MSI Press Blog

excerpt --  Francesca Palazzolo, Researcher, Sydney The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the world we live in. Since city-after-city in country-after-country began to introduce strict social-distancing laws, including stay-at-home directives, most of us have been stuck at home whether we like it or not. One concern attached to this global pandemic is Internet pornography use. Already, prior to the pandemic, the prevalence of Internet porn use was incredibly high. Pornhub, one of the most famous tube sites boasted 42 billion hits in 2019 alone, up from 33.5 billion in 2018. And, in a stroke of publicity genius on March 24, 2020, Pornhub announced it would make its premium offering free for 30 days to help “flatten the curve” of the virus spread. Following this announcement, usage spiked across the world with Italy’s use increasing 61% after the announcement. However, prior to this broadcast, traffic was up anyhow, according to early research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandem

Yesterday, with the release of Julie Gentile's book, How to Stay Calm in Chaos , we reached release #10 of the books in our pandemic series--experts among our authors who have turned their expertise into providing advice, help, and encouragement with dealing with the fallout of various sorts of trying to cope with and manage life successfully during a pandemic. These books encompass a wide range of topics, all of them very pertinent to what is happening all around us. Which ones could help you? The  Pandemic and Hope , written by former priest and long-term, respected psychologist, Dr. Dennis Ortman. Read more HERE . Tips, Tools, and Anecdoates to Help during a Pandemic , written by San Diego social worker, Joanna Charnas. Read more HERE . God Speaks into Darkness , written by church leader, J Bennett Easterling. Read more HERE . Diary of an RVer during Quarantine, written by RV expert (judge of the RV Oopsies awards), Karry MacDonald. Read more HERE . Old and On Hold , written by

FINDING OPPORTUNITY DURING THE PANDEMIC Making the Possible Possible We are older. We are vulnerable. We are taking our place as spectators of those younger and on the front lines of taking care of the ill and providing essential services. We are less able to see those who are working from home unless they appear in one of those boxes on the grid of people commenting on today’s news. We are missing being with some of our favorite people and doing some of our favorite things, but, for the moment, we’ve right sized our life during a pandemic to meet the needs of our unique selves and those for whom we care. No doubt we’ve had moments of what’s being called “quarantine fatigue.” A friendly grocery clerk likened it to the movie, Ground Hog Day , in which the same story repeats daily. Sometimes, we feel great progress is being made, and sometimes, we think it will never change. Depending upon the extent we’ve been directly exposed to the tragedy of COVID-19, we may be wonde

  The following excerpt comes from Seeking Balance in an Unbalanced Time by Steven Greenebaum. A FAMILY IN CRISIS               Pandemic. For most of us, and I certainly include myself, the notion of a worldwide pandemic has been ripped out of the realm of the theoretical and dumped with a thud in our laps. What do we do? How do we cope? How on Earth do we cope? How do we even try to lead some version of normal lives when life is no longer normal? How can we find and keep some kind of balance as we walk this pandemic tightrope? These are tough, important questions – and we want answers. Living a life of uncertainty 24/7 can break our heart and our spirit. Everything seems out of balance, especially our lives. So, what do we do?             The honest truth is, of course, there’s no one answer that solves this. There are so many different things for us to deal with as we try to keep our balance. What I’d like to do is offer what may be only a partial answer, but one I think we can hold

  As a child, I imagined that the year 2020 would feature flying cars, magically calorie-free food, teleportation, and pets that were actually robots. What the actual year 2020 has brought is a complete dumpster fire. At the time of writing, we’re only halfway through, and so far we have experienced increasingly dangerous political divisions, major earthquakes, civic unrest, actual locusts (really), the deaths of cherished public figures, continuing protests for racial equality, massive fires, and murder hornets. We can’t forget about the murder hornets. Oh yes, as if all of this wasn’t already enough, we’re also facing an unprecedented global health crisis in the form of the coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19. The WHO first reported a novel virus on January 5, 2020, after a series of cases in Wuhan, China originally thought to be pneumonia proved to be from the same strand of a new disease. [1] The first cases outside China were reported on January 13. On January 20 the U

  Excerpt from the pre-publication manuscript: Chapter 13 HOW DO WE USE OUR FREEDOM? “The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.” --Aung San Suu Kyi   ·        When the lockdowns began in March 2020 to stop the spread of the Coronavirus, “to flatten the curve,” we were shocked at this drastic measure. It underlined the seriousness and deadliness of the pandemic. We imagined the shutdown opening after a brief time. My friends and I exchanged humor and cartoons to help us cope with the shock and avoid panic. (The joking has slowed, almost to a standstill.) One cartoon was prescient of a coming attitude and agenda shift. It was a cartoon of a smiling Jim Carrey saying, “Hope they allow us off lockdown by July 4 th …so we can celebrate our freedom.” ·        His humor carries a stinging truth. Disillusionment has set in on a national scale. The lockdown was eased, but COVID-19 cases rose and States are closing down businesses and gatherings again. We are