pre-teens obsessed with beauty. mini-lindsay lohans and paris hiltons?

this article drives me nuts.  as the parent of a 9 year old (going on 21 it seems), the article goads my thoughts into directions that would drive any dad to drink.

from the article:

At a recent family party, Catherine recalls how a 14-year-old boy pursued her nine-year-old daughter.

“He wouldn’t leave her alone all night, which made me feel very uncomfortable,” says Catherine, who runs a furniture business with husband David, 42, in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

“But thankfully she told him she was nine and not interested in him.

*shudder*

of course the little darling from the article is not my 9 year old.  my lovely wife and i would not allow her to go as far as the girls in the article seem to.

it’s all about control and apportionment.  the world “no” should be in every parent’s vocabulary.

“I felt a little guilty because of the part I play in Bethany looking older than she is, but all her friends are the same, and when she works hard at school I’m loath to deny her the beauty treats she loves.”

idiocy.  really the mother only has herself to blame.  it is the job of the parent to set limits in dress, thought, mode of speech, etc.

i am half convinced that the “little voice” that most of us seem to possess is really just the lessons of childhood and adolescence coming back to advise us in adulthood.  if parents don’t do their jobs then there is no “little voice” for the future generation.  all we would get is a future of narcissistic sociopaths, and haven’t the hippies,  with their culture of “self-esteem” and new age bullshit, nearly accomplished that already?

“when everyone is special…”

I thought The Incredibles was onto something. Apparently Myspacers are suffering from self-esteem poisoning. No surprise there.

what is the “real” bible?

when teaching your children about religion, it often causes most (thoughtful) people to examine their own beliefs.

upon reading this review, i feel i have to get a copy of Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman.  the book is about how difficult it is to get a “clean” translation of the bible and how nearly impossible it is to get the contextual imagery of the passages in the new testament.

having grown up in the charismatic movement in the catholic church, i found this part of the book very interesting:

Then there is the issue of later scribes just plain adding in things that weren’t there before. These additions often came from the verbal tradition of the early church, or to bring a given gospel in line with other gospels. One of the biggest apparent additions to the gospels is the last twelve verses of Mark (16:9-20). They are not present in early versions of the gospel, and include the famous passage that is the primary basis for Pentecostal and snake-handling churches, as well as for many a fly-by-night faith healer:

And these are the signs that will accompany those who believe: they will cast out demons in my name; they will speak in new tongues; and they will take up snakes in their hands; and if they drink any poison it will not harm them; they will place their hands upon the sick and heal them.

anybody who has been involved in charismatic catholicism, and was embarassed by it, can find relief that speaking in tongues was apparently made up from whole cloth.

what i thought people were saying to me (at different ages).

this is very cute.

i’ve cut and pasted the article just in case the link dies:

Hey, Look

by Simon Rich July 23, 2007

What I imagined the people around me were saying when I was . . .

Eleven:

“Oh, man, I can’t believe that kid Simon missed that ground ball! How pathetic!”

“Wait. He’s staring at his baseball glove with a confused expression on his face. Maybe there’s something wrong with his glove and that’s why he messed up.”

“Yeah, that’s probably what happened.”

————

Twelve:

“Did that kid sitting behind us on the bus just get an erection?”

“I don’t know. For a while, I thought that was the case, but now that he’s holding a book on his lap it’s impossible to tell.”

“I guess we’ll never know what the situation was.”

————

Thirteen:

“Hey, look, that thirteen-year-old is walking around with his mom!”

“Where?”

“There—in front of the supermarket!”

“Oh, my God! That kid is way too old to be hanging out with his mom. Even though I’ve never met him, I can tell he’s a complete loser.”

“Wait a minute. He’s scowling at her and rolling his eyes.”

“Oh, yeah . . . and I think I just heard him curse at her, for no reason.”

“I guess he’s cool after all.”

————

Fourteen:

“Why does that kid have a black ‘X’ on the back of his right hand?”

“I bet it’s because he went to some kind of cool rock concert last night.”

“Wow. He must’ve stayed out pretty late if he didn’t have time to scrub it off.”

“Yeah, and that’s probably why his hair is so messy and dirty—because he cares more about rocking out than conforming to society.”

“Even though he isn’t popular in the traditional sense, I respect him from afar.”

————

Fifteen:

“Hey, look, that kid is reading ‘Howl,’ by Allen Ginsberg.”

“Wow. He must be some kind of rebel genius.”

“I’m impressed by the fact that he isn’t trying to call attention to himself.”

“Yeah, he’s just sitting silently in the corner, flipping the pages and nodding, with total comprehension.”

“It’s amazing. He’s so absorbed in his book that he isn’t even aware that a party is going on around him, with dancing and fun.”

“Why aren’t any girls going over and talking to him?”

“I guess they’re probably a little intimidated by his brilliance.”

“Well, who wouldn’t be?”

“I’m sure the girls will talk to him soon.”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

————

Sixteen:

“Hey, look, it’s that kid Simon, who wrote that scathing poem for the literary magazine.”

“You mean the one about how people are phonies? Wow—I loved that poem!”

“Me, too. Reading it made me realize for the first time that everyone is a phony, including me.”

“The only person at this school who isn’t a phony is Simon.”

“Yeah. He sees right through us.”

parents, don’t make your kids liberal. it’s as bad as making them religious

this article, an opinion piece from wsj.com, holds that modern liberals, in effect, are just as irrational as hard line religious extremists.

and the cause of the liberal irrationality?

It’s not reason that is at the heart of modern-day liberalism but rather the claim to superior virtue and, even more important, to a special knowledge unavailable to the unwashed or unenlightened. Depending on the temper of the time, such virtue and knowledge can derive disproportionately from scientism or mysticism. . .

the results of “truth to power”

this is really ridiculous.

the picture from the site seems to be that of a father holding the hands of his child. now it should be construed as possible sex abuse.

i blame the liberal fantasy of “speaking truth to power” (which is actually a misappropriated quaker term, again showing the idiocy of liberals, but i digress) for this ad. why bother with facts and what is generally perceived? twist them to your own needs.

i’m not complaining about the groups aims. i do have a problem with the images twisted to support the groups aims. why not just use the truth? truth is not malleable. it either happened or it didn’t. no amount of post modernist thought or deconstruction can change that.

but today’s liberal thought processes support the idea that since everything is malleable, and there is no truth, all things can be spun to support one’s aims. including a picture of an adult with a child holding hands.

the ultimate example of cultural relativism *warning: hard to stomach

so i saw this article about the practices of the Suruwahá tribe. if a child is born who has physical deformities, is part of twins or triplets, then it is deemed that they have no soul and is an animal and must be killed.

the brazilian government is reluctant to do anything about this practice because, “This is their way of life and we should not judge them on the basis of our values. The difference between the cultures should be respected.”

wtf?!

this is the ultimate result of post modernist thinking and shows how reprehensible it is. there is no such thing as cultural relativism. parents protecting their offspring is a universal. evil behavior does exist.

even the tribal members know this despite the teachings of their culture. from the article:

Born in 1995, Hakani – which means Smile – was still unable to walk or talk by the age of two, prompting tribal leaders to conclude she had no soul and to order her parents to kill her.

They committed suicide – eating a poison root – rather than obey the order. Hakani’s 15-year-old brother was then told he had to kill her. He dug a hole to bury her next to the village hut, which is where the tribe usually buries animals, and hit her over the head with a machete to knock her out.

However, she woke up as she was being placed in the hole and the boy found he could not go through with the killing. Hakani’s grandfather then shot her with an arrow. He was so upset he tried to commit suicide, too.

if this behavior, which would be considered good and normal by cultural relativists, were actually good and normal, then why the suicides by the parents and the attempted suicide by the grandfather?

more idiocy:

The Suzukis begged Funasa, the Brazilian government’s health department, to let them take Hakani out of the tribe to get medical help.

“Funasa could not help because their official view is to respect the culture of the people and let the children die. If we took Hakani out we could be sued,” said Mrs Suzuki.

fortunately there is a happy ending and Hakani, she does get adopted and taken away from her hellish upbringing at age 5 (she spent 3 years living as an animal in the forest and only survived because her brother would sneak food to her).

this is why i regard liberals, post-modernists, and cultural relativists with such scorn. and yet, there are generations of adults who have had this cultural relativistic mumbo-jumbo taught to them in colleges and universities across the u.s.. what affect does that kind of indoctrination have upon generations of parents and what they teach their children?

if that kind of thinking had been taught in the u.s. during the 1920′s and 1930′s then, undoubtedly, we would never have been involved in ww2, and despite godwin-ing myself, germany’s desire for war would have been labeled as “their culture”. their desire to exterminate the jews, “good because it is cultural and there is a long history of anti-semitism in europe”.

disgusting.

the 3 “R”s: parents, teach your children math!

i find this funny, and if true, disturbing.

i must admit that i’ve run into similar situations myself. a clerk who just can’t seem to subtract or add simple sums.

from the link:

The Result In 2005:
Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The young woman at the counter took my $2. I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies while looking at the screen on her register.

I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.
Jeffrey J. McGovern

i assume that the girl was school age. if she wasn’t then that would explain why she was working at burger king.

which leads me to this article about the Columbia School of Journalism’s (CSJ) Darts & Laurels.

the article complains that european journalists are reporting on a link between cellphone radiation and certain brain tumors and american journalists are not. therefore american journalists get a “Dart”.

however, there is a problem:

one of the studies that the CSJ cites says:

No excess of temporal glioma (p = 0.41) or meningioma (p = 0.43) was observed in cellular phone users as compared with nonusers. Cordless phone use was not related to either glioma risk or meningioma risk. In conclusion, no overall increased risk of glioma or meningioma was observed among these cellular phone users; however, for long-term cellular phone users, results need to be confirmed before firm conclusions can be drawn.

which is the opposite of what is claimed in the article! so apparently CSJ’s awards staff can’t read. i take it as given that journalists get sub-standard educations in math and sciences, but the abstract of the study was written in plain english.

the other study that was cited in the article is more math heavy, but certainly not even the level of a simple quadratic equation, it was actually at an algebra 1 level:

analogue cellular phones yielded odds ratio (OR) = 2.9, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 2.0–4.3, digital cellular phones OR = 1.5, 95 % CI = 1.1–2.1 and cordless phones OR = 1.5, 95 % CI = 1.04–2.0.

just to wade through the math. the formula for OR or Odds Ration is (Pt/1-Pt)/(Pc/1-Pc) where Pt=studied group and Pc=Control group.

any OR of “1″ means no relationship between to two. any OR value greater than 1 shows a positive relationship. any OR value of less than “1″ shows a negative relationship. so in the Journal study if any of the OR values = “1″ then there would be no relationship between cell phone (listed by type: analogue, digital and cordless) and certain tumors.

The OR values in the study show a “slight”, OR = 1.5, relationship between digital cell phone radiation and cancer over 10 years.

It shows a significant relationship of 2.9 for Analogue Cell Phone radiation.

And a “slight” relationship with cordless phone radiation, OR=1.5.

so, in summary, digital cellphone users have the same risk, over 10 years, of getting certain brain tumors as cordless phone users.

so why the reason for the alarm? even the journalist that wrote the Chicago Reader article can’t seem to do the math. he claims the studies, after he “looked harder”, backed up the claims of Louis Slesin, the editor of the International Journal of Cancer, and Microwave News, a newsletter that provided a “comprehensive, comprehensible account of the controversial findings.”.

the CSJ praised the Florida Sun-Sentinel for writing about Slesin and the alarm sent out by his newsletter. and yet. . .i’m not sure which is worse:
the fact that CSJ can’t read, do math, or check sources. or that neither can Michael Miner, the journalist for the Chicago Reader story.

also, as an aside, Slesin seems to be quite invisible to google as far as his educational credentials are concerned. i can’t find one scholarly work by a man who purports to possess a PhD. i’m not sure what his doctorate is in, but he claims to have one. maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

so, parents, make sure your kids can do math, or they may end up at columbia doing, relatively, stupid things. . .or emplyed at a burger king, unable to make correct change.

i think that a high level of math and critical thinking courses (epistemology, for one) would be useful, and should be a prerequisite, to obtaining a journalism degree. what more should we expect to the ones who claim to be 4th estate?

oldie, but interesting.

Politically Incorrect House on the Prairie

“Well, I’m a great fan of Little House books, and I recommended them when we did a chat on the Times Web site. I got blasted for that, by people who told me Laura Ingalls Wilder was a Nazi incarnate, that the books were about genocide, that there’s no difference between giving children Little House books and the people who gave German children Nazi propaganda in the ’30s.”

Rant forthcoming…