Why are so many afraid of speaking up these days? What are they afraid of? Is it the media messages delivered over time?

I teach a couple of university classes and find that a majority of students are hesitant to speak up in class. Why and what causes them to clam up?

According to published reports, our brains don’t differentiate much between emotional danger and physical danger. Whether it’s a saber-toothed tiger or a “We need to talk,” our sympathetic nervous system (the part responsible for the “flight or fight” response) kicks into high gear.

Being truthful and sincere are musts in every career. Why is politics different?
It’s corrosive to our democratic system if people stop believing in free and fair elections… The Wall of Liars and Deniers!

Alexei Navalny’s mourners also grieve for a democratic Russia without KGB killer and Dictator Vladimir Putin.

It has been several weeks since Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny supposedly died of natural causes, according to the Russians in an Arctic prison, since then the simple act of laying flowers at his graveside or makeshift memorials has become an act of political defiance. Russia allows no dissent.

Montagu police say they adopt a multi-disciplinary strategy to help victims of domestic abuse and gender-based violence.

However, victims say they receive little to no help at all. This country town some 200km outside of Cape Town, in the Langeberg Municipality, is a beautiful tourist Mecca. It’s dark side — gender-based violence and in some cases victim-shaming police who, by all accounts, would rather turn women away than arrest perpetrators.

The former guy’s legal hurdles mount for his lifetime of crime, including lies, fraud, and corruption to American government treason.

A former president faces justice  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-criminal-trials/

US Supreme Court to decide Trump criminal immunity claim in 2020 election case

South Carolina’s former Governor and UN Diplomat Nikki Haley hasn’t won a GOP primary or caucus, but she keeps running. 

Amid growing hunger and homelessness, the plight of evicted farmworkers is deepening, especially when the agency that should be their last hope seems to offer none.

Tannie Sephia Kerneels cuts a forlorn figure outside the Robertson Magistrates’ Court. Her body language tells the story of someone waiting without much hope.

She has been evicted from the farm cottage she has lived in for the past 27 years. Her expression and demeanor reflect the unfairness she expects from authority figures and officials.

The symbol was adopted during the Russian Revolution. At the time of creation, the hammer stood for industrial laborers and the sickle for the peasantry—combined they stood for the worker-peasant alliance for socialism. Communism tried to hook the world but failed miserably and has moved towards fascism and totalitarianism.