Edward O. Wilson: The American biologist popularized the concept in his 1984 book, Biophilia. He expanded it into the “biophilia hypothesis,” suggesting that this deep-seated affiliation with nature has a genetic basis tied to early human survival.
On my Finding Fringe radio hour, Jan 25, Nate Lattanzio was jazzed, on point, and a virtual motor mouth. At age 29, he’s worked through many jobs, worked for a school district, advised on youth in the K12 system, and now he is with Youth Era.
Youth Era hears from young people who include not getting enough input on the plans designed to help them, finding the right help too late, and not learning enough relevant information in schools.
“And a lot of it comes down to burnout and compassion fatigue and these different experiences,” Lattanzio said of the shortcomings of youth support in Oregon. “As a council, we try to do a level of explaining why this harm is being caused, while not excusing it at the same time. Like, it’s definitely a fine balance,” he said of the shortcomings of youth support in Oregon. “As a council, we try to do a level of explaining why this harm is being caused, while not excusing it at the same time. Like, it’s definitely a fine balance.”
“There are more young people falling through the cracks, and this can cost lives.” NL
Nate Lattanzio, a youth advisory council coordinator for the Youth Era organization, had an offer. He asked youth in Linn, Benton, and Lincoln counties who have worked with social programs to share their stories – and get paid $25 for an hour of their time.
“We are paying young people to hear their feedback about what worked, what didn’t work and just overall gaps and barriers that they experience in receiving some type of care in the area,” Lattanzio said. He said it could include feedback on teachers, the Department of Human Services and other “youth-serving systems.”
The dramatic increase in the Latino population across the United States is changing the face of the nation’s youth. Currently, one in five public school children are Latino, compared to one in eight in the 1990s. By 2050, more Latino school-age children than non-Latino white school-age children will reside in the US (Fry and Gonzales, 2008).
My own youth work — beyond just working at community colleges with high schoolers in 11th and 12th grade allowed to take college classes, to just those 17 to 29 year olds in classes, to my own work as a case manager for foster youth, called the Independent Living Program, to my work with LGBTQA youth as an outdoor counselor in Spokane and Idaho, to my work with youth with developmental disabilities, to a whole array of things I have done to engender the power of youth in so many arena — is a constant evolution learning how to tap that energy, those amazing minds, and how to bring listening circles to the old farts running city hall, running chambers of commerce, running state Capitals, and running this country into the ground.
I have been trained and trained and trained: System of care (SOC) is a philosophy of cross-system collaboration that supports youth and families who have complex and significant behavioral and mental health and/or intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD) needs. In practice, an SOC is a coordinated network of services and supports for youth and families. The Oregon System of Care Advisory Council (SOCAC) makes recommendations about the SOC by developing and maintaining a strategic plan for the state SOC.
And, here, more than 8 years ago: “Falling into the Planned Parenthood Gardasil Snake Pit” by Paul Haeder December 4, 2017 53.7K views
Fear of Advocating for Clients
One of the rights we hold as self-evident, supposedly held as a God-given American tenet, is the unrestricted ability for any person to find work to both help the person survive in this pay-as-we-go society and to, in some cases, help a person achieve some sort of self-worth and dignity.
The careers I have had include college instructor/faculty, newspaper journalist, community organizer, and social worker. My work in the past seven years (2017) includes working with adults with severe developmental disabilities, with adults in a memory care facility as their educator and outings lead. I’ve worked to help adults in a sheltered workshop find competitive employment; I have worked with clients deemed homeless/addicts/felons to gain skills, services, and employment on their road to recovery, re-entry, and resuscitation.
I was working a pretty cool job most recently as a social worker/case manager for an independent living program, a suite of services set up nationally for foster youth, 16 to 21 years of age, mainly to get them to finish high school and go on to college or trade school. My gifts as a teacher, outdoor educator, world traveler, communicator, and creative soul aided me in making deep and profound connections to youth who have seen the underbelly of life and face many challenges tied to the disconnected nature of living, sometimes in dozens of foster care homes. Exposure to drug use, pornography, drug dealing, violence, sexual assault, and criminal acts are just some of the histories of these youth.
I worked hands-on with youth one-on-one and in groups. I got to take them on outings like surfing in the Pacific and a four-day conference at a private university. I had some level of independence and developed great relationships with other professionals in state, county, city public sector jobs, and with foster parents and the youth. The job also afforded me decent training in all sorts of areas, including trauma-informed care and motivational interviewing.
Sex Ed and Me
I came face-to-face, though, with the inner workings of Planned Parenthood, as in my first intersection with PP while training to be a facilitator for one five-hour curriculum attempting to get youth to understand the high risks associated with alcohol use and unprotected sex.
The specific training I had taken as part of my job description was focused on case managers becoming trainers, titled Sexual Health and Adolescent Risk Prevention (SHARP). My former employers, Lifeworks Northwest, a 46-year-old non-profit, receives thousands of dollars from Planned Parenthood each year to allow PP to utilize our caseloads, youth, 16 to 21, characterized as high risk for homelessness, dropping out of school, substance abuse, pregnancy, and contracting an STI, sexually transmitted infection:
“The goal of the Healthy Youth Collaborative is to reach youth by bringing evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs to scale. To achieve this goal, Planned Parenthood implements Healthy Youth Collaborative programming within each community, in four different settings including schools (middle and high school), health centers, community-based organizations, and juvenile justice facilities. A curriculum has been chosen so that there is an appropriate evidence-based program for each of these settings.”…
“No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer.” — Thomas Browne, Hektoen International, A Journal of Medical Humanities
So don’t tell me I haven’t ground-truthed every goddamned job I have ever had, please:
My story started when I was in a Planned Parenthood training, a mandatory course for social workers titled Fundamentals of Sex Ed. For a total of possibly 30 seconds out of a 16-hour two-day training (I was kicked out after day one), I voiced my opinion about the potential risks associated with Gardasil. On a slip of paper, then, in an anonymous forum, I went further with about 60 words answering this first day evaluation question: What could Planned Parenthood have done differently today in the training?
I am really disappointed that Planned Parenthood in Seattle is so lock-step in line with Big Pharma. Especially in the case of Gardasil, which is a vaccine that has gotten tens of thousands complaints about it. Anyone, including my 16 to 21 year old clients, could easily Google ‘Gardasil Dangers’ and find a plethora of very disturbing and legitimate information about its dangers. I wish Planned Parenthood showed more critical thinking and independent pedagogical standards, including informed consent.
Less than two hours after the training, I was called at my hotel room by my supervisor, who let me know:
The Planned Parenthood trainers said they do not want you back for the second day of training. I am putting you on administrative leave. I am looking into what happened in Seattle. Do not return to the office until further notice.
That was Oct. 15, 2017, and I have since been terminated, have been on the job market, am attempting to collect a few weeks of unemployment assistance, have a lawyer investigating my case, and started writing about my case on multiple forums. You can read my posts: Gardasil and the American Bald Eagle – What Would Rachel Carson Do?, My Fate as a Social Worker Sealed by a Vaccine Named Gardasil; Planned Parenthood, A Vaccine, Double-think Alive and Well in the World of Non-profits.
Do I digress? The 60 minutes with Nate are captured in the radio broadcast above as part of the Subterranean Blues Stack Podcast frame.
We talked, or I talked, about the fucked up system of the US Military “volunteer” uniformed Army Disservices making their 2026 recruitment goals EARLY.
Only about 23% of young Americans qualify for military service. The majority of American youth cannot join due to rising rates of obesity, mental or physical health issues, drug use, or criminal records. The drop in births during the 2008 Great Recession also created a 10% reduction in the number of young adults turning 18
- Targeted Interventions: Meeting the goal required structural adaptations. The military has utilized specialized programs like the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, which helps young Americans academically and physically qualify before basic training.
- A Surge in Interest: Despite eligibility constraints, the U.S. military has experienced a historic, record-breaking surge in recruiting. Driven by aggressive career incentives and the ongoing global conflicts, the propensity to serve has spiked, allowing the Army to meet its quota safely ahead of schedule.
This photo above is so warped up on so many levels. Recall, I also worked as a counselor for veterans and their families, listening to my clients’ stories daily in a housing facility where veterans and their families lived awaiting housing vouchers and disability claims.
My job was to get them jobs, get them housing, go to disability hearings with them, help with medical appointments, and do the general work of listening to their complaints and their trials and tribulations.
MSA is not an acronym for those youth above here, but it is the reality of women and men (almost girls and almost boys) getting raped by their fellow patriotic service members, usually peers and especially by higher-ups. Military Sexual Assault, they label that.
And so Uncle Genocide Sam wants you, young, and then, middle-aged:
Those in their late 30s and early 40s can now join the U.S. Army. The Army increased its maximum enlistment age to 42 this month, bringing its accession policy closer in line with most of the United States’ other military services, according to updated service regulation documents published this month. Individuals up to 42 with or without prior military service can enlist in the Regular Army, the Army National Guard, and the Army Reserve, according to the updated Army Regulation 601-210 published March 20. AR 601-210 is the regulation that governs policies and procedures for the Army’s enlistment process.
Here is what the Black Panthers cranked out in the 1960s.
Nate and I talked about suicide, too.
[America Gruner is a community organizer in Dalton, Georgia, a city in the northwestern corner of the state with a large Latino population. Gruner, who was born in Mexico, set up support group gatherings in an office in a local grocery store, where people can speak in Spanish about their concerns about mental health and suicide.]
Latino youth face a multitude of challenges, including poor socioeconomic resources, risk for behavioral problems (e.g., drug use and early pregnancy), and low educational attainment (Kuperminc et al., 2009; Rodriguez and Morrobel, 2004). Of particular concern is the mental and emotional health of Latino youth. The CDC’s (2007) national survey found that Latino youth were more likely to feel sad or hopeless (36.3%), to seriously consider suicide (15.9%), and to attempt suicide (10.2%) than white (26.2%, 14.0%, and 5.6%, respectively) and African American (29.2%, 13.2%, and 7.7%) youth. Furthermore, studies have shown that both depression and anxiety are positively correlated with increased rates of suicidal behavior, and adolescents who are depressed are 35–50% more likely to attempt suicide (Dopheid, 2006).
We have moved so far from reality, from holism, from the mind-body-earth regenerative ethos of the Lakota: Wowačíŋtaŋka is . . .
Fortitude means facing danger or challenges with courage, strength, and confidence. Believing in oneself allows a person to face challenges. Fortitude includes the ability to come to terms with problems, accept them, and to find a solution that is good for everyone.
One of the first lessons a Lakota child learned in the old days was self-control and self-restraint in the presence of parents or adults. Mastery and abilities came from games and creative play. Someone more skilled than oneself was viewed as a role model, not as a competitor. Striving was for achieving a personal goal, not for being superior to one’s opponent. Success was a possession of the many, not of the few.
Fortitude may require patience, perseverance, and strength of mind in the face of challenges. It involves having confidence in oneself and the courage to continue even when all odds are against you. Fear still exists, but you proceed despite fear.
Young people are habituated toward doom scrolling, toward screen life, toward compliance and an endless attack on their generation. Yet, YOUTH, should be able to vote at age 15, should be at every city and county meeting, should be at every planning department meeting, should be right next to every overpaid city or county planner, and should be in the boardrooms, on school boards, in state capitals, and EVERYWHERE.
We also talked about “schools.”
Against School by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991. Here, the specific quote above: 8 paragraphs into his speech: Why Schools Don’t Educate.
Published in Harper’s Magazine, September 2003
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
My own journey, man oh man, goes deep into education, deep into teaching youth how to swim, how to scuba dive, how to photograph their barrios, how to write news articles, how to publish their own magazines, how to go outdoors and see ecosystems.
So, think hard about how disenfranchised I am in this usury and lock-step culture of compliance: I have been doing some sort of teaching since age 13, man, and here I am, 56 years later, cancelled, not allowed to teach in k12, stopped from teaching community education classes, and more of that cancelling culture eating at my soul.
Miseducation and the Trail of Tears Daily Exacted
Paul Haeder:
Substitute teacher, and today, halfway through third period as substitute for a high school language arts class, the burly, idiotic, uninitiated, reactionary, dense, illogical, broken, un-teacher of a vice principal stood out that door at Waldport High School and summarily told me to “grab your belongings and we want you to leave.”
Nate was cool, lively and we got down to what he’s passionate about and how he sees his role now as he hits his 30s as a youth council advisor. Listen to him speak, man. He was on my KYAQ FM 91.7 show.
Alas, a poem by yours truly. . . I suppose dedicated to youth, to John Taylor Gatto, to John Dewey, to Paulo Freire, and a million points of light out there, real teachers fighting the oppression of fascism and top-down mismanagement.
Invisible Mists Holding Children Like Ghosts
empty vessel
ready for words and worlds
to flow into their hands
children of a lesser god
the child inside
finger painting and murals
real syncopation with eagle
king tide
children captured in retail
space yet blocks away
crashing waves, Seal Rock
Devil’s Churn, black eye
of gray whale
eagle couple over football
field, children held in gulag
four walls like moat
tables chairs lined up
DMV driver’s license test
unholy is imprisonment
unworldly is bumbling
teacher as police officer
dead time half the day
bells and announcements
medium security
old men at 39
women heavy with bulging
hips, hunched over at 50
you are what you eat
what you read
what you say
what you do
what you watch
what you hope
what you dream
what you think
what you don’t do
don’t eat don’t read
don’t say don’t dream of
don’t hope for
don’t watch don’t believe
you are that
*****
Notes: Definitions of terms used in my title!
Miseducation: As pioneered by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in his seminal 1933 text The Mis-Education of the Negro, it describes how systems can deprive marginalized groups of their factual history and identity, reinforcing a dominant social order.
Agnotology: Manufacturing Doubt: Sowing confusion by promoting misleading or fringe scientific data. Suppression of Truth: Censoring or hiding inconvenient facts to keep the public in the dark. Weaponization of Information: Deliberately flooding the information ecosystem with false or overwhelming narratives to make the truth harder to find.
Brainwashing: The English term was coined in 1950 by journalist Edward Hunter. It was a literal translation of the Chinese phrase xǐ nǎo (洗腦, “wash brain”). This phrase was used to describe the coercive manipulation and thought reform tactics employed by the Maoist regime against prisoners during the Korean War. Now? While the original definition requires severe physical or psychological coercion, the term is frequently used informally today. People use it to describe high-pressure advertising, political propaganda, or algorithmic social media echo chambers that heavily sway consumer habits and public opinions. Economic Draft
Disneyfication: In this book, Disneyization, Theo Derksen makes the case that more and more sectors of society and the economy are being infiltrated by a process I call Disneyization. By Disneyization, he means simply: the process by which the principles of the Disney theme parks are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society, as well as the rest of the world.
A deeper dive: Sanitization: Removing negative, controversial, or complex facts so a subject becomes family-friendly and pleasant.
- Theming & Consumerism: Transforming environments (like historic downtowns) into spaces that resemble theme parks, prioritizing entertainment and shopping over genuine cultural experiences.
- Standardization: Replacing organic, local identities with idealized, standardized aesthetics (e.g., a “Main Street, USA” veneer)
Biophobia: This is either Animal Aversion, that is, fear or disgust toward entirely harmless or beneficial insects and animals (e.g., beetles, moths, or frogs). Ad discomfort in the Wild: Feeling anxious or out of place in dark forests, large bodies of water, or undistracted natural settings. Leading to Preference for Artificiality: Believing that humanity has “evolved beyond” nature and heavily preferring urban, concrete, and digitally constructed environments. All packaged by our media-polluted modern world, i.e., Media-Driven Fear: Developing unwarranted aversions based on sensationalized media narratives (e.g., a fear of swimming in the ocean due to movies depicting sharks.
Economic Draft: More accurately labeled, the “Poverty Draft” is a term used by critics to describe recruiting practices that heavily target economically neglected areas or communities of color. Also, read about Opportunity Cost: Economists often analyze this through the lens of opportunity cost (the loss of potential gain from other alternatives). For many in impoverished areas, the military offers healthcare, job training, and education benefits they otherwise could not afford, making it their most viable economic option. And, then, Budgetary vs. True Cost: Economists argue that the “cheapness” of military labor from disadvantaged backgrounds masks the true total cost of defense, which includes the foregone civilian economic output and wages these individuals could have achieved elsewhere. More information at the Anarchist Library.