would react. Cari Romm of The Atlantic explains:

. . . hundreds of people showed up at Milgram’s lab for a…

Growing up in the small town of Regina, I was tortured a lot. Part of the problem I think was that I was always small and undernourished for my age. I was weak and an easy target. Not surprisingly, I was targeted a lot, bullied really, by students and teachers. In almost every year of my Catholic education, I have terrible memories of abuse heaped upon me by all those in my life who were stronger than me. And since I was a small child, weaker than all of my peers, at the time that pretty much amounted to everybody…

Thank you Joseph

Long ago and far away,
A prophesy told of a day
When no more death on Earth we’d see
And balanced true to nature be.

And children laugh and dance and swing,
And joyous would all people sing,
A new day dawn, a glorious spring,
And no more pain and love would sing.

But as the Earth begins her birth,
And joyously we span her girth,
They spurn to see, and scorn with glee,
The painful lot in people be.

And though we hope that peace might stay,
Their hand from spreading death this day
They beat their drums to…