The Cul-De-Sac Hero

Girl Guide's Transgendered Policy??? For Seven-Year-Olds????

2012-01-12T18:09:00.000-08:00

I put a comment down at this Globe And Mail Article. Does anyone else think it's weird to put a 7-year-old boy in Girl Guides?

Comment Posted:

I thought 7 years old was too young to start imprinting gender roles and "stereotypes". It's funny how the PC crowd jumps down the throat of parents who give their daughters Barbies and kitchen sets but they love it when parents put their 7 YEAR OLD BOY in a skirt and send him off to Girl Guides! Don't you people see your hypocrisy? I'd say give the boy a chance to be a boy. It's much too young to make him commit to a lifetime of confusion. I feel sorry for people who are transgendered because it must be very confusing, but a 7 year old is not nearly mature enough to make a decision that can affect his whole life. It wasn't that long ago that these parents would have been charged with child abuse.

It's ok to be let him be a boy, even if he doesn't play trucks and swords. When he's old enough to understand what the real difference is between men and women, then he can do what he wants and decide who he is.

There was once a positive organization for young boys call the Boy Scouts. It taught young boys to accept eachother for who they were and to be comfortable in their own skins. Nowadays, boys are given few positive role models and few chances to act out in healthy boyish ways. It's not surprising that some would rather be girls. They receive all the positive messages
I thought 7 years old was too young to start imprinting gender roles and "stereotypes". It's funny how the PC crowd jumps down the throat of parents who give their daughters Barbies and kitchen sets but they love it when parents put their 7 YEAR OLD BOY in a skirt and send him off to Girl Guides! Don't you people see your hypocrisy? I'd say give the boy a chance to be a boy. It's much too young to make him commit to a lifetime of confusion. I feel sorry for people who are transgendered because it must be very confusing, but a 7 year old is not nearly mature enough to make a decision that can affect his whole life. It wasn't that long ago that these parents would have been charged with child abuse.

It's ok to be let him be a boy, even if he doesn't play trucks and swords. When he's old enough to understand what the real difference is between men and women, then he can do what he wants and decide who he is.

There was once a positive organization for young boys call the Boy Scouts. It taught young boys to accept eachother for who they were and to be comfortable in their own skins. Nowadays, boys are given few positive role models and few chances to act out in healthy boyish ways. It's not surprising that some would rather be girls. They receive all the positive messages

Liberal war on Childhood Aggression

2011-10-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

I just have time for a quick post about a G&M article equating aggression with behavioural problems. I don't know if liberal media and research community make this mistake on purpose in order to further the anti-bullying agenda or whether they just don't understand that aggression is a natural behaviour, whereas, behaviour problems are the result of poor social conditioning.

Aggression is a useful trait for sports, business and social circles if channelled and trained properly. If a child is taught proper self-discipline and empathy, aggressiveness will help him or her succeed in the world.

The NYU study, which seems problematic because it is based on parental reports and observation - how much and what type of observation is not stated - really points to socialization by parents. Of course parents who have difficulty socializing with their children will have children with difficulty socializing in school. Acting out, defiance and hostility are the result of poor social skills and self-control. These are learned behaviours.

There are countless ways that an aggressive nature can be expressed. This is shown by the lack of correlation between infant temperament and difficulties in Kindergarten and Grade One. With proper parenting, the children with aggressive temperaments quickly adapted to the school environment and showed no behavioural problems. Poor parenting resulted in problems no matter what the temperament was.

Confirmation bias is astounding amongst Blank Slate believers is astounding. The scientific method cannot filter it out of sociological studies.

Pinker Raises the Hackles of Indignant Liberal Professor

2011-10-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

I was working on another posts, but I had to stop when the Globe published this questionable review of Pinker's latest book (which I have on hold at the Library). Whitehead charges right at Pinker with his best shot.
Those theoretical claims are nothing new and have been extensively discredited by social scientists, although Pinker engages none of that literature.
Discredited by so called scientists are they? Please don't be so 'flippant' about how you dismiss his theories. Don't keep us in the dark. Please explain further. I believe they were pretty well laid out in The Blank Slate.

However, Pinker uses a very questionable definition of violence and, in dismissing our perception of violence as irrelevant, completely overlooks the fact that reporting and representations of violence are not just “about” violence but are actually part of it. He characterizes media coverage as: “If it bleeds, it leads,” but this fact actually tells us a lot about how important violence is to our society, not that it is illusory.
Perhaps violence not illusory, but the fact of the matter is, that violence is trending downward, while our perception is the opposite. Perception is a part of violence? So, you are arguing that I am actually assaulted when I read about an assault in the paper or see it on the news. Interesting.

Not only are numbers notoriously difficult to establish accurately in periods before the 20th century, as Pinker quietly admits, but deaths in wars were only partly due to direct homicidal violence. In the past at least, as many died of disease and untreated wounds.

Maybe his statistics are problematic, but it's far closer to reality than the notion of the noble savage that he's combating. He merely paints a different picture than the idyllic societies championed by critics like you. Truth is, although 60-70 million people died in WWII, the ratio of deaths to the total number of people was lower than prior periods. Read the Iliad for a good idea of what ancient wars were like. Brutality is decreasing steadily. Also, a states ability and willingness to heal wounded soldiers is yet another example of a nicer world.

Whitehead seems to think that since Pinker states that things are better than ever, that he's means that war is actually nice nowadays. He mentions PTSD as if ancient cultures didn't suffer some from post-traumatic stress after violent confrontations. The stats for deaths prior to the 20th century may be problematic but PTSD was not even invented yet.

The writer has completely made Pinker's case that the world is nicer with his explanation of torture.

Another significant example of this failure to think through what “violence” actually is becomes evident in the discussion of torture, paradoxically enjoying something of revival. While the Grand Guignol of medieval torture may no longer be with us, the use of torture has not abated. Pinker’s timeline for the abolition of judicial torture thus overlooks how extra-juridical “touchless” torture, enhanced interrogation and rendition are a persistent feature of the post-Second World Wart world. Similarly, although incarceration may have supplanted bodily mutilation and execution, it remains a violence nonetheless.
While it is true incarceration does fall in the category of violence, today's incarceration is nothing near as frightening as body mutilation, execution or the horrific forms of torture that have been used in days past. Whitehead wants to refute Pinker's assertion that the world is getting better, by saying that until it is absolutely perfect, we can't count that as progress. Earlier he tries to call incarceration of blacks a mass atrocity. Is it really on the scale of the holocaust or the enslavement of Jews by the Egyptians? Can't we compare the past with the present with our judicial system, welfare and human rights and at least admit that we have it pretty good?

Now, I haven't read this book yet, but I have read and heard enough Pinker to doubt that he means that our world has no problems with violence. The Blank Slate argued that we can't change our basic natural instincts and denying our nature to try to hoist some idealistic perfect society on us will fail and leads to misery. Tackling the serious problems that Whitehead mentions, requires a real understanding of human nature which he can't seem to accept.

Three Random Guys With Swords in France

2011-10-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

I remember sitting around with my fellow English Lit. majors at university wondering what we'd do after we graduated. I was a bit lost in my youth, so I didn't think too much about my career except to say that I'd be a writer (well, this is it). One of my friends said the ultimate job would be to collect her PhD and go to Hollywood to consult on films. While that did sound like a cool career, there was something unappealing about trying to convince some hotshot Hollywood director how to get a nuanced reference to classic literature just right when all they wanted to do was flash boobs and guns across the screen and wait for the box-office returns to roll in.

Seeing trailers like this for Paul W.S. Anderson's version of The Three Musketeers confirms all of my worst fears. It pains me to think that several people with a PhDs were probably used in the background for this film, although Alex Litvak and Andrew Davies get credit for the screenplay. I could not have stomached working on a piece of crap like this - shot in 3D, of course.

It's long been known that nothing is sacred in this world. People who hold passionately to truth or accuracy are basically dismissed as snobs and told to lighten up. But what is more disturbing than the desctruction of truth and culture? Nobody really takes things seriously, but the messages underlying movies like these are not subtle.

I haven't seen the movie and hopefully, will never have to part with my own money in order to see how bad this movie actually is. Maybe I'll forget about my mini-rage when I saw 17th century swash-buckling air-ship captains and female assassins in this little trailer.

OWS Is the Appitome of VNP

2011-10-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

OneSTDV outlines the media's different responses to OWS compared to the Tea Party. One group seeks to bring down civilization and it's "broken" systems while the other is trying to save them. Yet, the one seeking a violent overthrow (cleverly disguised as a "non-violent protest") is portrayed as a struggle for justice by a patriotic group of intelligent, passionate youth while the Tea Party is painted as a sinister, backward group of hate-mongers.

The Reason is Very Nice Politics. The left is full of Very Nice People(VNP) with Very Nice Politics(VNP). The media is full of VNP with VNP. If you ask a person why they like the ideas of Leftist politics, you'll usually get something like, "I think we need to do what we can to help people/make things better/make things fair/make things safer." So, any government action is justified as long as its intention is to make the world a NICER place. The catch is that the actions do not necessarily make the world better for most people in the long run. The desire to do nice things, however, gives politicians an easy way to get votes and portray themselves in a nice light. Even if the action is horribly wrong-headed and the result is disasterous, the politician a hero because he was trying to do something nice. To criticize the results and point out how wasteful or useless it was is to say that you don't care about the people or cause he was working so hard for.

So OWS, even though their ideas,when they are coherent, are generally ridiculous they are treated as heros. While, I am glad that people are causing us to take another hard look at the excessive liberties taken by members of Wall Street, I'm annoyed that so much credit has been given to the VNP's of OWS, while the Tea Party, who actually have some coherent, realistic messages, are dismissed as crazy.

I'm including the picture on OneSTDV's post because it just says it all.

Thanksgiving Shall Now Be Called Thanksguilting

2011-10-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Globe,

My children and their friends are being brainwashed by sermonizing environmentalist hypocrites and their attention craving friends and now they have this notion that our species is evil and deserves to die out. When they try to say that "our love of barbecued steak and grilled shrimp" are ruining the planet, they really mean that we have no right to feel good and be healthy while other people are working so hard using images of the poor and destitute to gain wealth and fame while undermining our way of life.

I am pretty sure that I can deprogram my own kids but unlike them, I don't think I have the right to tell other people's children how to think.

NOTE: Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October, unlike in the USA.

The Problem with SWPL

2011-08-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

I didn't like the term SWPL as soon as I heard it. I did use it in one post title (and might have mentioned it in another, I can't remember), but it was due to the lack of a better term (which I'll get to). I read through the SWPL website and found it lacking in any clarity of exactly what white people should do. It was full of things they can't do: They can't participate in intelligent discussions, read old childhood books to their children, listen to old music, listen to new music, have nice things, have old things, live in a nice place, play sports, exercise, eat healthy, eat unhealthy, etc. etc. etc. Of course, there are a few points to be made about the irony and hypocrisy of certain Liberal Cultural and Political Memes, but, for the most part, I find the website disturbing. A lot of the targets are just cool things that happen to be popular, that also cost money, so naturally, you don't see a lot of inner-city youth participants.

It basically puts up walls of ridicule for white people and Catch 22's (is that book SWPL?) They can't reach out, they can't shut themselves in. It's basically putting in writing what everyone knows is the white-person's trap. If you try to do the right thing, you're an arrogant do-gooder. If you try to be cool, well, you're a dorky white person so stop it and go make some money at your privileged white-person's job at a big corporation. I find this cltural identity shaming is as damaging (potentially!) as the horrible cultural shaming common in black culture whereby working hard, studying, talking in proper English with respectful tone can be seen as being too "white" (Carlton from Fresh Prince being the ultimate foil).

So now as soon as something becomes popular, it becomes SWPL. I'm reminded of the nineties music scene when no band was allowed to become too popular or else they were called sell-outs. Hell, every band wanted to sell out, so they could keep making music. That's the damn business.

Now we see the language of the alt-right begin to collapse in under itself. Half Sigma has called Paleo Dieters Gaia worshipers for their so-called belief in an all-natural dieting philosophy. Yes, Gaia worshipping is SWPL and many of the commenters, like Albert Magnus got on the SWPL-hating bandwagon on the earlier post about Gluten calling Paleo a SWPL pursuit. So eating a Paleo diet is Gaian since it is based on evolutionary science? (and BTW, HS seems to know little about evolution) Gaianism is a religion and therefore ignores much of science. Science is not a religion, but, pseudo-science can be used as a base for religion. Paleo dieting is ALL ABOUT SCIENCE (and not the whoring of science as I've posted about either).

So let's state it clearly. To be SWPL, you have to A. be White B. Not work in a labour job (factory, trucking, construction, etc) C. Like stuff that some other people like (or not like stuff that not too many people like, but enough do that you can say some do, or something like that).

Could it be that there are things that appeal to lots of people because they're good things? Hmmm....

So who is it that I was talking about that I wrote about in my post about SWPLS and Nature? It's not that I don't like them, it's that I find them perplexing because of the depth of their delusions about nature. I'd say it's more pity than dislike. It's not that they like frisbee or drink coffee (I like those things BTW).

In the post, I spoke of a Very Nice Woman (VNW) who "loved" nature, just not when it was violent. Well, that's funny, because violence is at the very heart of nature - some animals eat grass, some animals eat animals in a big CIRCLE OF LIFE. I want to send all these Very Nice People (VNP) to re-watch the Lion King and to get that message so common in many of Walt's great films (just not Bambi). So, I will never refer to SWPLS again. I will only refer to VNP's. These people deny human nature and that humans are part of nature. Nature to them is a little kitten who never wants to use her claws, but will use them only when necessary. I can only hope to awaken them from their dreamy delusions one day.

Feminist Foot Soldiers Fire on Rogers Cup Ad

2011-07-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

An Ad agency for Rogers came up with the slogan "Come for the Ladies. Stay for the Legends." to promote the fact that there was a Legends game with four retired legends of men's tennis after the women's tournament. I'm sure that they went over this a million times before they released the ads. I can imagine the conversation in the executive meetings:
"Are you sure that this is making it clear that the women's game is the focus?"
"Of course! It's clear that we want people to come to see the ladies, but they get to see a friendly legends game as a bonus."

It should have come as no surprise that the legions of the feminism industry would jump up at any misconceptions they might have and cause an uproar. It is clear that they are simply looking for something to be angry about instead of giving serious thought to the issue. But, like any standing army, they are constantly looking for a battle to test there mettle.

The Rogers Cup quickly backed down from the clearly unwinnable war. I would have been impressed if a corporation as big and important, at least in Canada, stood behind its campaign, but the trigger-happy feminist army is not one to trifle with. Rogers has plenty of female clients whose money it truly cares for.

The company, apparently has no qualms about offending its male clientele - nobody does. OneSTDV has a post about male-bashing commercials with plenty of examples to choose from. Rogers has run similar adds for its wireless division that depict women as know-it-all-leading-edge-tech-savvy while their male counterparts are bumbling juvenile morons. One ad that sticks out in my mind, shows a girl on a bus-trip sharing videos with her friends on her wireless devices. "The guys laughed at me for bringing my devices on the trip," she explains. It depicts the guys on the trip as goof-balls, laughing hysterical at the mundane movie on the bus's video screen, while the clever girls lap up the latest entertainment on her Ipad. I can't find a video link but here are a couple of mentions I've found, so you don't think I'm making it up.

So, on one hand, you have blatantly bad images of men ubiquitously strewn about the world of advertising, and barely a peep. On the other hand, one message that can be deliberately misinterpreted and spun into something marginally sexist causes an uproar.

Recently, I posited that one reason that it is ok to blame parents for awful crimes perpetrated against their children is the lack of a "childrenism" movement. Obviously, children do not have the ability to speak up for themselves, so, they rely on child advocates who basically shame parents into becoming helicopter parents. Feminism has legions of soldiers ready to shame society into behaving in whatever manner feminism suggests is acceptable and believing that their mantras are gospel. Corporate advertisers are constantly attacked for any slight that may be perceived (real or imagined). But, the Men's Rights Movement(MRM) has been slow to recruit members, so, there are no campaigns waged and no fearful advertisers.

I, for one, have been slow to identify myself with the MRM because it seems to devolve into women bashing a little too much for my tastes. When I discovered the-spearhead.com, it was a revelation. But, after awhile, I realized that some of the notions were as biased against women as gender-feminism is against men. I value the opinions expressed and the free exchange of ideas that the site and its founders enable and I fully support the many good opinions expressed. However, things are just not bad enough for men to create a group of MRA's large enough to cause a stir in the media. I hope the pendulum doesn't swing that far.

My New Schtick - "Woman Hating Creep"

2011-07-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

I just checked out my stats, in the wake of my post comparing the reactions toward child abduction and rape being tweeted by Lenore Skenazy (thank you very much), and found that I was getting a lot of hits from a post by Rebecca Odes at babble.com. Rebecca does a great job of expanding on my point being careful to avoid the implications toward the issue of rape.

Ultimately, the reason I think we hold parents responsible when something awful happens is that it gives us a sense of control. When we look to the details surrounding a tragedy, what we really want to do is find out how to differentiate ourselves: I’m different. I’m smarter. This happened because the child’s mother made a bad choice, because he lives in a big city, because he wasn’t educated properly. Anything but the truth, which is that we are all vulnerable.

Yes, we are all vulnerable - women, more so than men, children even more so than women.

Looking at the comments, we see why I decided not to submit the post on FreeRangeKids. When I typed the post, I realized that most people will spot the hot-button issue and become angered that I wasn't making it abundantly clear that I absolutely tow the PC feminists line.

Commenter BunnyTwenty attacks me outright and twists my words around completely. (The ability of some people to twist others' words around to paint them as straw-villains of cliched rhetoric is the primary deterrent for honest debate). Don't worry citizens. The culdesachero, with his skin of incredible thickness, is able to fend off such hateful, childish insults and dirty fighting tricks. He has even foreseen such an attack. Although, "woman-hating creep" came as a big surprise. Don't tell Mrs. Culdesachero or I'm sure she'll ... well, she'll roll her eyes and say "Geeze, what has he said now?"

So, on to battle. What does the ever so thoughtful BunnyTwenty say about our hero?

FYI: cul-de-sac hero isn’t the best guy to be linking to on this. His point, at least judging by other posts of his that I’ve read, isn’t that parents aren’t responsible for their kids getting murdered (not my opinion! his! his!), but that women ARE responsible for getting raped because of what they wear or how much they drink. I skimmed through his blog and he’s kind of a woman-hating creep.

Here we see the typical knee-jerk response that has been programed into most people these days from feminist (gender-feminist) indoctrination. One inkling of the thought that women can do anything to raise or lower their risk of rape by their behaviour is seen as tantamount to excusing the rapist and BLAMING THE VICTIM.

My point was that it is completely hypocritical to blame the parents 100% for their choices that may have contributed in any way to something that happens to their child, even if it is the result of a deranged psychopath, or stand by while people make such claims, while you are not even allowed to discuss the choices that women make that may increase or decrease their risk of rape.

Women are adults, and as such, are responsible for their own decisions about safety. I have said this, and I will say it again, that a woman can walk around the street without clothes and it does not provide an excuse rape. She can stand in a crowded room without clothes and it does not excuse rape. There is no excuse for rape. However, the behaviour she chooses sends signals to those around her. She can draw attention from the wrong man and put herself at risk. There are plenty of high risk activities that increase the risk of rape. To deny this fact and prevent it from being heard, is to put young women at greater risk. They must learn that it is not a good idea for a young woman to become so intoxicated that she blacks out in a male dorm. They must learn and understand that some streets are not as safe to walk as others. They must understand that dressing in a certain way attracts attention to themselves, which, although not dangerous under most circumstances, can lead some off-balance individuals to draw the wrong conclusion.

If we compare the rhetoric regarding rape safety to the comments and reaction about of child abduction, it becomes clear that there is a disconnect. If you say that it is safe and reasonable to let a responsible, street-educated child walk 2 familiar blocks in a safe neighbourhood from his house to a pre-arranged destination in broad day-light, it does not follow that it is safe to let a child walk alone for two blocks if he has to pass a half-way house with known child molesters flanked by taverns, licquor stores and porn shops riddled with loitering drunks, prostitutes and pimps. But if we applied the same mindset that is applied to rape, we'd say that the child should be able to walk anywhere and to say otherwise is to excuse the child abductor and blame the parents. But, in the child abduction case, it is OK to blame the parents even if the child was doing something considered "safe" and reasonable.

There are some interesting parallels between the nature of these two crimes, although, they are not identical. They both involve living victims (the parents are living victims in child abductions), they usually involve violence and they involve sex as the motive (although child abductions sometimes have other motives, such as ransom). The last point is the heart of the matter for the rape issue. Gender Feminists have sold the idea that rape is not about sex, but power. Certainly, the victim feels a loss of power. The power to choose a sex partner is central to the identity of a woman which is what makes the act so horrifying. But, for the perpetrator, the motive is to gain sex. It is a theft of sex. Another similarity is that both crimes can be random. This is the case of the relatively safe behaviour still resulting in victimization as in the sad case of Leiby Kletzky. I'll reiterate Rebecca's point that we are all vulnerable.

Now, I'm still trying to figure out why Bunny thinks I'm a woman-hating creep. Is it the last post where I pointed out how insulting it is to women to imagine that they are mindless slaves to advertising? Or, is it the one about the Slut March in which I said I'd never carry a sign that might imply that dressing slutty invites rape. Or maybe my anti-sexual harassment post. I sometimes feel like most of my posts are about feminism, but reviewing, it only appears that roughly 1 in 3 have feminism as a topic, although it is my most used label. Please keep in mind, that I love women. I just don't agree with a group of intellectuals known as gender-feminists.

Women are Mindless - You heard it From a Feminist

2011-07-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

I was bouncing around YouTube and sure enough, I started clicking on links with the F-Word in it. I clicked on a clip on the history of panty hose and shaving legs. Now listen carefully, at 4:30. She asks, "So, why do women shave their underarms and shave their legs? Advertising. Advertising plays such an important role in influencing our society." Well, ther you have it. Women spend countless hours and dollars getting those smooth legs and underarms because they do exactly what to people on the idiot box or some magazine article tells them.

Interesting. Now, I just realized that I drag expensive razors across my stubbly face every day for no other reason than to do what I'm told. When a Gillette ad comes on to tell me that I absolutely need their new 5 blade razor to get that smooth face that I need, I march mindlessly to my car and drive to the mall to get it. Never mind the 3 packs of old razors sitting in my bathroom cupboard, I'm off. Once the credit card transaction goes through, I wake up out of my haze. Amazed, I ask the cashier what I'm doing there and she points down at my pack of new razors. The glazed look goes over my face again as I staight in monotone. I. Must. Get. The. Smoothest. Shave. To. Be. A. Real. Man.

NOTE: I do not know the woman in the video or when it was produced. I only assume that she's a feminist because of her condescending attitude, anti-corporate tone and denial of reality.
It feels mean to pick on feminists, but they are really insidious.

Round-up: Children and Nonsense

2011-07-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

From Marginal Revolution: It turns out that toddlers can spot nonsense and decide not to learn from you if you're full of it.

"These results add to a growing body of literature that suggests that infants are adept at generalising their knowledge about the reliability of other people across varying contexts," the researchers said. "The unique contribution of the present study shows that, similar to older children, infants are able to keep track of an individual's history of being accurate or inaccurate and use this information to guide their subsequent learning."

Cathy Young (reason.com) owns the DSK issue. Why is it when I read an incredibly well reasoned article, critical of the current legal system and it's unfair treatment of men, it usually turns out to be a woman writer. (Sorry, I'd provide more links for examples but it's bedtime.)

Speaking of nonsense:

The point of gender-diverse parenting, and the goal we can keep in mind when evaluating each choice before us, is not our children’s coercion into uniform unisex-ness, but freedom to figure out gender for themselves: what gender they are, what being that gender means to their society, and how, and to what extent, to perform it.

Sorry (no I'm not), it is the job of the parent to teach a child what is expected of members of its society and how to live in the world into which they are born. Don't let children "figure out gender for themselves". Children want to learn from us how to live and relate our society and gender is a big part of that. From there they'll figure out their identities. Take the positive aspects of gender identities and teach them to your children. There are as many opinions of what makes a man and a woman as there are men and women. If they don't seem to conform, then so be it; accept it and help them adapt their own identity. But don't set your child up as a pariah (with their own ideas) and then blame society for not accepting them. Thankfully, it's now proven that most children know nonsense when they see it.

From the same author, with a dubious website name and an even dubiouser neologism - kyriarchy. Well written, but sooooo not in touch with basic human realities.

Here is my own neolgism in response:

Luniarchy - a system whereby hierarchy is established based on the lunacy of an idea or holder of ideas. In a Luniarchy, the most ridiculous ideas are given the highest ranking and the lunatics who can best write or orate said ideas with a straight face is given highest position within the luniarchy. Members of the luniarchy are then subjected to the lunacies of the lunatics who are higher on the scale and use their talent for delusion and refusal to accept reality to oppress the lower classes. The only hope for a member of the luniarchy is to delve further into the delusions (drink the Kool-Aid) so that they can oppress others with their ridiculous beliefs or take the red pill** and wake up from the matrix of delusions.

**NOTE: I'm not endorsing all statements, but Hawaiian Libertarian introduced me to the concept and helped me see some of the commonly accepted truths I'd always suspected were myths.

Child Abduction and Rape - Similar Crime, Different Reaction

2011-07-13T17:51:00.000-07:00

I was going to post this OT comment over at Free Range Kids, but, I couldn't hit submit out of respect for Lenore's blog and her readers. She is doing important work in combating the war on childhood, so I can't bring up such a contentious issue as rape of women that could derail the conversation and hurt her campaign.

The differences between the crimes of childhood abductions and rape of women are many and complex as are the reasons for different public response. One reason is that there is no childrenism movement or such counterpart to feminism. There are only child advocates who do not necessarilly have the interest of children in mind as much as they do the interest of their own agenda. I won't go into the others here as there is not enough time.

The comment I couldn't post:

Lenore, good post about a terrible event.

What astounds me, is that any suggestions to women that they should moderate their behaviour to help them reduce the risk of becoming victims of rape - such as dressing appropriately for the situation, avoiding dark alleys and not drinking too much at parties - is called "victim blaming" and hateful and results in marches and protests.

However, telling parents that their behaviour is the only reason for childhood abductions and murders is perfectly ok. Why do some victims completely bear responsibility for the criminal acts performed against them, while others are completely free of it?

Lenore, I'm sorry to bring up a separate, even more contentious issue on your site, but I can't help but see the similarity between the two crimes and the disparity between the reactions.

UPDATE: for a full discussion of my opinions on this issue and a response to some misguided comments at another blog, please see this post . Suffice to say, I'm not a creep and I don't hate women.

Another Gay Marriage Comment on OneSTDV

2011-06-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

I am as addicted to commenting on One's blog as he is to blogging.

Conservatives have a problem confronting certain parts of human nature, just like liberals have a problem confronting others. Homosexuality is a natural part of human nature. I can think of many evolutionary benefits that have guaranteed a small number of the population is gay or has gay potential at any one time in evolutionary history.

The conservative reaction to homosexuals is similar to its reaction to drugs. It can't square the fact that some people have homosexual urges just as it can't square the fact that some people like to experience altered states of mind. Although both come with issues that must be acknowledged, conservative ideology causes more problems trying to "stamp the problems out" to "protect the children".

Marriage is unpopular because girls are told it's oppressive, and boys are scared of the unfair consequences of a whimsical change of mind by their wife. On the other hand, boys have had their male role models publicly flogged for their supposed misogyny. So, the many males who become married fathers are foolish enough to fall into the lifestyle traps such as drinking, affairs that turn them into horrible husbands and fathers leading to divorce.

The war on masculinity is often juxtaposed with the fight for gay rights. Although the combatants are often the same, the battles should be separated.
To me, this is a much bigger threat to the future of family and marriage - a family not willing to teach positive, healthy gender identities as outlined by society.

http://photogallery.thestar.com/photogallery/995120

If gay couples can accept the truth about the nature of gender differences, then I think they can be good parents. I have strong doubts, however, that all of them conform to the Hollywood sales pitches like the TV show Modern Family.

D-Day

2011-06-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

June 6, really used to mean something to me. I used to recognize it every year. I didn't even think about D-Day until the subject was raised by someone else today. Why is it passe to recognize the glory, blood and sacrifice of the men from the past to ensure our society is free and just? Oh yeah, it's passe to recognize that our society is free and just. We're only allowed to lament how imbalanced and unfair our world is.

Dalrock Explains The Slut March

2011-06-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

Dalrock hits close to the home of sluts:

So what is the global slutwalk temper tantrum really about? One respected man judged women in a minor gathering. Note that the officer who made the comments isn’t high ranking; when the feminists howled he was reprimanded and forced to attend “further training”. He didn’t even judge them in an overt way. The context of his statement acknowledged that there was such a thing as a slut, and that it isn’t a good thing to be one.

There are too many good points to comment on and I don't have time to read the interesting discussion and post my own points (160+ comments right now), so I suggest you do.

I have been trying to come up with good signs that could throw these ideas back at the sluts in a way that can't be objected to, but is still counter to their goals enough to raise some eyebrows. I could never be in an anti-slut-march (I'd probably loose my job), but it would be fun to imagine a group of young men, standing in mock support chanting and holding signs and see how the slut marchers react. In the spirit of the Yale Chanters, but trying to be less juvenile, more politically accurate.

"We Love [Insert City] Sluts"
[There is no way that this could be construed as offensive: You call yourselves sluts, we love you.]

One Step Further:
"We Love Sluts, But We Marry Ladies."

This one could be a discussion point - which is more sends a stronger message? Which would be seen as more offensive to feminists?
1: "No Means No. Yes Means Slut."
2: "No Means No. Slut Means Yes."

I think #2 is more offensive since it implies the very thing the sluts are saying i.e. sluttiness is inviting rape so I couldn't carry such a sign. #1 again, cannot be argued against, because "Sluttiness" is supposedly a positive, strong, trait.

Paleo Experiment

2011-06-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today, I skipped my morning Bran Flakes and raisins in lieu of a small omelet - two eggs, with ground meat, carrots and raisins fried in a big pad of butter. The same thing I had for dinner last night (just leftovers). I wanted to see how my appetite would be affected. Would I feel satiated all morning (as the paleo proponents say), or would I be reaching for my mid-morning snack as usual. I normally follow my cereal with a banana. I usually have no problem eating this since my hunger is legendary in the morning. Today, however, I looked at the banana and felt strangely guilty that I had no desire whatsoever to take in the nutrition-filled fruit. I basically forced myselft to eat it with the thought that if I don't eat fruit, I'm going to get rickets or some vitamin deficiency.

I was diagnosed with IBS years ago and told that I needed to up my fibre and stop drinking milk. So, I've been fairly strict for most of my adult life by eating whole grains - cereal with soy milk first thing and then another serving of oatmeal or whole wheat toast a few hours later. I was actually smug about it when the news reporters would bellow how most people aren't eating enough whole grains. Well, according to them, my bowels should be as healthy as an ox. While I have to say that the whole grains seem to help somewhat, after close to ten years of eating loads of them almost every day my bowels are far from what I'd call normal.

So, back to my appetite this morning. By 9:30, it was obvious something was wrong. I had no desire to pull out my yogurt, bread or anything. I kept waiting for the hunger signals to start, but my stomach just sat quietly in my gut happy as a clam. 10:30...11:00 AM (I usually start thinking about lunch) 11:30...12:00...(I should be in serious hunger mode by now.) 12:30 passed and I still didn't feel hungry. Something must be wrong. I am known as the guy who always eats. I went downstairs to the fridge just because I was getting nervous. This must have been the first morning that I worked straight through in years. I've had a more productive morning.

I warmed up my chicken more because I felt like I should, not because I was hungry. There was no way I could down the pork chop. I put the chunks of meat on the plate beside my salad. I plowed through the salad while picking at my chicken. I felt so full but looked down at my plate to see I was only half-way through. I could have put it back in the fridge, but is that safe with chicken? So, I begrudgingly finished it. Normally, I eat as much for lunch as some people eat for dinner.

My wife and I have been cutting back the carbs for about five months now. Instead of rice or pasta 3-5 times per week, we have been eating squash, sweet potatoes and salads. We've dropped the grain, rice, potatoes or bread as a main part of the dinner dishes to about 2 times per week. It's difficult with an active family - T-ball, soccer, 2 parents working - but we've done what we can. People have noticed. Friends have asked me if I have lost weight. My wife looks better than she ever has.

The results seem great. However, we can't be sure whether it is the diet, or the exercise. As Gary Taubes believes, exercise has no affect on weight-loss. The problem with my experiment is that we both added more exercise to our lives - I started playing hockey, she started a spinning class. So, is it the diet or the exercise that has caused our weight-loss? Luckily for you, I have been afflicted with an unrelated condition that will likely make it impossible for me to exercise or any strenuous activity for probably 4 weeks. I have recorded my weight using a Wii Fit balance board. I will provide some pictures of the graphics on the Wii. If exercise has anything to do with my weight loss, then the next four weeks should be enough to reverse it. If I continue to eat my basically low-carb diet and lose weight, then that would suggest that my diet is the main factor. It will be difficult to log all of my food, but I'll do what I can to give a basic idea of what I eat on a daily basis. Also, I'll continue to eat cereal sometimes to because that is what I've eaten most mornings (when I don't think to boil eggs the morning before) while I've been playing hockey.

Note: I am not under any delusions that this is scientific. However, I don't live in a laboratory. This is a test in real life with a real-life family. For the record, I had 4 frozen breaded fish fillets, a little bit of pre-packaged risoto mix and some fried zucchini for dinner. Fridays and T-ball nights are the nights we allow ourselves some pre-packaged, simple meals or take-out because we're don't really have time or energy to cook our regular style of meals.

Insanity = Animal Rights > People's Rights

2011-06-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Imagine you walk into your back yard to see a gang of wild animals desecrating your property (no, I'm not talking about gangs of male hoodlums. I'm talking about a mother raccoon and her kids. City dwellers tend to think of them as cute critters and part of the community, ignoring the serious issues they cause. They are actually filthy, disease carriers and viscious when confronted.

In Toronto, one of the most liberal cities in North America, you will be hauled away in handcuffs and charged with weapons offences for defending your property from them. Apparently, the laws in Ontario are simply ridiculous. According to The Star, you are not allowed to move them more than one kilometer, if you trap them. I've never studied wildlife, but I can't see that one kilometer - about 3/5ths of a mile being very far for a raccoon. You can't remove babies if they're less than 6 weeks old (I guess drowning them is a big no-no). Meanwhile, having a wildlife service remove a family could cost you over $1,000. Here we are with a well meaning government regulation basically removing our rights and making us helpless to defend ourselves. Home owners are supposed to throw their hands in the air, call someone and fork over a wad of cash if their homes are being invaded. Here is another example where people are required to defer their own protection (much like they have personal responsibility) to other people - the so-called professionals. Am I alone in wanting to be able to take a matter into my own hands once in awhile without being afraid of incarceration?

Pinker - The Blank Slate, Preface

2011-05-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

I just picked up Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate The Modern Denial of Human Nature and I wonder how I managed to avoid this book for so long. I'm sure that I've read it quoted many a time at various blogs but even the preface reads as if Pinker read my thoughts and articulated them better than I ever could (I really should have studied more in school).

My goal in this book is not to argue that genes are everything and culture is nothing - no one believes that - but to explore why the extreme position (that culture is everything) is often seen as moderate, and the moderate position is seen as extreme.

Nor does acknowledging human nature have the political implications so many fear. It does not, for example, require one to abandon feminism, or to accept the current levels of inequality or violence, or to treat morality as a fiction. For the most part I will try not to advocate particular policies or to advance the agenda of the political left or right. I believe that controversies about policy almost always involve tradeoffs between competing values, and that science is equipped to identify the tradeoffs but not to resolve them. Many of these tradeoffs, I will show, arise from features of human nature, and by clarifying them I hope to make our collective choices, whatever they are, better informed.

It is so sweet to read words like these. It's like the first time I read Bertrand Russel only without the glassy eyed idealism that always left me shaking my head. He continues.

The refusal to acknowledge human nature is like the Victorians' embarrassment about sex, only worse: it distorts our science and scholarship, our public discourse, and our day-to-day lives.

Trying to talk to most intelligent, well-educated people about child-rearing, food or politics is always frustrating for me because someone always tries to point out that we're only conditioned to think and act the way we do... and if "we could only get past our preconceptions we can become anything we want." [Eye-roll-to-face-palm-to-double-fist-clench-gaze-to-the-heavens-to-double-handed-forehead-slap-pull-hair-to-primal-scream]. How many times did I meet a girl who seemed reasonably intelligent and we got along so well until we hit this wall.

I blame the Bobo Experiment. Everyone in my university took Psych 101. One of the most prominent and easiest to remember sections was on Albert Bandura's experiment that seemed to suggest that children could be taught not to behave aggressively by being shown positive role models - and only positive role models. I wondered, while I read about the text book, why there wasn't already a formula for world peace over 30 years after this remarkable discovery. Whenever this came up and someone tried to argue that this proved violence/rape/theft/etc. were learned behaviours, I tried to point out that human nature has a role in such negative behaviour too. I believe that my inability to keep my mouth shut on this subject was the main reason I didn't have many dates in University.

Man Up? When Did Men Supposedly Man Up?

2011-05-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

Jack Donovan revisits Kay Hymowitz's Where Have All The Good Men Gone and gets me to wondering when men supposedly "Manned Up" as she asks.

I think about how my father "manned-up". Sure he got married and worked a rather tedious job to put four kids through university - earning the reputation as a stand-up, hard-working guy. But, he had hunting trips that were non-negotiable at certain times and hunted and fished on a whim at other times as seasons, time and conditions permitted. He laughed the year I told him I was missing our annual bass fishing trip because my wife was due within two weeks (the high-alert zone). When he wanted to go, he "just went" he told me. He played sports year round taking much of his week-nights. I think that these activities were as much his entertainment as today's young generations play X-box or Playstation.

If Kay and the others expect young men to put their game controllers away in the closet once they enter a serious relationship, she's going to have to re-think things. That's like asking a woman to give up shopping, decorating, romance novels/movies, baking, pedicures, facials or any other of the typically womanly hobbies or activities that she loves. Our activities define us. By paroting the feminist shaming and denegration of male activities as purile and juvenile, she's justifying the notion common among women that men who partake in them are not worthy of their attention and if they do, they must drop these activities entirely and focus on their new "serious" relationship. Meanwhile, woman's pursuits are somehow vaunted, intellectual and meaningful? I'm at a loss seeing why perfecting red velvet cupcakes is somehow more meaningful than playing a video game with someone on the other side of the world.

Kay is completely oblivious to the motivations that drive men to their pursuits. She tries to argue that hunting and fishing were just hobbies created because "They balked at the stuffy propriety of the bourgeois parlor, as they did later at the banal activities of the suburban living room." I'm sorry, but that is just silly. My father learned to hunt during the depression when a gun cost $15 and a box of shells cost 50 cents and a bad weekend of hunting meant a week with very little meat on the table. He doesn't hunt to get out of the house, he hunts because it is a part of who he is.

With the current state of Marriage 2.0, there is very little incentive for a young male to sacrifice even a portion of their pursuits until they are good and ready and their mate is understanding. Kay says that single men "continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers." This fact simple says that The higher earning men find women willing to let them golf, fish, hunt and play video games while the middle of the pack simple bide their time until the right deal comes along. Why should they compromise themselves because some self-absorbed woman feels that his pursuits are disgusting and purile.

Parents Hiding Gender of Child

2011-05-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

I guess it was only a matter of time before someone took the step of putting the absurdity of non-gender ideology to the test at the expense of their child's future mental health. What do they hope to achieve? What is the "more progressive place" where they think we are heading behind their lead? Why do some see the erradication of gender identities as a worthwhile goal?

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110524/Toronto-parents-child-gender-110524/20110524?hub=TorontoNewHome

SWPLS Hate Nature

2011-05-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am borrowing the term SWPL because I don't have a better term for PC Liberals - the so-called right-thinking people, the enlightened ones. Basically, anyone who thinks that we're all trying to find "a better way to live" and one day we can eliminate violence from the world - our nature be damned.

Why do I think that they hate nature despite all their granola munching, organic-food buying, North Face hiking boot wearing and Subaru Forester driving? I had a conversation with one the other day - a very nice woman I know.

CDH: I saw a crow swoop down and take a baby robin right from the nest on my neighbours house.
Very Nice Woman: Oh my gosh. That's just awful.
CDH: I thought it was so cool to see that part of nature.
VNW: I don't think so.
CDH: So you don't like nature?
VNW: I love nature, just not when it's... like...
CDH: That is nature. It's the essence of nature. Don't you like crows?
VNW: I like them, just not...
CDH: What about hawks?
VNW: I like hawks too, but..
[change the subject to avoid uncomfortable moment]

Another example was posted on facebook profile of an old high-school friend about the coyote's affect on the population of her barn cats. She said that she hated it when wild animals kill one another.

How can people live with this one-sided, rosy view of nature. Marketers constantly pander to our inherent "Love of nature" with cute animals and flowers and trees. I think it speaks to the cognitive dissonance in the minds (and the entire mindset) of the Left-wing picture of nature.

Note: Now when I refer to Animal Rights Activists and their supporters, I shall call them Bunny Huggers or Animal-loving Left-Wing Nutjobs.

Blogging is Hard

2011-05-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

The Cul-De-Sac Hero has been applying his heroism to other pursuits, namely T-Ball coach. While the time demands are considerable, I feel that coaching a group of boys in the pursuit of a good swing, straight throws and consistent catching does far more good for the future of society than blogging ever could. I think that OneSTDV would agree.

However, I swear that I won't pull a ONE and burnout and quit. I will continue to be a Stalwart Moderate, sporadically posting meandering essays with varying levels of quality to my blog. I'm just going to have to find new places to troll. It shouldn't be difficult. As a moderate, I can disagree with just about anyone.

Another pursuit I've taken up, rather by accident, is educating the youth. A younger friend of mine was shopping for an engagement ring. Always interested when a younger man decides to join the ranks of married men, I decided to see how he was doing on instant message:

Older Gent [9:13 AM]: Did you get engaged yet?

Young Buck [9:13 AM]: do i look stupid?

Older Gent [9:14 AM]: I thought you were shopping for a ring.

Older Gent [9:14 AM]: Hey, I was "stupid" enough to do it. [get married]

Young Buck [9:15 AM]: no, you crazy? no way i'm going to drop $10k

Older Gent [9:15 AM]: $10K for a ring???? F - that!

Young Buck [9:15 AM]: ya man, its the new standard

Older Gent [9:15 AM]: Don't believe it.

Older Gent [9:16 AM]: If your woman believes it, just think what you'll have to drop for a house.

Young Buck [9:20 AM]: told you, you're and old man, times are different
Young Buck [9:20 AM]: 1 cart is the min

Older Gent [9:22 AM]: I'd run away. I'm telling you, women have fallen for a sales pitch hook line and sinker.
Older Gent [9:22 AM]: There'll never be enough money to satisfy that desire
Older Gent [9:23 AM]: I don't mean to say anything bad about your girlfriend.

Young Buck [9:23 AM]: haha / you're not with the times

Older Gent [9:24 AM]: But I know guys who married really nice women who turned out to leave them because they "wanted more"
Older Gent [9:24 AM]: and more
Older Gent [9:24 AM]: and more
Older Gent [9:24 AM]: It's the consumer disease
Older Gent [9:25 AM]: women are the most aflicted.
Older Gent [9:26 AM]: house, trips, furniture, appliances, cars.... it adds up
Older Gent [9:26 AM]: and it starts with 10K rings
Older Gent [9:27 AM]: don't mean to scare you, kid. but think about it.

Young Buck [9:34 AM]: thanks for the advice

So, if anyone is reading this, do you think I was too harsh? Or was I way off because he appears smart enough not to spend $10,000 on a piece of gold with a shiny rock that someone says is the standard (aka minimum) purchase. Where did this standard come from? Why do groups of people accept such arbitrary requirements?

I only reacted because it reminded me so much of a friend of mine who's wife suddenly left (frivolous divorce) because she wasn't satisfied and they were always fighting over money they didn't have which she still to wanted to spend. At the time, I called it the consumer disease and told him that women feel the need (more than men) to obtain material things right away. They are the target of a larger portion of advertising because, I think, their feelings of entitlement are easier for advertisers to exploit than any of the weakness men have. Men have better resistance to marketing than women, but not perfect.

The theme of consumerism is one which I'd like to explore more deeply, but I doubt I will due to the usual constraints of time and energy. I do find our willingness to accept truths that are marketed to us and willful blindness to the affects of the forces of marketing on our psyche disturbing. I think it is the single worst threat to society and capitalism and the most important gap in our education system.

Canucks Fan Sexually Harrasses Sharks Player

2011-05-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Suppose the roles were reversed in this scene.

Of course, nothing would happen because men can go topless at sporting events and do so all the time. Fembot-Liberal-nutcases commenting on the page seem to think that there is no difference between a man's chest and a woman's breasts.
Proactive Indifference writes:

Human Rights Violation?
If a man had bared his chest, nothing would have happened. It is common at sporting events for bare chested men, often with painted letters, to be shown off on camera. So why not a woman? This game was in Vancouver, and since 2008, women have had a right to legally bear their breasts. The arena authorities had no right to remove the woman. Since they would not even have asked a man to leave, this constitutes as a sexual harassment/human rights violation based on gender.

Right, because men have had the constitutional right to bare their breasts since confederation? What breasts? Also, the last time I checked, the arena (and all private venues) reserved the right to remove anyone. I wonder how many men are removed compared to women? If more men are removed, is that discrimination based on gender?

Bubbles4PM writes

Gotta love North American culture...

It's OK to knock the head off a player, bare knuckle scrap (all crimes in society) yet a woman hurts no one with a part of her body that is legal to be in public with (in most provinces) and she is treated like a criminal? Give me a break, is sexuality worse than violence?

Because I forgot that consensual physical contests should be curbed but involuntary exposure to sexual body parts, as long as it's a woman exposing herself to a man is ok in all but the most repressed societies.

Although most people would not put baring breasts on the same level as a man exposing his genitals, it is still in the same category since they are both sexual body parts. So what would happen if a man exposed his genitals? He'd be put in jail and called a pervert. But this wanton, intoxicated woman is somehow revered? I don't think that she should be in jail, but I'd describe her behaviour to be worse (more offensive) than a green-man handstand which is also banned in the Rogers Arena. Yes, men in tights are disgusting when viewed at the wrong angle.

Offense is not the right word to describe my reaction to this behaviour. One would be hard-pressed to find a warm-blooded hetero-sexual, non-theist man who would be offended by the display of breasts. I'm sure I would feel differently if my sons were watching at the time, but since West-Coast games are broadcast at 9pm so the little kiddies are away in bed, but I'm sure there are a few mothers and fathers who have feelings stronger than mine about this incident.

However, I am a concerned by the trend and the comical attitudes everyone takes. Everyone knows that nobody is allowed to criticize a woman today [full stop]. A woman is free to do whatever she wants [full stop]. At least that is the prevailing opinion.

If left up to young men, they'd be happy to have women bare breasts as much as possible. I was when I was younger - heck, I'm more than happy to see an unexpected free show and probably will until the day I die. But, to say that a woman's bare breasts are no different than a man's is ridiculous and it is time to let this idea die. It was used in Ontario to successfully challenge the law outlawing bare breasts in public. To the "surprise" of everyone and disappointment of some, breasts are not routinely bared in public here. Apart from outdoor concert events, (having not been to one in over a decade, I can't say whether phone cameras have reduced the behaviour, if anything it seems to increase it) social standards, decorum and personal sense of decency have kept breasts covered in public for the most part.

To feminists who hilariously try to argue that breasts are not sexual, I would ask one question: What kind of assault is it if a man grabs a woman's breast? If you say sexual assault, then it means that breasts are inherently sexual. When a woman bares her breasts, her body sends signals to any male pair of eyes (connected through neurons and chemical reactions to a pair external sex organs) in view. I see no reason that, if such signals are unwanted or done in a way meant to tease or distract that it could not be considered sexual harassment. The man in my flip-side comparison would be jailed and put on a sex offenders list. Why is there such a disparity of reaction to the woman's "crime" which varies only in severity.

To be clear, I agree with the Ontario law in that it should not be automatically be crime for a female to display her breasts in any circumstances. But, it is one thing to lay on a beach (which is the only place breasts are commonly bared in public in Europe) and another still for a woman to go walking through a children's park or live television. Perhaps we're generally too uptight in North America, but it does not mean that anything goes.

Where, as a supposedly tolerant society can we draw the line on personal behaviour. Currently, men have as many social boundaries as people can think of... but women ...

Christian Righteous Anger Bait - Pink Toenails

2011-04-12T19:26:00.000-07:00

I came across this at Thinking Housewife.

I read a few of the 5,000 or so comments and it occurrs to me how unequipped Christianity is to deal with Liberal baiting tactics. A quick perusal shows a roughly 5-7 to 1 ratio of supporters of Jennas to people upset by it. Most of the supporters comments take the form of taunts toward anyone who takes offence to Jenna's actions - basically summed up as "So what ... Big deal ... Shut-up you ignorant fools". When I read some of the earlier comments, a lot of people were posting religion soaked diatribes that just elicit howls of laughter and more ridicule.
This is what a Christian looks like to Jenna Lyons and the rest of the "gay-is-right" lobby.

It's the same for the woman who let her son dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo and then blogged about it. What possessed her to post it to the world? Simply to rile up the conservative masses so she and those like her can point out how "Homophobic" they are. However, in Jenna Lyon's case there is a commercial interest.

I sent this article to a friend and he asked me what I thought, as a father of two boys. I told him and he told me to check my homophobia. It has nothing to do with that. I'm not religious and I'm not homophobic. That doesn't mean that I don't have a strong opinion about gender identity. I find it sad to see someone trying to feminize her son while admonishing anyone who says it could be wrong.

Kids are only forming their identities at that age - sexual or otherwise. I seriously doubt these women had no part in their sons' propensities to form feminine identities. The Daphne boy's mother stated that it was completely his own idea. But, Jenna Lyon stats "Lucky for me, I ended up with a son who likes pink." Really, she just ended up with the 1 in 1000 boys who likes to dress as girls. So, now you can exploit him and show those precious, dainty toe nails to the world to sell more preppy shirts?

So, I have to admit that negative comments seem to have increased in skill, while the supporters seem to be more bewildering. I couldn't resist posting a few comments despite not having enough time to finish this post (I'm going to be tired tomorrow). Dr.Keith Albow provides a fairly decent admonishment, bringing up the point that it is also wrong to dress girls in slutty (my word) outfits. Again, comments are mostly ridicule of his "ignorance".

Personally, I have nothing against gay people or gay lifestyles. I believe that gayness is part of nature. I simply find the extreme anti-gay crowd and the extreme pro-gay crowd are in this one-up-manship battle to see who can offend the worst. Most of the people in the middle have the PC-indoctrination which means an inability to apply critical thinking to any issue and always siding with the pro-gay crowd lest you be seen as un-PC vis. Homophobic vis. hateful. Yes people, you can criticize someone (even someone from an protected identity group) without impinging on their rights or being a hate-mongerer.

How Dare a Judge Describe a Sex Crime in Detail

2011-04-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

Although he's campaigning for the Liberals, I like this guy. I know that during an election, everything is under the microscope and people will try to dig up dirt on anybody but basically, he sounds like a reasonable judge.

First, although minimum sentences for "sexual assault/rape" fit in well with the Conservative tough on crime agenda, this judge has spelled out why they would be harmful under the current definition of rape/sexual assault and that in fact there far too many degrees of severity of this crime category to even think about jail as a mandatory punishment. I think everyone just gets queasy when they hear an old man describe a young woman's genitals being fondled, but he's a judge so he deals with such details as a matter of his job.

Second, I'm glad someone has the guts to speak up about corruption on Native Reserves.

Third, I haven't read anything about the supposed white rights activist Liberal candidate André Forbes, but it seems that the Liberals chose a good candidate to fight against the white (French) rights party of Quebec.

Slut March

2011-04-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

So, a Toronto Police Officer told a "personal protection" class not to dress like sluts. Now the backlash. We're inundated with idiotic repetition of the mantra that 'Women can dress however they want' in newspapers, TV and radio. Is it totally lost on the marchers that women's bodies are basically biological instruments that constantly send messages to others? Is it not the case that dressing 'like a slut' only sends those signals more strongly and the signals specifically suggest sexual readiness?

In this day and age where it is almost impossible to criticize women, it is ALWAYS seen as victim blaming to suggest that a woman's behaviour has anything to do with her risk of rape. It is ridiculous when it seems that the only thing a woman has to prove in some places is that she had one drink to many to provide consent. I imagine (or I like to), that most victims of rape did not provoke it in any way in much the same way that most dog bites are unprovoked. However, a little education (which the cop mishandled mightily) can go a long way in preventing both.

I've lived with big dogs since i was a small boy. I've learned not to tease dogs through their fences or cages and not to look a nervous dog in the eye. Maintain a height difference if possible and carefully hold your hand out lower than a dogs mouth to let him sniff you. Usually, this will avert any aggressive behaviour but it does not always prevent it.

By feminist logic, I have no responsibility for any bites that occur if I wander near a dog park after soaking my clothes in the drippings of prime rib roast. If I were to do so, it would not excuse the owner if I were to have my legs chewed off by his pit bull. But, I nobody would ever tell me that it was a smart thing to do.

In case you're confused about the analogy, the woman is the person soaked in beef juice, the dogs are men's libidos and the dog owners are the men themselves. Yes, each man is responsible for his behaviour and it doesn't matter what the circumstances are. It is true that a woman could walk down the street with no clothes on whatsoever and that does not give any excuse for rape. However, it should be acknowledged that said woman is sending a message by dressing (or not) in that manner. The message clearly is inviting sexual advances.

It's all well and good to go around saying that women have the right to dress how they please with out facing any consequences. However, society has become unable to criticize women for any overt sexual behaviour at any age no matter how outrageous lest we provoke the kind of reaction found at the Slut March. (I think we've generally lost the ability to even think critically at all). The bottom line is that I wouldn't want my daughter (if I had one) dressing like a slut, at least until she's mature enough to understand and deal with the consequences of sending those types of signals. One point most people miss is that as a father of two boys, I am also concerned that my sons will be receiving such signals from young women before they are able to deal with them. Nobody wants to acknowledge that aggressive female sexuality can have damaging impact on boys - well, at least nobody would care about that if it were acknowledged.
I find that the current dilution of the definition of rape, becoming synonymous with the broader term sexual assault, along with the campaigns such as the one above are hurting the real victims of rape by trying to include many normal (albeit negative) aspects of sexuality. I mean, calling it rape when a girl has a few too many drinks and has sex because she is too inebriated to consent to sex is an insult to Kimberly Proctor and other victims of sexual psycopaths.

Female Aggression: The Punch In The Nose Theory

2011-03-18T18:29:00.000-07:00

Most men, by the time they are men, have had at least one experience of being punched in the nose. At the very least, they've had to face the very real threat of being punched in the nose. Talking to the wrong guys girlfriend, making the wrong comment or any perceived slight in a bar can produce a threat of physical violence.

Most women have never had to face the same threat. Girls who are physically aggressive tend to have the run of the play ground as far as physical violence among girls goes. Most girls will avoid any possibility of physical confrntation so the physically aggressive female rarely get's to practice her aggression on her peers in fair combat.

That is why, in the adult world, I find aggressive women are far more emboldened and unrestrained than aggressive men. Men have had to face serious corrective consequences to misplaced or overzealous aggression in the form of very serious rivals and therefore have had to learn to restrain their aggression. Even a well matched fight usually leads to risk of serious injury to both parties.

So, the aggressive adult woman believes that aggression solves problems while adult men understand that unchecked aggression can lead to worse problems. So, while men are on average, more aggressive - especially in the younger years before the lessons have sunk in - the women who are aggressive are much more adversarial and dangerous.

For example, watch the aggressive female driver. She's a mom of two with the pedal to the metal from traffic light to traffic light. The aggressive sports moms I've seen are far more vocal and confrontational than sports dads. Most dads are laid back and relaxed while the odd mom who gives a damn about sports is shouting from the sidelines.

This is just a trend I've noticed and my theory of such a trend. To test the theory, perhaps one could test whether physical confrontation, or threat thereof, at a young age correlate to greater social caution in middle age? Separating the thugs, soldiers and MMA fans that just enjoy blood from the test sample would be necessary.

Random Thoughts

2011-03-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

It's hard to blog. But I always have a lot of potential posts running around in my head. Most are long enough that it would take several hours just to write. Many require research I just don't have time for. So instead, here are a few random thoughts.

Hockey is the ultimate paleo sport. Well, I suppose football might be even better, but I play hockey so I'm going with that. Ideally, shifts are 30-45 seconds long. Your shift is like a pure sprint to muscle exhaustion, working the entire body. With a short bench, you could be on the ice again in 30-45 seconds.

Although I find ONESTDV unnecessarily spiteful in his criticism of the left leading to an incindiary brand of racism, I find myself going back to his blog. I find that, most weeks, he has at least one or two extremely interesting posts that make me look at a subject differently than before. For example, he actually used the word misogynist recently in exactly the way I'd been thinking about it since I've been spending so much time at the-spearhead. Even when he's not looking at all the sides of an argument or cherry-picking his examples, his arguments are well articulated and hit most of the right points.

I'll have to read more of Dalrock since I have more in common - wife and kids.

This is the most disgusting idea ever discussed.
Just skimming the nonsense I find this: "Men are responsible for 90% of violent crimes; wouldn’t removing them from power guarantee 90% less war?" The reason for this is the same reason pit bulls are thought to bite more than chihuahuas. We'll see how long women stay non-violent if we put 5 in a room and only give them 3 pork chops.

Perspectives on the Logan Assault.

2011-02-18T18:34:00.000-08:00

I have a rule for myself. Never enter a dangerous situation if I don’t know how to get out of it. I have used it when I was snowboarding, mountain biking, working from heights, large crowds and in volatile social situations such as bars. I learned it the hard way, in high school, when I ran my mouth off and wound up in physical confrontations with dangerous people. I learned to recognize danger and I learned that seemingly safe or manageable situations could turn dangerous almost instantly with one mistake or change in conditions. I also became fairly good at finding a way out of danger when things went astray, but, as experience grew, I realized that it was easier to stay out of a jam than to get out of one.
Any crowd has an element of danger. Sadly but realistically, crowds are more dangerous for women than they are for men due to their smaller size and possibility of becoming a sexual target. This risk is obviously multiplied if the culture of the crowd is misogynistic. CBS and Logan seemed to make a serious misjudgment by assuming that a jubilant crowd is less dangerous than an angry one and judged the danger in terms of Western culture.

North American culture is not misogynistic, as much as feminists would love to have us believe it. The culture doesn’t exist that could allow enough men to orchestrate and perform such an attack. North American and European men would not tolerate it. In any large crowd, there would be enough strong men to over power any group of men trying to assault a woman.

If you don’t believe me, then I dare you to perform an experiment in a large crowd – say a sporting event or concert. Have a man or group of men pretend to harass a woman and have her scream and complain loudly with some phrase like “Get off me you creep(s).” Immediately, every man within sight or earshot will stand up for her and in all likelihood, the man or men will find themselves pinned to the ground and pummeled or quickly removed from whatever venue. Men will be falling over themselves to get a punch in or to make sure the victim is ok. Logan is likely used to this culture of chivalry and protection of women.
Now a large concert or game is nothing like the crowds in Egypt. I watched one Canadian reporter’s story about getting to his hotel. The cab would not take him all the way and he ended up walking several miles past burned out cars with his full crew to get there. He had several situations that appeared highly dangerous where the crowds were surrounding and jostling his crew. Clearly, this was a lawless situation.
Media everywhere is calling any of this risk analysis “blaming the victim”. Nothing I’ve said removes any of the blame from the men who perpetrated it. However, their culture was definitely a factor and should have been taken into account. CBS, being vastly more knowledgeable about international situations than I am, should have been able to do a far better analysis. I know I'm speaking from hindsight, but from my perspective, it looks as though they were blinded by their thirst for sensational journalism. A beautiful damsel in the midst of chaos was too much to resist. But, as we all know, it blew up in their faces and Logan paid the heavy price.

Social Engineering, the Bully and the Science Whore

2011-02-16T18:42:00.000-08:00

Tara Parker-Pope at NYT writes an article outlining the latest scientific findings about bullying. Looking at the social structures of high-school students, the study found that the kids at the top of the social hierarchy and the ones at the very bottom seem to show the least aggression towards others, while the ones in the middle and near the top tend to show the most. You can read the entire article for the full explanation. Basically, the authors subcribe to the theory that the top echelon kids have do not have to exercise aggression to keep their positions while the middle and near-top kids are fighting eachother for rank. That is plausible, however, they dismiss the notion that the top-rung kids are just nicer and therefore popular. I'm sure that in many cases, the upper echelon kids are the top percentile in social skills, so, they just make friends much more easily. Others will recognize the power of their charisma and fight for opportunities to win their favour.
I'm sure that both dynamics occur to some extent but scientists seem to have trouble with duel theories; they prefer simple explanations that can be tested so they tend to favor all or nothing theories
So far, these findings seem to be a fairly interesting study in social standing which is fine. What I have a problem with, is the tone of the rest of the article and findings. It turns from factual to practical. Sociologists need to justify their existence and funding, so they try to drive policy with their scientific knowledge.

The research offers a road map for educators struggling to curb bullying and aggression both inside and outside of school. One option may be to enlist the support of students who aren’t engaged in bullying — those at the very top of the social ladder, and the two-thirds who don’t bully.

A road map? So why is it the job of educators to stifle students' natural inclinations to fight for status? What business, are the personal affairs of students, of the educators? To think that somehow school officials can control the social lives of all students is the epitome of hubris. Defining all acts of aggression as "bullying" is misguided. Using this way of thinking to convince teachers to try and remove aggression is highly disturbing. Why? Adolescents are learning to use this behaviour. They are learning the consequences and rules for aggression.

Pretend that sociologists, like Dr. Gallagher, achieve their goal of removing or suppressing aggression among the student populace. Everyone in school gets along. No one is intimidated, put down, jostled, ignored, shamed, hit, laughed at or teased. One big happy student body ready to take on the world with their peaceful outlook on life hand-in-hand. I see two obvious problems with this. One, the next generation of leaders, thinkers and doers will be unprepared to handle the real world and be overwhelmed by the hyper-competitive cultures from elsewhere. Two, their ability to question and challenge authority, essential for a good democracy will be seriously compromise - basically they would be sheep.

Of course, it is a rediculous concept from the start. Trying to curtail outward aggression will simply make it more subversive and dangerous.

“It does highlight that it’s a typical behavior that’s used in establishing social networks and status,” said Dr. Gallagher, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry. “Schools and parents need to be tuned into this as a behavior that occurs all the time. It means that school districts need to have policies that deal with this, and I think it means also that we need to turn to the adolescents for some of the solutions."

Well, at least we're turning to adolescents for the solutions; that puts a nice friendly face on all of this doesn't it? Why must sociologist attempt to recommend policy about the personal lives of students? What type of policy could be effective in curbing social ambition or even preventing aggression amongst the social status climbers and who thinks that this is desirable?

In the name of stamping out bullying? Bullying is the act of picking on a weaker person repetetively. Adults with the best of intentions are trying to protect their kids. Nobody wants to think about the consequences that such proposed social engineering would have in the long term.

This is not a conspiracy. It is simply a misguided notion used by sociologists to gain funding for the great social engineering experiment and a reaction to overblown, media-driven fear of a simple aspect of human nature. It fits in nicely with the war on the male. Aggression and bullying are seen as male-type behaviours and viewed negatively. Unfortunately, many babies are still in this bathwater and we will need them as western civilization faces its challenges in the future.

Science on the Street Corner

2011-02-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

A quick round up of recent sightings of science walking the street picking up dates.

Sharon Begley at Newsweek tells us how math whiz, Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis, slices through scientific studies showing us how Everything We Hear About Medicine Is Wrong.

But at NIH Ioannidis had an epiphany. “Positive” drug trials, which find that a treatment is effective, and “negative” trials, in which a drug fails, take the same amount of time to conduct. “But negative trials took an extra two to four years to be published,” he noticed. “Negative results sit in a file drawer, or the trial keeps going in hopes the results turn positive.” With billions of dollars on the line, companies are loath to declare a new drug ineffective. As a result of the lag in publishing negative studies, patients receive a treatment that is actually ineffective. That made Ioannidis wonder, how many biomedical studies are wrong?

Surprised? Why?

biostatistician Steven Goodman of Johns Hopkins ... worries that the most-research-is-wrong claim “could promote an unhealthy skepticism about medical research, which is being used to fuel anti-science fervor.”

What is an unhealthy skepticism? I agree that the anti-vaccine hysteria is a problem, but shouldn't we then be encouraging skepticism about skepticism instead of trying to demand unquestioned compliance with science doctrine?

Jay P Greene explains, with respect to education, exactly what I've thought about so-called scientific reasoning and how it is misapplied and over-trusted in many aspects of life.

Science has its limits. Science cannot adjudicate among the competing values that might attract us to one educational approach over another. Science usually tells us about outcomes for the typical or average student and cannot easily tell us about what is most effective for individual students with diverse needs. Science is slow and uncertain, while policy and practice decisions have to be made right now whether a consensus of scientific evidence exists or not. We should rely on science when we can but we also need to be humble about what science can and can’t address.

He goes on to explain how scientific studies are completely misinterpreted, perhaps intentionally, by ideologues who push their agenda anyways. With study sponsors like these, who needs scientists?

We already have a taste of this from the preliminary report that Gates issued last month. Following its release Vicki Phillips, the head of education at the Gates Foundation, told the New York Times: “Teaching to the test makes your students do worse on the tests.” Science had produced its answer — teachers should stop teaching to the test, stop drill and kill, and stop test prep (which the Gates officials and reporters used as interchangeable terms).
Unfortunately, Vicki Phillips mis-read her own Foundation’s report. On p. 34 the correlation between test prep and value-added is positive, not negative. If the study shows any relationship between test prep and student progress, it is that test prep contributes to higher value-added.

CBC News - Canada's government-run science pimp uses the old toilet seat comparison to scare us about mall food court trays. Did anyone really eat straight off of those things anyways? They wait until the end of the article, by which time 25% of readers have already ordered a year's supply of anti-bacterial wipes, to offer a reasonable statement.

Despite the presence of some serious pathogens, they are not a major concern for healthy people, Hancock said.
"The number of bacteria that are transferred from a tray, even if it's in the range of hundreds of bacteria, they're not sufficient to cause disease because we have very efficient systems in our body for getting rid of bacteria."

I hope they got their money's worth with our hard-earned tax dollars. See, not everyone can (or should) send swabs to a university lab because it's bloody expensive. I think new rooms are always stocked with an emergency swab kit.
Editor: "Slow news week, get out the swabs and start testing surfaces."
News Hack: "What surfaces?"
Editor: "Any surface people eat near or touch. Then make sure you compare the results to our stock toilet seat results"

Remember, this is the same organization that warned us that chicken has bacteria on the surface. Is that why my mom slapped me when I licked raw chicken breasts?

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2011/02/14/bc-food-trays-bacteria.html#ixzz1E5GTmMXj

Can Government Change Culture?

2011-02-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

To continue where I left off in my last post, I need to explain why I have reservations (to put it mildly) about the claim that government can change culture. If carried out perfectly, the success of the culture will depend on the strength of the ideology. This problem is not just as simple as finding the right ideology. The execution is essential so the strength and wisdom of the leadership is also imperative. Compounding this are the internal politics within any ruling party or government and the difficulty of dealing with the complexities of the real world against the fact that no ideology is perfect. Governments are made up of people who are far from perfect. When government tries to encourage people to better themselves, you get what you often end up with are anemic chearleading campaigns, like the Participaction campaign. When hubris makes them think that they can mould people into something better, you end up with disastrous endeavours like Canada’s residential schools.

Despite the serious problems mentioned so far, the biggest problem with the idea is that it is backwards. Government is mostly a tool for culture. Of course it can sway opinion and strong leadership can inspire change. But in the end, a leader is only as strong as his connection to the will of the people. He can only reflect the favourable aspects of the culture and try to focus that energy on to a worthy goal.

Discipline Is the Primary Determinant of Success - Individually and Culturally

2011-01-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

Dispite my position about the dangers of the so-called Chinese Parenting, I have always maintained in my discussions and internet comments that discipline is the most important aspect of raising successful children. Now, I don't think that all Chinese parents are as intense as Amy Chua, however, the flavour of her style is very common in Chinese parents and that is stressing discipline first and foremost and a very strong work ethic. Any parent who demands these two attributes from their children will likely see them grow up to be successful adults. Here is an article that supports my opinion, surprisingly well-written for a Star article.

So, fostering a culture, more like the Chinese culture of discipline and hard work will help North American children to succeed. Forget racism hiding behind the term H. B. D.
Dan Gardener outlines why Culture Matters.
Gardener ends his article with quote Lawrence E. Harrison's book, The Central Liberal Truth, that I find both frightening and stimulating.

He opens his seminal book, The Central Liberal Truth, by quoting Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the legendary Democratic senator. "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society," Moynihan wrote. "The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."

I realize that it is essential to try to change culture where it is detrimental, however, politics is a force that I always view with skepticism. While it is unique in its position to affect such change, it is always corrupted by self-interest, ideology and, at least in democracy, a body of voters who are too poorly educated and too busy to get educated to know enough to demand a system that is actually effective.
Political forces can be too heavy handed and lead to the type of culture like Amy Chua's whereby too little emphasis is put on independant thinking and the learinng material used in education justifies itself without question and must be learned (mostly by rote). While western education now indoctrinates children into a liberalized free-explore mentality with no failing grades, no aggression (feminized) culture with no losers and everyone is a friend. Looking at it this way, we are setting ourselves up to be overwhelmed by the more aggressive culture. Of course, the success is somewhat offset by the efforts of the western brand of intensive parenting making kumon and sylvan learning centre franchises so successful.

So, we see to ways in which political movements have can successfully affect culture - one brutal and aggressive, the other passive-aggressive. So, the success of the culture depends on the strength of the ideology espoused by the politicians and the strength of the politicians to affect change. This is where I have doubts.

Hyper Chinese Parenting

2011-01-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

LOT's of people commenting on the dragon-lady Amy Chua and her spooky glimpse into the hyper-parented Chinese-American household. I have to take the article at face value although some commenters say her entire memoir softens the whole picture. I don't have time between bedtimes to read it. At the time of writing, the WSJ article has 5100 comments.

My take:

Western parents seem to be adopting strategies similar to the Chinese approach more and more. I've been following http://www.freerangekids.com/ for some time where many examples of the "Hover Lest Our Children Fail Us" attitude are shown frequently. Even The Simpsons picked up on this with a line from a hyper-parent "You can't let children ...(do things themselves)..., you have to hover over their shoulders and force them to succeed."
More and more pressure is hoisted on kids, although, the western flavour includes academic and athletic excellence. Just look at the one-on-one sports training for kids as young as 4 geared toward the "anything to get them to the bigs" attitude. I was skating on a pond (really a big puddle) with my son when a father came with his two boys to let them play hockey. After a half-hour or so, he jumped out of his SUV to yell at them for being "lazy". Huh? I thought this was just fun pond hockey. You're going to ruin the sport for them. Let them enjoy some skating time without a coach breathing down their necks.

Chinese parents do seem to take things to the next level, and as Half Sigma says they will, "no doubt produce workers who are good value creators, and their corporate employers will love them, and they will be paid far less money than the value they create." By turning her children into piano playing/math problem solving machines, eschewing social activities and refusing to let their children any choice, Chua is producing highly-proficient drones. I'm not anti-achievement, but, the drive has to come from the children. Chua thinks that she owns her children. She is also steeling their own achievements by molding them into what she imagines them to be. One day, they may wake up and realize that they were only performing for their parents and the emptiness will begin to grow.

Read the passage about the piano practice. Her daughter was exhasperated about a difficult piece so Chua dragged her back to the piano bench.

She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Eventually, she got it and was elated. Wonderful, right? To me, it sounds empty. To me, it sounds like Chua was the one afraid of raising a daughter who is a loser (something I'll cover on my new blog 911OnSpeedDial). If the daughter had been allowed to go to her lesson without perfecting the piece, her teacher would have helped her. Then, maybe after more practice, she could have mastered it on her own, in time for the recital. Her accomplishment, or failure, would have been hers and not be overshadowed by her mother but either way, she would have learned to work it out herself. Chua is the one playing the instruments through her children and missing the point of teaching piano in the first place. It's not to create prodigies. It's to create a learning experience.

What western cultures realize and have ingrained, is, that to force children to excel and make their life-choices for them, is taking a big risk. Your child could rebel and you lose your relationship. Your child could internalize the pressure and crack if they don't achieve a high enough level of success (whatever that is). Without making choices at a young age, they'll grow older and not have enough life experience to cope in the real world. To most western parents, the rewards aren't worth these risks. Still, we find plenty or western children who find their own motivation to push for excellence. Some were pushed by parents, but most get a thrill out of competition and push themselves.

All cultures have a wide range of parenting styles, but, Chinese definitely have a higher percentage of the high-pressue style that Hua describes and take it to another level. As I've learned from Chinese friends, it is the norm in China. There, it is probably easier since the schools are geared toward this mentality and most other students are in the same situation. In North America, it is more difficult due to the exposure to our culture. This also makes the risks far greater if a child rebels and goes rogue. With less social skills, they have less ability to navigate the pitfalls such as drugs and sex.

While there are certainly things we learn from Chua's parenting; that kids can be resilient and achieve great things, the warnings are abundant and clear. The point of raising kids is not to compete for the highest achievement in school or music. The most important thing is to raise kids who are happy, independant and strong. With that to build from, they'll seek success for themselves. It just may not be in medicine or asto-physics.

Do Not Pay Attention to the Side Show, the Destructive Dynamic Remains

2011-01-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

Posted in error to 911OnSpeedDial on: Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Besides the pain and suffering of the victims and their families, the worst thing about mass shootings, is the distraction away from real issues on account of one attention-seeking mad man. Bullets hail for a few seconds changing lives forever. However, we must remember that what was happening in Arizona before the shooting has not stopped just because the media has fogotten about it in the rush to find out what was making Jared Lee Loughner tick.

Let's not forget the unique dynamic along the southern border of Arizona. Guns flow south to help the drug lords supply the drug demand in the north. The solution is so simple. I am always astounded by the state of denial and cognitive disonance in the minds of gun supporters. They stand for freedom to own a gun, but deny freedom to control what substances others put in their bodies and blame the ensuing violence on the inferiority and moral failings of the other group.

Feminism and the Erosion of Women's Sports

2010-12-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

It was once thought that feminism wanted to advance women in sport. However, it seems that some would rather advance men in women's sports. Feministing.com predictably adores this ruling.
What will their take be when the top 10 golfers on the LPGA tour are men? Do they really believe that the only difference between a man and a woman is appearance? The most disconcerting thing in this whole story is the complacency with which the women on the tour accept it. This threatens to undo everything women have worked for but the players have to stoicly tow the PC party line? Unbelievable.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd believe that feminism is trying to abolish sport altogether and using this farce to undermine women's sport so they can attack the whole of sport as a "sexist" activity. However, it just seems to me that they are too blind and ignorant to realize what they are doing.

Onestdv, The Breastfeeding Consultant.

2010-12-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

So Onestdv is out chasing yet another conspiracy. This time he says that infant formula is part of the plot to undermine the family.

Infant formula is simply another example of a technology enabling the women's movement, not the other way around. Before infant formula, mothers who couldn't breastfeed had to find willing mothers to lend their milk or pay for a wet nurse. Big business, as always, filled the gap and continues to gather huge profits (egad).

The point One fails to mention is that in the heydays of science (50's -60's), the prevailing notion was that science had surpassed nature and that there was no way that nature could provide the kind of nutrient-filled food that the powers of science had cooked up. Then, we discovered that the mother's immunity was passed to the child. Of course, this small, but important difference was blown way out of proportion. Suddenly, the pendulum swung and baby formula was painted as an evil corporate plot and everyone said that nothing MEN invented could be as nourishing as a woman's all-natural milk. The science-whore was used to link breastfeeding to higher IQ and link formula to obesity. I suspect it’s more a function of income level since lower income people are less likely to breastfeed.

Women are now shamed for letting a single drop of formula touch their child's digestive system. Go to a maternity ward and witness the bleeding and cracked nipples and weeping mothers ashamed that they can’t get it right refusing to believe that they should taint their babies with that poison.

ONE has it backwards. The breastfeeding craze is perpetuated by the leftist Gaaia worshipping feminists. Like other religions that cause suffering, it is propogated by the piety of other sufferers (usually women). The same way that Muslim women don the veil to tell other women that god hates them; mothers pass guilt trips for even thinking about using formula along with a whole host of other overblown fears and parenting misteps.

In regard to the US government funding: It appears as though even the WIC is moving toward milk banks as an alternative to formula. This move would suggest that the government is moving away from the somewhat counterproductive practice of funding formula for anyone on the plan.

The War on Drugs in Rio - The Temporary Solution

2010-12-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

I saw this from Marginal Revolution (hat tip).
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/11/rios_drug_war.html

I referenced it in my post on ONESTDV.

It's what I call a temporary solution. I guess in Rio, they want to lock up all the gangsters before the Olympics so they moved into the favellas military style. How long before the gangster that were removed are replaced by younger, more ruthless thugs?

In a place as notoriously corrupt as Rio, I wonder how many of those bricks of pot and cocaine are going to end up back on the street within a week.

Questions About The Moral Landscape

2010-11-30T18:33:00.000-08:00

I’m currently reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. I am greatly impressed by his reasoning and I am glad that someone is finally tackling the question of ethics and morality from a scientific perspective. Ethics, says Harris, should be seen as an "underdeveloped branch of science."

I’ve long felt that something was wrong with the typical liberal moral relativistic stance that says we can’t judge any other culture’s way of thinking as right or wrong. Although I couldn’t join them in their supposed neutrality, I often called myself I a moral relativist simply because I thought the only other option was to be a fundamentalist. I believe that nobody has the right to decide what’s right for you, but of course nobody has the right to inflict harm on others unjustly. However, I don’t need to fall into moral relativism in order to see that there are many paths that are morally acceptable.

In his new book, Harris defines the right moral path as one that increases human well-being and the wrong one as one that decreases it. So, a society that performs female circumcision or brainwashes children to become killers is obviously not on the right moral path. Well-being can be scientifically tested and discussed using logical means

This Moral Realism is such an elegant way of thinking because it doesn’t over simplify any act to its singular consequence (i.e. killing is wrong) and it doesn’t absolve anyone of thinking hard about his choices. Answers must be sought using all available knowledge about oneself and one’s surroundings. Like moral relativity, there is a lot of room for different ways of living – different peaks on the moral landscape, as Harris would call them, but there is also room for pointing out how some ways could be changed to make them better.

I continue to enjoy this book and hopefully I’ll write more when I’m done. For now, I see a few difficulties, which I will explain.

A lot of people will be hesitant to give science the authority to rule their morals because they would lose control of their decisions and values that they feel are instinctual and arrived at by carefully looking into their hearts. Pure science is cold, calculated and has no room for feeling. People will be afraid that science could tell them to live in such a way that does not conform or goes directly against their current firmly held values and ask them to do things that they just cannot, morrally, perform. How would you respond to this?

Another difficulty arises because science is, in this political and economic world, a commodity. It is often used and abused by special interests, ideologists, business and even religion to further their goals. To discover scientific answers takes a lot of money, and individuals do not have the money to do their own research or the expertise to distinguish good science from propaganda, judge the validity of conclusions or interpret findings for themselves. A real fear that must be acknowledged is the possibility that science could be used for manipulating people or a weapon for twisting reality and perception even more than it is today. It is doubtful that a majority of any population can become sophisticated enough to avoid manipulation. Even more dangerous, I think that highly educated people are actually more susceptible to grand ideas that sound good in theory but can have disastrous affects if applied in practice.

Lastly, I also pose a test to the theory. Suppose that moral realism attains its deserved stature and succeeds in producing a thriving, society but the society thrives to the point of exhausting resources. What if that society then decides that in order to continue to thrive and maximize well-being for most people, it must abandon peace and do horrible harm to a portion of the people? Are we then thrust back to the in-group, out-group battle? How would you approach such a situation?

Ignore the Holy Texts Day

2010-09-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

In protest to the ongoing insanity of all major religions, I am going to commemorate 9/11 by completely ignoring all religious texts for the entire 24 hour period. I will not burn, read, flush, sit on, stomp on, follow doctrines contained in any religious texts nor preach from them. I will also abstain from participating in or discussing other protests against any such actions. I know that this is completely offensive to any fundamentalists who, of course, believe that I should observe every tenant in their book by fasting, eating special food, wearing special clothes, wearing no clothes, limiting my number of steps, walking for pilgrimage, praying or doing a sacred dances to pay respect to the deity or deities who inspired their particular books. It will also be dificult to maintain silence when such stupidity is happening all over.

It may seem offensive for me to damn my soul to the firey depths of hell while zealots furvently strive to live their life according to their beliefs, so that their souls will take up the fight against the evil one and his sinister army. However, I believe it is time to send a strong message. I have stood by long enough while religious people have wrecked havok with the world; burning people, enslaving people, creating wars in the name of their religion, brainwashing young people and turning them into walking bombs.

So, starting as soon as I post this blog, there will be completely no acquiescence to any religious text. I promise not to touch a cover or single page of any book that was supposed to be inspired by prophets or apostles or gods or other religious figures. I will answer any question on the subject with firm shake of my head and a statement to the affect that drawing attention to such matters only makes them worse.

I know you'll say, that this is how I live just about every single day of my life. Well, this might be true as far as the ignoring of the books and their doctrines. Aside from weddings, funerals and similar ceremonies for family and friends, I don't go within the walls of a church. However, 9/11 is special and so I think I must triple or even quadruple the ignoring that I'd normally do and make a point of it by saying so in this blog. On the other hand, I will usually talk religion with almost anyone at anytime, but, not today.

Living amongst people without such as strongly apathetic convictions towards Religion means that discussions might come up from time to time. While other people in certain South Eastern U.S. states express their hatred and place their chosen pages of evil on bonfires in the hopes of igniting more hatred against themselves, I will most certainly be tempted to share thoughts on the entire thing. This will be especially since today, I will be going home to visit family who are all relgious Protestants and they will certainly want to talk about it. This is my first act of abstinence for as long as I can remember and it will not be easy.

Music Post

2010-09-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

In the 90’s, “talent” was never mentioned when describing an artist but they had to be “real” supposedly (meaning genuine). Now, everyone is described as being so “talented” but everything about them is fake - even their voices.

The biggest whiner "animal rights goofball" (AKA Morrisey) from the 80's music scene has really put his view of the world into perspective. I'm not sure what "think on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare" he's talking about but it sounds much worse than Tianenmen. OK so this is it, you can run over a protestor with a tank but you have to stop selling live chickens in markets so people can cut their heads off, pluck them and cook them with their feet sill attached and eating dogs? Animals are People Too! That sounds reasonable....

Rick Rubin's Associated Acts (from Wikipedia): AC/DC, Beastie Boys, Danzig, Dixie Chicks, Gogol Bordello, Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Melanie C, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Shakira, The Cult, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Run–D.M.C., Slayer, Slipknot, System Of A Down, The Avett Brothers, The Mars Volta, U2, Weezer, ZZ Top
(It hurts me to see The Mars Volta in the same list as Limp Bizkit.)

Robinson isn’t saying that Taylor Swift shouldn’t sing. He’s saying, and I agree, that her music is safe and bland because it’s targeted toward children (age 8 to 13) and so the fact that adults are actually listening to it and saying “wow”, just shows the level of sophistication in the public is just sad. You might as well listen to The Wiggles. They have way more “talent”. Have you ever considered the deep philosophical meaning of Row Row Your Boat?

The only reason Taylor Swift and Justin Beiber are so popular is because everyone is tired of the bad girl/boy image now that so many have ended up in therapy.

Chris Robinson vs Taylor Swift or Blues Rock vs Country Pop

2010-09-07T19:38:00.000-07:00

In reaction to this from One-STDV, regarding this from Chris Robinson

The Black Crowes were 90’s rockers. At that time, the sought-after quality in music was originality. The music and musicians had to be genuine. The true test of a song or artist was the “Unplugged” performance. The worst thing a band could do was to “sell-out”. Artists had to stand for something and it lead to a whole lot of proselytizing and revolutionary talk a la Rage Against the Machine. It culminated with Cobain blowing his head off in a move that even he would admit was an obvious cliché far beneath his level of talent.
The movement was, in part, a reaction and antithesis to the glitz and glam of the Pop genre that the music industry was pushing in the like The New Kids on the Block, Bon Jovi and Janet Jackson. Pop music continues the same as always because there is an endless supply of young, immature people out there to lap up these re-packaged clichés because to them, it is new. What’s really new are adults actually going as crazy as their kids for these, well, kids. Even I, though, have to admit that Justin Beiber has quite a lot of charisma and seems very talented.
So 90’s grunge began to wind down almost as soon as it started for several reasons. First, the politics began to ring hollow, especially as the economy began to turn around and things just looked better making all the whining sound trite. Also, there just weren’t enough decent musicians who could come up with something new, meaningful and catchy. Finally, it became obvious, that the lifestyle was unsustainable (See: Shannon Hoon).

End The Embargo on the Canada's Renewable Resources

2010-05-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

There is a natural resource that is found on the North Eastern shore of North America. Every year, the resource comes to the shore where it can be harvested by brave rugged who have relied on this resource for generations to support their families and communities, living in harmony with nature. Carefully managed, this resource can continue to supply revenue and food to these communities indefinitely.
This harvest is used to make oils, nutritional supplements, fine clothing and food.
But all is not idealic in these communities. The way of life is under attack by outsiders bent on ending the industry. The harvesters are beseiged by activists, some who even helicopter out to the ice flows to produce propaganda urging governments to take every effort to stop them. In fact, one of the largest world governments was coerced through misinformation to place a trade embargo on the products.
Why are people so intent on stopping this eco-friendly, sustainable practice?
Look into those eyes. Are you crying yet?

Why do we transfer human sympathies onto animals? Why do we those emotions get in the way of clear thinking?

Look at the blood in this video. This is meant to disgust you just like pictures of holocaust victims or Hiroshima footage. BUT THESE ARE NOT HUMANS.

Nobody likes looking at animals being slaughtered, but that is life. No one is making you club a seal, so don't act like the "sins" of these people will make you go to hell.

Animal Rights Fundamentalism is blind, has no basis in reality and has NOTHING to do with environmentalism.

Feminists Attack Trans-Gendered Film

2010-03-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

I'll probably never see this movie but I read this OP about it on one of my favorite skewed-opinion websites. I don't know what it is about feminists, but I've always been fascinated with them in the same way that I'm fascinated with religious people the difference being that I find it even harder to hold my tongue with feminists than with traditional religious believers which is why I read the articles. Many are interesting, some are disturbing.

I decided that this piece posted by someone named Jos required a response. However, my registration seems to be taking to long so I'm posting it here.

Luna has claimed he didn't know the word is an offensive slur -- a clear sign he is not someone we want making a film about trans women.

Fortunately, "you" don't choose who makes a film about anyone. Nobody holds a copyright on the identity of trans women. If you want to create a character, please go ahead. Then nobody can make a movie about her without your approval. By your logic, as a white, married father, I should protest the makers of just about every sitcom in the last 10 years for portraying us as lazy, unintelligent slobs. What a hurtful stereotype.

Censorship is dangerous. It is not acceptable to attempt to silence other's opinions because they don't conform to our own. Even if they are expressed in a way that you think makes light of a serious subject.

Last week, the word Transgender was a proper term and this week you changed the rules "('transgenders' is not accurate or accepted terminology)" so now the director is ignorant? Last check, it's still included in the ever-growing Acronym-from-hell, LGBTTIQQ2SA.

You are far better off, continuing your criticism in a constructive way or better yet, writing, producing and/or financing a movie that meets your standards. My guess, is that it will be a lot more boring than TTWK. This whole idea that all art must present a positive image of whatever group is represented is harmful and counterproductive

Science is a Whore

2009-12-13T07:57:00.000-08:00

If you're like me, this is just an obvious statement. However, everywhere in the media, science is portrayed as this community of dedicated professionals seeking the truth about the universe. People who question anything portrayed as scientific are labelled wackos, heretics or even worse Naturopaths.
Don't think an H1N1 shot is necessary? You're ignorant of science.
Don't believe that Global Warming is the harbinger of Armageddon? You're a right-wing stooge for big business.
In reality, there is no community voice from science. In order to make money, scientists must find a company willing to pay them for data manipulation or a university willing to fund their research. The justification for any scientific work is always money or politics. Pure science is simply a tool for selling a product or an idea.
Want to prove that your party's position is justified? You simply pay for a scientific poll. But how scientific can an opinion be? Doesn't matter as long as the sample size is big enough to make the results accurate to within +-2% 19 times out of 2o.

Just listen to this science fiction writer's account of trying to make a living as a marine biologist.
He spent ten years getting a bunch of degrees in the ecophysiology of marine mammals (how's that for unbridled optimism), and another ten trying make a living on those qualifications without becoming a whore for special-interest groups. This proved somewhat tougher that it looked; throughout the nineties he was paid by the animal welfare movement to defend marine mammals; by the US fishing industry to sell them out; and by the Canadian government to ignore them. He eventually decided that since he was fictionalising science anyway, he might as well add some characters and plot and try selling to a wider market than the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

There is much more but I'm neither a writer nor a scientist for a living. I can only squeeze blog entries between coaching soccer practice and carting kids to friends for play dates. This idea will be explored further but for now I'm off to change a rear-facing car seat to front-facing for my growing boy.

Cul-De-Sac's Arch Nemesis

2009-06-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

The Cul-De-Sac hero has been noticing a draining affect on his powers of late. His force field has not been as powerful and his boundless strength has been waning when he needs it most. Maybe it was the late night crying of his children who can't seem to have simultaneous nights of complete sleep. However, it is looking more and more like a malicious force has been reaching out from the depths of the city core to undermine the real estate values and political power of the suburban empire.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I was unaware of the menace before, but it's just hard to get through the important pages of a newspaper on a 40 minute train ride to get to the pages where the menace thrives. The "Life" and "Arts" sections where diatribes of this phantom have been flourishing.
Of course, now that I've been alerted to his presence by one of my favourite author/bloggers, other superheroes have already started the fight. Unfortunately, I've been focusing on my day-time persona a little too much to really be much of a force in the fight to save the land of cul-de-sacs. I'll just have to add my two cents and leave it at that.
The menace has a name, Richard Florida. He has a purpose: to collect large salaries and consultants fees for waxing ideologically in print media, government reports and classroom settings. What ideology? The ideology of "The Creative Class" or the "Creative Age". As if the other ages were the result of people who couldn't tap into their creativity. I wouldn't dare call inventors of steam engines, phonograph records and cotton gins creative, would I? Didn't they simply apply basic science in novel (gasp... creative) ways to solve problems and enhance life as we know it? Wow, what a disaster. Now look at the mess we're in - all these tools, houses and infrastructure.
The whole point of this movement, is that the economy is transforming into one based on creativity rather than the laborious industrialized economy that we're stuck with right now. You know, the one with carpenters, welders and factory workers that build us those things we barely use anymore like um.... houses, bridges, trains and cars. So, all of those people are supposed to drop their um hammery-weldy thingys and pick up one of those cool new laptops - the Mac ones, not PC's - and become a copy writer or graphics designer or something "creative" to use their full "creative capital".
The principle on which Florida bases his new ideology is that every human being is creative and has the right, and thereby, duty to use his "full talents and creative abilities." I have met a lot of people and while some are definitely creative, I'm sure that not everyone wants to stand up and present the outcome of their full creativity to their company's board of directors. If any company allowed all of their employees to simply be creative, there would not be much real capital to share with investors. The sad truth is that not all people should be allowed to be completely creative. Most people, I find, are happy being given a task and a time frame. Be the time frame a 60 second assembly line window or a 6 month IT project, people like guidelines.
I was once an energetic, idealistic, young recruit full of ideas that would revolutionize the industry until a few rude awakenings taught me that things are done a certain way for a reason. Not all creative capital is good at creating real capital.
The corporate structure isn't perfect, but it does help to filter out some of those cockamamie ideas brought up by young foolish kids fresh out of school. Some cockamamie ideas from the experienced staff still get pushed through, of course, but we're all human.
Maybe my creative capital was not developed enough which is why I'm now a jaded mid-level office worker with a blog-writing super-hero alter-ego. Maybe, if I hadn't been stifled, I would already be an highly paid executive consultant, marketing my creative problem solving skills and living the neo-bohemian, bourgeois lifestyle, raising a family from a two-bedroom, plus den condo in the core. Or maybe I would have just bought a bigger house in the suburbs. See, the problem with all these creative beatniks and gays that Florida thinks are the measuring stick of a city's health is that they don't breed. Well, some do breed but they immediately start to transform themselves into crossover-driving soccer moms and dads and look for a house with room to grow. They might even use some of their precious creative capital to decorate it.

Proof I am a Free Range Parent or, more acurately, Proof My Child is Free Range

2009-05-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

The Cul-de-sac’s docile and relaxed appearance belies the busy lifestyle of its inhabitants. In actuality, I have very little time for enjoyment of my pleasant abode and its surroundings. Enjoyment is exactly the reason we have long weekends. However, those in the cul-de-sac, who own their castles, must attend to the often-neglected tasks: both the obvious, like cutting the grass and pulling weeds, and the not-so-obvious but essential tasks, like re-grouting the shower tiles. Priorities often conflict with outward appearances so I hurriedly finished my hidden task so that I could at least enjoy a little holiday sunshine – especially to get away from the fumes of the caulk.
Truth be told, I love cutting the grass and pulling weeds. I don’t like green socks and shoes, but it’s satisfying to see a lush (in places) uniformly green pasture. At least it’s uniform length in the places that it is growing. The problem is that a 3, going on 4, year old companion also desperately needs some fresh air. He can help, or pretend to help pull the “flowers” that Daddy calls dandelions, but cutting the grass is another matter. Whirring blades, even from my push-reel mower, and weed-whackers are not the safest things to be playing near. Of course, a responsible almost-four-year-old can understand the danger or at least listen to Daddy’s warnings to stay away. The question: how to occupy a child while I’m busy spinning dangerous blades at a safe distance. Then of course, I have to go do the back yard. Not undoable, but I must use my cunning to do it safely without resorting to sending the child inside.
Thankfully, two answers arrived home in the form of neighbour’s children, one, an eleven-year-old star soccer player, the other, only about a year older than mine. Suddenly, chalk is marking the sidewalk and soccer balls are being bounced between pairs of feet.
In no time, my obvious task is complete, and I’m ready to complete the backyard. A quick check with the older child and a word or two with my own and I am ready to venture out of sight. Worried? Slightly. Thankfully, Lenore Skenazy has been coaching me in raising Free Range Kids. I’ve yet to buy her book, but the next time I have the luxury of going to the bookstore, it is mine. I was sure that my son and I were both ready to take our first step toward becoming Free Range. Much preparation has taken place. However, this was still a little nerve wracking.
So, I went back to the yard work. I set a new fastest time in cutting and trimming the back – even though the grass looked like a hayfield, in the places that it was growing, and my check-ups on the kid’s chalk drawings. It barely even caused a stir in my heart when I came back to the front to find all three of our yards empty. The logical explanation was the right one. No abductions, no runaways. Just an invitation to a sandbox filled with toys where parents were filling boxes with flowers. Another clue as to how similar we are to our neighbours.
I am sure that my son is free-range. He simply is too curious not to be. I can’t make that decision for him. I can help him prepare for the challenges that life will present when his curiosity overcomes whatever fears I might instill in him, intentionally or otherwise.
My suburb is actually not too bad. I see pre-teen and pre-pre-teen children roaming or playing under what some would say are lax supervision all the time. I don’t think that the horror-stories mentioned in Lenore’s blog are too common here. Still, helicopter parents and minivan-cloistering is becoming more and more common. I just hope it doesn’t become more common than the sense, my parents tried to instill in their children.

The Green Election

2008-09-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

In Canada, only one party is called Green. However, the 2008 election could be the greenest on record and not just because the so-named party is actually running candidates in 305 of 308 ridings.
Every party has put forward a position on the environment. Some, like the Conservatives offer a few token gestures. The big, red Liberals have donned green tunics, tied their entire campaign hopes tightly to the anchor known as the "Green Shift" and recklessly tossed it into the deep election waters with a very short rope. Needless to say, their boat is tipping badly and not moving anywhere. Incredibly, nobody in Liberal leader Stephane Dion's party read the financial papers or even gas station signs prior to committing his political future and the party's fortunes to this huge gamble. Dion has shown that he is completely out of touch with the needs of the population and the world. Doesn't he realize that an enormous spike in oil and gas prices have frightened the green out of people? They've also done more to reduce emissions, or at least expediate the development of alternatives, than he or any tax policy could ever do.
Last year, everyone was basking in the warm glow of Al Gore and his empowering message of hope. This year, people wonder what their meals will look like when produce costs twice as much to be imported or harvested and their jobs have disappeared in the midst of a global recession.
As for the other two parties on the left, the Green party is benefitting from the remaining environmental sentiment as well as having no hope of forming a government. With nothing to lose, all promises and statements are on the table. The NDP is trying to balance the popularity of green initiatives with its need to maintain employment for its union-based supporters. Yes Mr.Layton, no industry means no jobs.
What we get is a whole lot of dancing around the subject. Nothing any party says will make a dent in the economy, our energy needs or the environment. If a party was serious about helping all three of these things, they would promise to mandate a certain percentage of cars sold in Canada must be electric or alternative fuel within 10 years, subsidize factories making electric cars and pump billions of dollars into nuclear power plants. This party unfortunately does not exist.

Summer Seige on Driving: When is Gasoline Renewable?

2008-09-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

Summer was busy so I haven’t blogged. So here is a brief recap of my thoughts at the end of summer.

In the beginning of summer, I felt like my cul-de-sac-filled suburb was a war zone under occupation. The gas stations were outposts for the army of oil speculators - checkpoints that must be passed to prove one’s worthiness and loyalty. Approval, in the form of available credit is all that is required. Pay at the pump allows the worthy to pass the check-point without even seeing the poorly paid representative of our occupiers.

Finally, relief came towards the end of the summer in the form of merely stratospheric gas prices. Well, within a year of the $1+ gas signs being unveiled, we celebrated gas dropping below $1.25. It’s funny that the biggest surprise in the 13 cent jump in gas prices during Hurricane Ike was that it was unannounced; a sharp reminder that the oil companies are back in control while the speculators portfolios are dwindling.

Observations from the summer:

I saw a bumper sticker that said, “I’m driving as fast as I can afford.”

There is only one time when gasoline is renewable energy: when it is stored as kinetic energy in a coasting car. I don’t get people who speed up and then hit the brakes at the last minute when the light just turned red. I coast along side them and speed past as the light changes to green.

Most people have not changed their driving habits as far I can tell.

Carlessly Negotiating a Parking Lot

2008-06-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Ever tried to walk to the store? One of the things I like about my neighbourhood is the amenities within walking distance. On my way home from the park I thought I'd walk over to the drug store to see if they had a Wii Fit. Video games at a drug store, you say? Never mind.
It seems simple enough. The boy sits on his tricycle while I steer from behind. I seemed to ignore the fact that the Shopper's Drug Mart is on the far side of a big parking lot that some urban planner thought made sense. It makes sense if your in a car, but to a pedestrian, especially one with a stroller or other child-wheeling device, this parking lot is a nightmare.
Why would it occur to the planner of a parking lot to think about people arriving by foot, or even walking from one store to the other. Are feet only for accelerators now? On one side, the sidewalk goes right past the plaza with no walking entrance. I would have to dodge traffic in the lane or walk all the way around where there are a few token level ramps on a sidewalk-island that leads to, surprise, the other sidewalk-island. Of course to get to the store, you have to negotiate an ten-inch curb. Not easy with a stroller or a toddler on a tricycle. I can just imagine the planner picturing the pedestrians doing laps back and forth on the island on his layout while cars whiz by to actually do shopping. Hmm... pedestrians sure are, well, pedestrian. Those clever people in cars are brilliantly whiz right past them.
So, I managed to dodge the two thirds of drivers who don't care to notice the heartbeat-powered travellers on their parking lots thanks to the one-third who care enough to stop and let a man with a toddler cross in front of them. I walked past rows of idling cars, waiting for their pampered master to arrive, empty or with one air-conditioned occupant, and couldn't help thinking like we're doomed to expend all the oil we can without even taking a second thought. I just don't think most people get it. Gas is approaching a dollar-forty. Your conveyance is hurting your bottom line and you leave it idling so that we don't have to spend more than 20 seconds without airconditioning.
It's not just the minds we have to change, the attitude is built right into the infrastructure. We've cemented our fate with ten-inch curbs.
Realizing this, I seriously hope the debunkers of Peak Oil are right - http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/.
As I suspected they were sold out, so I'm going to have to drive somewhere to get my Wii Fit so I can exercise in private.

The Fine Eye on the Signs

2008-06-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it to work and back for another day. Gas jumped 4 cents as oil has another jittery day on the market. Every morning, the radio announcer gives another excuse for the spike or dip in the price of oil. Every dip seems to be punished by a two or three-fold swing in the other direction. Usually some far away matter is used to shoulder the blame – a riot in Nigeria, an war-like statement from Israel or a dire prediction from an expert in the field.

It’s funny that the media now can announce what the exact price of a litre of gasoline, down to a tenth of a cent, will be tomorrow morning. Amazingly, all of the signs fall in line, right behind the announcers like the colour guard following the drum major.

Not too long ago, gas used to swing up and down ten cents every other week without a batted eyelash from any media outlet. Then, after Hurricane Katrina, oil companies began releasing excuses for gas price jumps. We began to hear when a refinery was down or deliveries were disrupted. Now, they have created a mini-industry of PR staff searching for the next excuse.

I don’t mean to be all doom and gloom. I want to explore alternatives to the theory of a sharp decline. Alternative is a word that evokes windmills, solar panels and cars that plug in overnight, but I am looking for an alternative future to the one predicted by The Peak Oil Theory. I find it hard to believe that my whole community will pick up and abandon the neighbourhoods in the outskirts and run back to the city centre like a reversal of the White Flight of the seventies and eighties. Besides, the new condos downtown are way to small for a family of three or four.

Still, every time I look out the window of my train to see the windmill, turning or not, I scoff at the idea that it is somehow making a dent in the energy shortage. A windmill can power something like 500 homes. Well, I can see 500 homes from my front window and I live in what’s called a medium-high density area. We can dot the whole landscape with windmills and still can barely run a laptop in every home much less heat them all. I doubt that that a windmill can even produce enough power to push the train I ride for a one-way trip.

To me, an alternative is the laptop I am writing on right now. It will allow me to work from home, stay in my community and improve my lifestyle. Oil prices be damned. Of course this is only one small piece in the solution to save the cul-de-sac, but so is wind power. Let's not abandon ship just yet. There is more to the suburbs than cookie cutter houses and manicured lawns. I think it's worth saving if indeed it is on a disaster course.

Cul-De-Sac Under Attack

2008-06-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

The Cul-de-sac Hero is under attack. Well, this is nothing new. He is certainly used to adversity. He learned how to navigate the tricky channels of political correctness. He weathered the storms of the millennium bug, the tech bubble and 911 to steer towards supposedly calmer waters. Pushed out of the city by rising housing prices, he finds himself with a property that was going nowhere but up, now threatened by the US mortgage crises. He’s in a relationship in which both parents work and care for the kids just to make ends meet, nothing like the patriarchal marriage of his parents. His time is squeezed between traveling to learning, arts and sporting activities for the kids and a job that bursts at the seams of the eight hours required per workday and demands constant skills enhancement.

Cleverly and with the help of a strong female partner, he has finally charted a course that meets all his work-life desires, covers the future education of his children and leads, hopefully, to a warm port-of-call when it is time to give up sailing. Now, the proponents of the Peak Oil Theory state emphatically that his hard fought for way of life has reached the end. With oil prices nearing the very stars by which he navigates, it’s hard to ignore the once fringe theorist who now garner headlines.

It can hardly be called theoretical. Every time he starts his dream car, the Cul-De-Sac Hero turns the corner only to be awoken from his fantasy by gas signs displaying prices nearing a dollar-forty per Litre splashing his face like icy, cold water in the morning.

Good morning and welcome to the new era. Today the headline reads: “How Would You Like to Walk to Work?” If it takes 35 or 45 minutes to commute by car or train at 100km/hr and you walk briskly at 7 km/hr, your commuting time has suddenly risen to six and a half hours. Add a 10 minute break each hour and a quick lunch and you should be at work in time to sign your pink slip. ‘Wake-up Mr. Cul-De-Sac,’ say proponents like author James Howard Kunstler, ‘your suburban neighbourhood is going to be the next great slum.’

What is a hero in the land of cul-de-sacs and mega shopping centres to do? Faced with the possibility that oil production is at or near its peak and there are not enough new reserves available to keep it there. Dropping production even five or ten percent will cause prices to skyrocket, crippling the global economy. This while global demand rises.

When basics like food, heating and water prices could triple and quadruple in price, how does an area of super-centres, box stores and SUVs, dependant on commuter rails and super-highways maintain its property values and remain a vibrant community in which to raise your kids? Does the hero have any tricks up his sleeve? Has his time run out?