Pnewsology

Jane Ogden (Professor in Health Psychology, Emeritus; email janeogden509@gmail.com; based on a conversation with James Cannon at Radio Surrey; 8.40 am 16/01/2026)

The week’s news with a dash of psychology!

Week ending 16/01/2025

All opinions are those of Jane Ogden

This week has been grim with lots of images of death and talk of executions.  At the start of the week, we read about the aftermath of the killing of Renee Nicole Good by the ICE member Jonathon Ross.  He shot her in the head and then shouted ‘F***ing bitch’ before driving away to be heralded the US government as a hero whilst Renee was labelled a ‘deranged leftist’.  Apparently, ICE have ‘Absolute immunity’.  There is now huge unrest across Minneapolis.

We have watched the protests in Iran against the current regime and heard how over 2,400 protesters have been killed – just shot in the streets with live ammunition.  Videos are now showing body bags in the morgues and reports of how the families are being charged the equivalent of nearly £4k to take home the bodies of their loved ones.  They are even being charged for the bullets.  Iran is now threatening to publicly execute captured protestors. Although these may have ‘postponed’.

At the same time the Israeli government are pushing through a bill so they can execute the Palestinians they hold in prison and have also moved their military zone even further into Gaza to give the Palestinians even less space to live in.

And NATO have started to move troops into Greenland given Trump’s claim that he will take it.

What a week!

Meanwhile in the UK we have had yellow weather warnings and rivers breaking their banks, extended water outages with one local describing it as a ‘third world country’ and traffic nightmares, particularly locally here in Surrey with 3 horses killed in separate incidents on the A3.

Whether it’s because there is only much death and misery I can take, whether it’s my optimistic streak, or whether it’s my years of being a psychologist but whilst all this makes me want to turn away it also make me feel grateful.  The UK is not in a great place at the moment, with a struggling NHS, an unpopular government who don’t really to know what they stand for and divisions around immigration and what it means to be British.  BUT with my gratitude hat on, we DON’T have capital punishment and the days of public (and private) executions are over; we ARE a democracy and can vote out any government we get after 4 years; our police mostly don’t carry guns and if they do they are trained not to use them and so far, don’t seem to be trigger happy.  AND we can still take to the streets to protest without the risk of being hit by a live bullet. 

AND, that most British trait of all, we can laugh at our leaders without being arrested.

There done – my gratitude task for the day (psychologists would be proud!).

It’s a great thing, gratitude, and really does help me feel better about my lot.  It helps to get perspective, focus on the positives and find the pleasure in the important (no capital punishment) and trivial (good coffee) parts of our daily lives.  But telling someone else to be grateful strangely always backfires!  As I would say to my parents ‘I didn’t choose to be born’.  So be grateful but be careful how you get others to do the same!