I actually hate the words of this picture - and I think it's cruel. Indeed, I think the words should read instead:

If you are brave enough to suicide, are you brave enough to reach out? Because there is someone out there that needs you as much as you need them. Be brave you are needed.

We are taught from a young age to be distrustful of strangers and sometimes those who are closest to us can be selfish and the last person/people we'd like to reach out to. Reaching out and trust requires vulnerability. There is reason to be cautious about disclosing our vulnerability because people may take advantage of it, but they may not. Most people aren't sociopaths, although we do know they exist, but they are more likely to be CEOs rather than janitors and are no more than about 4% of the population. So we have to be brave enough to overcome those fears. This is a big problem because TV is constantly telling us about people being murdered by neighbors, friends and family all the time and this is not true. Child abduction is down and murder rates are down in general.

All of us feel lonely to some degree, we all need friends, we all need help, we all need to be useful, feel like we are contributing, we all need each other.

But there are different reasons for suicide, no one should blame someone living with a terminal disease for ending the pain.

"The only thing we've found to make the emptiness bearable is each other."

People trying to end it all, suddenly realize when they are jumping off the golden gate bridge that all that seemed unfixable could be fixed if only they hadn't jumped.

We all do need each other and TV teaches us not to trust anyone but we must make the effort to reach out to others who are alone and hurting whether it is simply to help elderly people with their garden or kids with their homework. Our brains are hardwired to search for human faces.

You're not alone and you are needed.

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what makes someone conservative and I think the main difference these days, although I do think there was a period in history where people wanted to do for themselves and be completely independent. And even that fits in with my definition of what conservatives want, and that is that they don't see that other people may not want the same solution as they want. Not all people want or can be completely independent.

Sometimes people want to be completely independent and there is nothing wrong with that. I am the last person to demand a person be dependent on anyone or anything. Whether it is being part of the power grid, depending on the government or private enterprise to deliver me water, food or clothes, whatever. If you want to make your own clothes, make your own food, produce your own water or produce your own electricity, that should be your right. But not everyone can be fully independent and sometimes the best they can do is be partially independent. That should be alright for them too.

We all have different priorities. We all have different needs. We all have different requirements.

But it seems to me that conservatives think that what suits them should suit everybody. They can't seem to acknowledge that other people might have other needs and requirements.

I remember Sarah Palin parading her special needs son around like he was some kind of trophy. Some people choose to abort special needs children because they take extra time, extra money and often extra training to be able to deal with them. Often people place their special needs kids in government run institutions which a gravely underfunded because of the economy crash and current trends in government funding, if it will help ordinary people then it should not be funded, but a woman was telling me that these government run institutions didn't pay staff well so they were magnets for pedophiles because special needs people often cannot speak up or defend themselves from predators. She knew this because her brother was special needs and she was annoyed Sarah Palin didn't use her public position to advocate on the behalf of parents of special needs children. It's fine for Sarah Palin to praise herself for raising a special needs kid but she has the resources to do so and possibly without the help of government assistance.

Sarah Palin demanding other women and families raise special needs kids by outlawing abortion is cruel because it can be additionally expensive and mentally exhausting and can be completely unrewarding to do so.

Sarah Palin thinks what suits her should suit everybody else when it is not the case.

The blindness of conservatives to the plight of others often baffles me. But then they also failed to see that other people contribute to their success. I remember hearing George W Bush claiming he was a self made man. I wonder how many conservatives believed his claim? His father being president had absolutely no baring on his various successes?

Other self-made men include the spate of men claiming to have built a business all by themselves and don't consider their employees as being instrumental or that their customers having money was at all important either, a stable country where there was no rioting, police protecting the peace in whatever capacity whether it is the threat of criminal charges to prevent people from stealing from the the business or the ability to purchase goods to resell at a good prices also had nothing to do with the business persons' success? And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

But the shortsightedness doesn't end there, it is assuming that all people want to be entrepreneurs or self-employed and all getting all the ideas, help and luck they need to be able to do so in the first place.

Conservatives always think everyone has a family that is willing and able to help them. Not all families are capable of helping family members and sometimes family members die or people no longer associate with them.

So next time you think other people can do whatever you can do, think again. They may not have the same resources, family or luck as you do. What suits you may not suit them at all.

Australian aboriginals don't like naming their dead because it calls their soul back to our plane of existence. 

As a result their culture is disappearing especially in context with the dominate western culture eclipsing it.

Our (western) history is a story about a collection of men who did stuff. Women are few and far between when it comes to history. But there seems to be a number of things going on.

First of all if a woman accomplishes something and she is married, her husband will be remembered too. Think Lin and Vincent Ostrom, Marie and Pierre Curie, Masters and Johnson, Ada Lovelace and Babbage, although Babbage didn't marry Lovelace, and if you read this article they don't even mention Lovelace or the far more important Grace Hopper. Rather it mentions Alan Turing who I am not sure what he actually did to contribute to computer science at all. History goes from man to man and it is very probable without Hopper we wouldn't have the internet or be using computers now at all. And even Hopper's contribution to computer science is being erased by this wikipedia page, it was she who developed the first compiler and it was her idea in the first place. Without compilers computers wouldn't be the tools we have today.

Another example is Paul Revere who I knew of from childhood even though I grew up outside of the US. Yet I had never heard of Sybil Ludington although she did a better job while being less than half Revere's age.

Women disappear from history all the time, yet there are plenty of women scientists even in history but I bet your list stops with Pierre and Marie Curie and we probably only remember Marie because there is Pierre. But Marie Curie is far from being the only famous scientist, but she is the only one we remember.

History seldom includes renowned women, and when a woman is included it was because it was for a role that was beneath a man to perform such as Betsy Ross, who apparently sewed a flag. The flag may have been a milestone in independence and there is no way a man could do that. Nor is she remembered because she was a remarkable seamstress, it was she was in the right place at the right time.

Women are seldom remembered for being great in their own right, like this article on Patti Smith. Mike Jagger claims Patti Smith some how used her boyfriends to get to the top? That she isn't pretty enough? That she doesn't deserve to be remembered in her own right? Where as her music stands as great in it's own right and her boyfriends' music is often far more forgettable. Yet they are some how more worthy of being considered great? Women's achievements are discredited (especially by men), people read the discreditation and believe it because in this case Mick Jagger did the discrediting, presumably a man who is creditable enough to do this to her.

Rebecca Solnit writes about how women are silenced and assumed to be stupid by men. While Solnit says not all men do it, enough do it and women's contributions are ignored or assumed irrelevant and hence excluded from history.

Where are the great female musicians, composers, artists, engineers, scientists, mathematicians, authors? They existed but they are forgotten.

Similarly the black women in the US who are being raped and killed by police aren't being reported abroad, whereas the black men who are killed by police are.

Like the Australian aboriginals who don't talk about the great people from their history, the men and women who set up the first wildlife sanctuaries, how they developed industries, farms and mines, learned how to live in abundance on a desert continent for 60,000 years, developed boomerangs, medical technology and great art, how much more I don't know, I just know we lost so much with our absurd belief of our superiority. They will disappear like women do from our history books.

Getting men to accept women's equality (and what I mean by that is women are of equal value to society, just different) is just part of the mission of feminism, we also have to have women accept it as well.

There are three types of women, those who think women are of equal value to men, those who think she alone is of equal value to men, or indeed all women are inferior, and those women who sit on the fence. The fence sitters are often feminists because they believe in the equality of women but the 'label' has been so polluted for them and sometimes think it's about taking stuff from men, namely power or that it tries to emasculate men. Of course feminism is not trying to do this. The second role of feminism is about freeing men (and women) from stereotypes, such as the one where they cannot reach out for help, they feel isolated and alone. Often they commit suicide as a result of the stereotype of men just do not need help. Perhaps feminism needs a new name - like people-ism or something.

I think there are two types of women, it seems, 'good' and 'bad' women. 'Good' women are 'good', they follow what society tells them too, they make sure their arm-pits are shaved, they never talk about periods in polite society, they don't have abortions, they shame sluts because they themselves aren't sluts, they are 'good' women and the rest of women are 'bad'.

I'm browsing through facebook posts and I find this article about women not shaving their arm-pits and the women who posted the article were horrified, and women chimed in promising the men they shaved their arm-pits (like any good woman would). Thank god, I thought, a woman who knows how to toe-the-line, she fits in with society's expectation of what a woman should be. Curiously, a number of men chimed in saying they weren't opposed to it although some were. But generally it's a mix, some women are supportive, some men aren't. I don't know why we have discussions about women shaving their armpits - really don't people have better things to think about?

No doubt this 'good' woman makes the appropriate comments about other women's bodies, thinks abortion should be banned, thinks boys will be boys and daughters will be told how to think and feel about abortion and her strictures on the subject is the last word on the subject.

Until all women think all women are of equal value to men, we have an uphill battle in convincing all men we are. Because those men who don't will happily quote some woman like Phyllis Schlafly to say women are not equal as if she was elected by all women to speak on their behalf. Indeed I know men who have told me that something was written by a woman to put women down, so therefore it's true.

Hierarchies are a great idea when you are hunting dangerous large animals for dinner on the Serengeti. It may also be useful in other situations, like war, when humans are engaged in dangerous activities that need human coordination and cooperation to get a job done. But when the men who are old enough to engage in these dangerous activities come home it's another matter.

Apparently hunter-gatherer societies, by far a larger portion of our genetic history, had gender equality. It wasn't until humans became agricultural did society become so hierarchical. While men were out hunting game, women remained at tribal headquarters caring for the elderly, the young, the sick and each other while gathering roots and berries in case the men were unsuccessful during their hunt, or to supplement the tribe's diet. This explains why women are better at multitasking and communicating. Women may form cliques but they are really forming equalities. They treat each other as equals as they care for those who can't care for themselves and perform their other tasks.

Boys on the hunt must be old enough to be aware of how dangerous the activity is that they are engaged in, to be strong enough to do battle, and to be self aware enough to not get in the way, be able to think for themselves and coordinate with the others also engaged in this dangerous activity. When the men return from the hunt their hierarchies dissolve into the equalities they have formed with partners and the tribal community, as men do with their wives, in our society, with what some people call women led relationships.

I think marriage is about negotiating best solutions, two minds are better than one, and finding the optimal solution for problems/issues facing the couple. In other words, neither is in complete control, both trust each other to make the right decisions independently as necessary. I think it's foolish to think men or women know what is best all of the time.

However our society has become very hierarchical. Men organize amongst themselves who has the most power and then women have to negotiate with the men in that hierarchy how much power they have. If the women don't go out of their way to seize as much power straight away they will be pushed to the bottom of the hierarchy. (Years of personal experience working with males in male dominated fields.)

Women do not learn how to seize power given they are lavished with attention when they are young and this disempowers them later in life when they don't get as much attention as men lose interest in them because either the women are married and not available or available men are looking for younger partners.

This is a serious problem with hierarchies, being at the bottom of it, such as this white supremacist website claims they are. If you are at the bottom you must fight to raise your status and that means pushing those with less power down below you. You must be superior to someone else at all costs. (We might call this behavior bullying.)

Hence there is an implied violence with hierarchies as people continually seek as much power as possible to gain higher and higher positions on the totem pole. If you are at the bottom of the hierarchy you will be used as a whipping 'boy' and used as target practice by people above you to gain ranks. You commonly see this phenomena in established hierarchies. In a male dominated Facebook group I was on, I protested about a post as being sexist, and male after male told me that the post wasn't sexist. I was assured it wasn't homophobic - which it had passed a test by a gay male, but it didn't pass my test as being sexist. Yet male after male told me I was wrong. Each man told me I was wrong and signaled to the other men in the hierarchy they were following suit and towing the line, important when hunting on the Serengeti, and a form of coordination amongst them to maintain the status quo and ensured I was definitely at the bottom of the heap. If I had rather agreed with them it likely would not have increased my status or position in the hierarchy though, because I was an unknown woman.

Many cultures have coming of age ceremonies, where the individuals prove to themselves their adulthood, especially boys. When girls come of age they become debutantes or in the US they have prom parties or something is done to them or happens to them which implies their coming of age, and in some cultures this may be female genital mutilation. Women tend to define themselves by how much attention they receive. Again this is thrust upon them rather than them achieving something or doing something to mark their coming of age.

But with boy's coming of age in tribal societies most we would consider to be inhumane in our society. But I think boys still feel the need to prove themselves to themselves and other men for their place in the hierarchy because men tend to define themselves by what they do.

No doubt Dylann Roof has proven he is no longer at the bottom of the heap. He has had his rite of passage and he is being praised for his actions by some and associates with the powerful and powerful symbols. We are fortunate that not all young men feel the need to prove their coming of age as Dylann Roof did but it is common for boys that age to act aggressively to women, or others normally low in the hierarchy. This is possibly when we excuse their bad behavior as 'boys being boys'. (I rather suspect the men most inclined to need to prove themselves come from abusive homes.)

We must start learning to treat each other as equals. In another group, I questioned a woman who used the phrase "less than white" in relation to people of color. She didn't understand why I had an issue with her saying that until I said "how do you feel about being treated as being less than someone else". This of course alarmed her, she could not stand the idea of being treated as being less than someone else but could not relate to the idea of other people not liking being considered less than someone else. It was clear to me this woman had adopted the hierarchical structure and was clearly maintaining her position in the hierarchy.

We must stop thinking of needing people to be less than us to maintain our power. We must think of each other as equals, different but equals, because while we think of needing to prove our power we must find someone to be less powerful than us to push down to make us rise up and it is implied violence. When we are all equals then no one has to push anyone down. We must change the way we view other people or we will destroy ourselves and the planet, because the quest for money is nothing other than the quest for power, it produces the unaccountability of those at the top of the hierarchy as they do more and more to teach us we are less powerful than them because we are disposable to them.

There is no real community without equality. Because we must accept we each need each other to survive and this gives us our value, that we are needed. We need others just as much as they need us. Hierarchies teach us: I don't need you because you are less important than me, that the only people worth considering are those above me in the hierarchy. The irony in hierarchies is that we need those below us to be below us otherwise we'd be at the bottom again.

I was in some groups recently that were all about changing society and building stronger and happier communities and I noticed a couple of posts. One was referring to people who were "less than white" and the other was sexist.

In the "less than white post" I wasn't taken seriously at all when I objected to the wording, instead I got a giant "fart" picture which was meant to be about perspective. When I asked well how do you feel about being treated like no one important or less than others, they all saw that as shameful yet couldn't even see that just assuming someone was "less than white" would be anything but perfectly acceptable way to describe others. I think in the end the author of the post meant: different, but words definitely matter. Another person told me that white people were also the victim of racism, but the author is living in the US, the group is primarily white and also the culture.

I was appalled.

Secondly the sexist post I was told by man after man after man that the post wasn't sexist. Mob rules.

A better community - I think not.

But I began to think this was an Orwellian move or perhaps it brings out the conspiracy theorist in me. You see people spend their time talking to others to be told to adhere to the status quo. Yet people join hoping to create a better world - perhaps they will get their better world by having a community of people who all think exactly alike and while it is nice to live in an echo chamber it is not changing anything.

This is where I get to the conspiracy theory, if you want to change the world what better than to join a group of like minded people - there you can be monitored for your level of dissidence and spin your wheels not actually achieving anything and in the process merely reinforce the status quo. So basically these groups on facebook, and these particular groups aren't the only ones, are just to ossify dissatisfaction with the current world.

It is not until we really challenge ourselves will we truly change. And that society's fabric starts with how we treat other people. We should start with the premise that we are all equal.