Khamenei dies, CBC mourns; Rolling up the Rim; Smartphones were a dumb idea
3 Things this week and a poem
Thanks for spending some time this weekend with Things I Wrote Down.
Here are three things that stood out this week online, and a poem entitled, “Beautiful salt tears of God.”
Khamenei dies, CBC mourns
The US and Israel launched hundreds of separate air attacks, targeting the Iranian regime and its leadership yesterday, in what is being describe as the most precise aerial attacks in the history of warfare.
Yikes.
Women in Iran took to the streets, throwing off their veils, and celebrated the death of Khamenei. The CBC mourned his death with a ridiculous photo as if the tyrant’s death was a personal loss.
I’m praying for the Iranian church and that this evil regime will actually come to an end. Also: that these attacks don’t morph into a quagmire like the Iraq war with decades of death and trouble.
After the recent operation in Venezuela that captured Maduro and now this, there’s a clear message that the US military is not something you want to mess with. And it can pretty much do anything it wants.
Rolling up the Rim
Pretty much the only time I drink Tim Horton’s coffee is when the launch their Roll Up The Rim contest, the marketing gimmick the donut shop drops during Lent.
It’s basically my strategy to acquire a brand new vehicle, and perhaps the only way I’d ever do so. (I’m a used vehicle purchaser, through and through).
But winning a car isn’t as straight forward as you may think. There’s a history of controversy around the car winners, dating back to the early 2000s, where vehicle victors’ winnings have been contested by rival families, pranksters, and discarded-cup-finding 12-year olds.
Here’s a fascinating article on some of the car wins that were contested and got really, rolly, complicated.
Looks like I’ll continue to drive my 2014 Rogue.
Smartphones: dumb idea
Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation, which is a must-read and explores the impacts of social media and smartphones on kids, shared highlights of a new study released this week from Sapien Labs, which looked at data from 2.5 million people across 85 countries.
Here’s a summary of their findings, which I copied from his post:
1) Young adults used to generally have good mental health, compared to older generations. But now, in ALL countries examined, they are doing badly compared to older generations in that country.
2) "Four key factors have emerged that together predict three quarters of this effect. These are diminished family bonds, diminished spirituality, smartphones at increasingly young age, and increasing consumption of ultra-processed food."
3) The decline of young people's mental health is "most pronounced in the wealthier and more developed countries." They note that it is in such countries that smartphones are given earliest, junk food is most heavily consumed, spirituality is most diminished, and family ties are looser and often weaker.
4) "A younger age of first smartphone ownership is associated with increased suicidal thoughts, aggression, and other problems in adulthood."
5) Here is their summary of findings on early smartphone ownership:
"GenZ is the first generation to grow up with a smartphone. Among this group, the younger they acquired their first smartphone in childhood, the more likely they are to have struggles as adults. These struggles extend beyond sadness and anxiety to less discussed symptoms, such as a sense of being detached from reality, suicidal thoughts, and aggression towards others. The effects arise through disruption of sleep, increased risk of exposure to harmful online content, predators, and explicit material as well as increased probabilities of cyberbullying during crucial developmental years. Excessive time spent on smartphones also diminishes the development of social cognition that requires learned interpretation of facial expressions, body language, and group dynamics. The negative impacts are particularly sharp below age 13."
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Poem - Beautiful salt tears of God
Knowing God is a God of justice and acknowledging the mystery that God gives human rulers authority to wield the sword, I can’t also help imagine that whenever and wherever bombs fall, so do heaven’s tears. Here’s a poem that touches at that reality.
Beautiful salt tears of God
beautiful
salt
tears
stinging
the face
of
God
like
wounds
gentle
tear-
causing
man
foolish
enough
to touch
God’s
face
feel
God’s
breath
on his
fingertips
silence
an exchange
between them
