tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272371132024-03-07T11:07:59.797-08:00Embracing the RiskWe can't learn if we think we know too much to risk being wrongMarkChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14783588922999884233noreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-26985995736195272552022-01-05T18:18:00.002-08:002022-01-05T18:26:04.050-08:00Liars Gonna Lie<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd-dHrxNXV-1eUmZGBJL_mK68XMHieqC8JteohR13ZqomsPIqIQJFDwORbq65NJkxCKZVxMNzVuGqDtPzoaTofGnfbqPkfL_nn_LoBr-w3U4T0Qoegsw65pXF0gFnPfPvS3THMyA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="541" data-original-width="902" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd-dHrxNXV-1eUmZGBJL_mK68XMHieqC8JteohR13ZqomsPIqIQJFDwORbq65NJkxCKZVxMNzVuGqDtPzoaTofGnfbqPkfL_nn_LoBr-w3U4T0Qoegsw65pXF0gFnPfPvS3THMyA/" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhPoTb7THu_dkU9eiREu48bHtr27WOn9I5rKCJj1lVz96bkaJ60-ReYJKmA4ki5zCAzT2lQWi6zz7z33hNJELK_CNQL9S_YXLSPXXUpm3qTMKK5VfJGbE_Fg4-76stL3D_0rQSA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="886" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhPoTb7THu_dkU9eiREu48bHtr27WOn9I5rKCJj1lVz96bkaJ60-ReYJKmA4ki5zCAzT2lQWi6zz7z33hNJELK_CNQL9S_YXLSPXXUpm3qTMKK5VfJGbE_Fg4-76stL3D_0rQSA/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So, what she really meant is that slavery was expanding and enslavers
dominated the presidency, senate, and supreme court while the American Civil War was
going on? I know liars lie <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPDgGxLb2OM" target="_blank">like scorpions sting</a>, but I typically hope for a bit more creativity when people at the NY Times lie. </span>Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-59321505962175480522021-05-11T00:16:00.001-07:002021-05-11T00:16:31.760-07:00Secular SpiritualityThis pair of related essays does a good job at times capturing an idea that I've been mulling around for awhile: how secularists pick and choose aspects of religion that are mostly aimed at becoming more effective managers of their time and emotions, so they can grab small snippets of quiet in between the extended bouts of productivity and consumerism that dominate their lives. When compared to the collective nature of historical religious traditions, this individualistic effort leaves people alone and isolated in their spiritual journey, and usually lacking the peace they seek.<br /><p>"This plundering reflex — where the secular raids the spiritual for booty — has been noted before. In Susan Sontag’s essay <em>Piety without Content</em>,
the great critic derides the tendency of intellectuals to vaguely pick
and choose spiritual and religious ideas without actually committing to
any of them:</p>
<div class="inner-body-quote" data-type="quote">
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<div class="quote"><div class="inner">This is piety without content, a
religiosity without either faith or observance….for the modern post
religious man the religious museum..is without walls; he can pick and
choose as he likes, and be committed to nothing except his own reverent
spectatorship.
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<div class="attribution">- Susan Sontag</div>
</div>
<p>Still, living in the largely non-religious west, I have sympathy for
those who will take sources of meaning and belonging wherever they can
get them. There <em>are</em> riches in religious traditions that can be
life-giving elsewhere, and striving to be healthy and productive are
laudable goals. But Sam Byers’ book made me realise that at worst the
use of ‘spirituality-lite’ in service of this goal is a kind of cultural
appropriation which severs fruits from roots and leaves you with an
armful of dead flowers.</p>
<p>Spirituality which just equips us to be better foot soldiers in a
market society characterised by desperate consumption and expressive
individualism is not spirituality at all."<br /><a href="https://unherd.com/thepost/wellness-is-no-replacement-for-religion/">https://unherd.com/thepost/wellness-is-no-replacement-for-religion/</a></p><p>"To see at work the contradictory impulses and
injunctions we’re daily expected to reconcile, you might begin by
immersing yourself, as Maya does, in our collective online existence.
Here, through a kaleidoscope of inspirational Instagram quotes,
revolutionary praxis, artfully prepared food and effortless-seeming yoga
poses, profound contradictions are reconfigured as a series of
seductive adjacencies. The language of rebellion and anarchy merges
seamlessly with the language of self-help. We are encouraged to
challenge power, punch up, resist. And yet at the same time we are
exhorted to grow and glow, strive, achieve, <em>become</em>. The result
is an excruciating double bind. Only through a more robust sense of
self, we believe, can we muster the rebellious energy by which the
unjust world around us might be changed. And yet, deep down, we know the
truth: that our unjust world depends for its survival on the very
project of selfhood in which we’re all so desperately over-invested.</p><p class="css-1x4bywk"><u>Many
of these tensions collide most spectacularly in the world of wellness,
where disciplines such as yoga and meditation, which once took as their
goal the dissolution of the self, are pressed into the service of a
bolstered ego and enhanced productivity.</u> In this telling, freedom, like
the equally mythologised idea of “happiness”, is no longer a collective
goal but a small and fiercely defended box of personal space, accessed
through a crushing regimen of self-improvement, in which we are free to
be our best imaginable selves"<br /><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/29/we-will-have-to-choose-our-apocalypse-the-cost-of-freedom-after-the-pandemic">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/29/we-will-have-to-choose-our-apocalypse-the-cost-of-freedom-after-the-pandemic</a></p>Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-77984937142335557432019-09-22T12:42:00.001-07:002019-09-22T12:42:30.803-07:00The Downsides of Outlawing SpankingWhat happens when countries outlaw spanking/corporal punishment for children. Sweden was the first country to do this, and the predictable effects are now coming out as successive generations figure out how to game the system. When adults have no recourse of control that children will respect or listen to, they become a mob where the only accepted violence is at the hands of children and vigilante justice rules the playground and streets.<br /><br />I can't tell you the number of people who told me that I was evil for administering corporal punishment to my children when they were young. Nobody complains anymore because my kids are older and don't need much discipline, let alone corporal punishment, but I must admit to a touch of freudenschade when people who condemned me so harshly raise hellions and my children get universal praise from their peers and teachers/coaches/adult authority figures. <br /><br />Those who don't understand the difference between spanking and abuse are unlikely to be able to create diverse spaces where children feel safe and protected. It may work in elite neighborhoods where people self-select on the basis of income, but the implementation across broad swaths society and criminalizing parents like me brings only disaster. It may take a generation or two, but it will come. Nature will have a say in the end. You can only live off the culture built by your dead ancestors for so long before the fact of your inability to successfully build a culture becomes obvious. The body of Apsu may keep culture alive for a generation or two, but Tiamat always takes her revenge.<br /><br />https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/lord-of-the-flies-letter-from-sweden/<br />
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<br />Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-36824078318635666682018-08-13T09:53:00.000-07:002018-08-13T10:02:08.100-07:00Dhimmis in the MakingDonald Trump pretends to be a strong guy, even admiring actual strongmen, but what will he do when confronted with an opportunity to stand for civil rights, etc.? He caves like all modern negotiators.<br />
<br />
Erdogan's security detail assaulted and sent people to the hospital, on American soil during his last visit. Did that change Trump's tune toward him? Not at all. Did it change Obama's tune toward Erdogan when his security detail assaulted people outside the Turkish Embassy in Washington during his watch? Not at all. They are both cowards who refuse to stand up for the pride of America and her citizens.<br />
<br />
This last week, Saudi Arabia decided to recall all ambassadors over a tweet by the Canadian prime minister calling for the release of a Saudi civil rights activist. If our leaders were men and women of courage and conviction, every Western leader would coordinate a response repeating the same tweet in solidarity with Canada for representing Western values.<br />
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I'm not holding my breath. We are led by craven cowards more interested in feathering their own nest than preserving freedom in their home territories.<br />
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As an aside, Canada only did this because they viewed it as consequence free virtue signalling. They are busy going after their own ideological heretics at home (e.g., Trinity Western University, Jordan Peterson, and anyone like Lindsay Shepherd who dares propose that his ideas are open for discussion).<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/12/saudi-arabia-spat-canada-mohammed-bin-salman-true-colours<br />
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<br />Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-25677561840759622262018-07-24T08:51:00.003-07:002018-07-24T08:56:36.976-07:00CS Lewis, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray and the Quest for Religious Truth<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "" "arial" "" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I took my oldest kid to see a play about CS
Lewis last week because I wanted him to get a small taste incredible intellects
that have accepted and propounded upon Christianity for the last 2000 years.
A man who can read Homer in the Greek, Virgil in the Latin, the German
skeptics in the German, Dante in the Italian, and Voltaire in the French (and
understand them) is not a man to be scoffed at or dismissed out of hand.
Intellectuals today often dismiss Genesis as irrelevant fable and act as
if Darwin put the nail in the coffin of Judaism and Christianity by proving
that the Bible isn’t literally true, but everyone who knows anything about
Christian history knows that great men like Augustine and Origen acknowledged
the allegorical nature of Genesis 1500+ years before Darwin. It is only
straw men that Sam Harris is fighting with, but his near absolute ignorance of
history and ancient cultures doesn’t allow him to see that.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "" "arial" "" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">And this is why I find Jordan Peterson
such a frustrating intellectual adversary for Sam Harris. He almost
*never* references writings outside of the psychological literature which are
older than say the mid 1850’s. Formed in youth by fundamentalists who
took Genesis literally, he knows little about the cultures into which the Bible
was given. His interpretations of Scripture are focused on the
psychological and often lack any sort of depth or understanding beyond the
psychological. It’s like he’s spent his entire career studying the Great
Salt Lake as a biologist and is purporting to explain what life in Oceans is
like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is still better than Sam
Harris, who pretends that seeing a few puddles in the desert gives him the
knowledge necessary to dismiss the existence of oceans, but it is a far cry from
a truly intellectual take on religion.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "" "arial" "" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">What Jordan Peterson does get, similar
to Douglas Murray, is that the “moral atheism” Sam Harris propounds is impotent
to stand in the way of truly murderous political ideologies like atheistic
Marxism and deistic Islam. The “moral atheism” of Sam Harris leads men to
wealth through the study and application of science when instantiated in
cultures such as ours, but it is inherently unstable because it relies on a
moral and cultural framework inherited from his Judeo-Christian ancestors.
When that broad societal Judeo Christian moral foundation is cut off from
its source, there is little to help people find meaning and the moral framework
necessary to maintain an open and free society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A few people might be able to do so, drawing on the wisdom of the past
(usually their christian societal roots), but broad society can’t.
Lacking meaning and purpose, Europe can’t even reproduce enough to
perpetuate their culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such cultures
are unfit for survival according to the 2nd of Darwin’s twin pillars: sexual selection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what will replace the western culture
we’ve built?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think we’re getting a
taste of it now: tribal warfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can
try and sanitize it, but make no mistake, we are headed for a very nasty future
if society doesn’t come up with a way to help people find meaning and purpose
and build actual families with children. In a world where 20% of women
*never* have a child, the average woman needs to bear 2.7 children to maintain
population levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Short of that,
populations shrink and cultures wither and die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It may take a few centuries, and it may appear to not be so bad at first
due to immigration from cultures that haven’t yet succumbed to the meaningless
that doesn’t even allow people to reproduce, but population decline is a
geometric function just like population growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once it gets going, it is very difficult to stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how will countries respond to aggressive
cultures which believe in polygamy and send their excess men abroad in an
acknowledged bid of conquest?</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "" "arial" "" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">http://www.patheos.com/blogs/youngfogey/2018/07/sam-harris-asks-questions-jordan-peterson-cant-answer/
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "" "arial" "" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="https://fpatheatre.com/production/the-most-reluctant-convert/">https://fpatheatre.com/production/the-most-reluctant-convert/</a></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-2429344204746918602018-07-22T18:45:00.000-07:002018-07-22T18:45:45.032-07:00Maternal Brain ChangesI read a fascinating article the other day. Apparently, women's brains change so much after childbirth that researchers are able to distinguish between women who had given birth and a control group of women who hadn't just by looking at brain scans, and the changes were persistent enough that they could still distinguish between mothers and non-mothers two years later, from brain scans alone. <br /><br />Also, "the more brain change the mothers experienced, the higher they scored on measures of emotional attachment to their babies, a finding that echoed past studies. And the changes in most brain regions remained two years later.<br />
<br />
The researchers also scanned men, those who became fathers during the study period and those who did not have a child, and found no comparable change in gray matter volume. (Other studies have found that fathers, including gay fathers raising children without maternal involvement, experience significant changes in brain activity, but those changes depend on exposure to the child. The more time a man spends as primary caregiver, the more activated the parental network in his brain becomes, and researchers suspect a similar effect may be present for others in a parental role.)<br />
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The brain scans seemed to validate the rapid, pronounced, long-lasting change in mothers that a much bigger body of animal research has found. Reviewing a range of studies, Pawluski and her coauthors wrote in a 2016 paper that as a developmental period, pregnancy is as formative as puberty. “Under healthy conditions, the female brain transforms into a motivated, maternal mechanism,” they wrote."<br />
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I'm convinced that females evolved not to optimize female performance alone but the mother-infant duality. Connections like this pop up all the time, and we ignore them at our peril. I'd be very curious to see the nature of the changes in gay men who are full time caregivers compared to new moms. I'd bet $1000 that they aren't as widespread or persistent. That's just now how primates evolved. Mothers really are irreplaceable.<br />
<br />Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-63227618280075907772018-07-09T09:09:00.002-07:002018-07-09T09:10:04.096-07:00Social Progress<br />
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“There were a lot of tears when it came time to put my 3
month old daughter in daycare,” my old coworker told me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But I told my wife that she’s the one with
the title ‘Dr.’ in front of her name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
anyone is going to be staying home with the baby, it is me.”<br />
<br />
I shut my mouth and tried to keep a straight face as I turned back to my
monitor to check on the test data.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was a professional environment, and I didn’t want to come off as judgmental toward
people I’m working with on an important job, but my gut clenched up, and I died
a little inside after hearing him say that.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Does my old coworker really think that men and women are interchangeable
to the extent that it doesn’t matter who stays home with the infant?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn’t he see that a woman who wants to stay
home so badly that she is crying is actually more suited to do so?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn’t he understand that a woman’s body is
flooded with ocytocin bonding hormones as she breastfeeds that baby, creating a
bond so tight that it would provoke this reaction, and that, no, it isn’t the same
to just place the infant in the hands of another adult, even the father?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn’t he see that the personality
differences that we can measure between men and women are in large there
because of the mother-infant duality, and that they are often most pronounced
in such settings?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are the cars and
fabulous house really worth more than his wife’s and infant’s happiness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Couldn’t he have suggested instead that if
she really wanted to stay home with the baby, then they could think about how
to reprioritize their lives?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He makes
more money than me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together, they are a
power couple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no, he didn’t think it
was a viable option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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In an age of modern day feminism and empowered womanhood,
this is what we get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women doctors who
return to work full-time instead of part-time or taking an extended leave of
absence because the men in their lives expect them to be providers.<br />
<br />
I can’t help but think that we are putting a woke feminist label on the age-old
barbarous practice of ripping infants from the arms of their crying mothers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-46576615977242379692018-06-08T13:49:00.002-07:002018-06-08T13:50:35.495-07:00FB and Silicon Valley vs. PrivacyThe NYT has a great piece on privacy and social networks/phone manufacturers. I've been thinking a lot about this, but I'm not sure which way to go. There don't seem to be very good replacements for social media apps. Blogging was clearly a better way to disseminate and discuss information than FB. However, part of its usefulness was that people actually used it. Will people return if they abandon FB. I'm doubtful, but I honestly think something has to change. The manipulation of people through artificial newsfeed sorting and the blacklisting of "fake news" stories which are actually true (e.g., the suppression of Live Action undercover videos of PP employees discussing the sale of baby body parts) is also very problematic on social media sites run by far left silicon valley liberals.<br />
<br />
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html<br />
<br />Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-24916679514504796032018-06-08T13:01:00.000-07:002018-06-08T13:25:56.307-07:00When You Ignore Biological Differences, Women and Children Lose<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Two biological males placed first and second in the Connecticut state open track meet 100 meter dash running as girls (and setting a meet record). At what point do we admit as a society that it is freaking crazy to allow them to compete? Bone structure matters. Going through puberty as a male matters. Science and biology matter, and frankly the feelings of the biological girls who can never win no matter how much they train matter, too. The arrogance of our media and political elites who have decided that science, biology and </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">the feelings of biological females don't matter in transgender issues can really rub average folks the wrong way. It is emblematic of their arrogance in so many other areas.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Terry Miller setting a girl's CT state open meet record in the 100 meter dash with another biological male (Andraya Yearwood) coming in 2nd.</span></span><br /><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/GameTimeCT/status/1003739370736816129">https://twitter.com/GameTimeCT/status/1003739370736816129</a></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Terry Miller setting a girl's Ct state open meet record in the 200 meter dash.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/GameTimeCT/status/1003750542294822913">https://twitter.com/GameTimeCT/status/1003750542294822913</a></span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The misogyny present in modern day liberalism frightens me, to be honest. A year ago I was writing about how James Damore's acknowledgement of gender differences in how men and women prioritize and balance work/family life was viewed as a "weakness" for women by liberals. Today, we are told that it is fair for men to compete with women in events like the 100 meter dash, so apparently we aren't allowed to acknowledge that women really are physically weaker than men and that biology plays a role in that. This is exactly backwards. Yes, women are physically weaker than men. However, condemning people as weak for choosing family life over work is really messed up, and a moral judgment with no basis in science, but it's OK for the mainstream press to say that.</span></span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-42200585899071033942017-08-10T13:32:00.001-07:002018-01-12T15:01:22.628-08:00Women Weaker than Men?<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By now, probably everybody has heard of James Damore. If you haven't, here's an article he wrote that basically got him fired from Google. (<a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evzjww/here-are-the-citations-for-the-anti-diversity-manifesto-circulating-at-google" target="_blank">source</a>, <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf" target="_blank">full pdf</a>). What I find curious are how the news articles I read contrast with his actual writing: either by misrepresenting what he said or by pushing views that are actually more biased than anything Damore wrote. Take this article, for instance. The author states clearly that he thinks traditional female preferences are indicative of "weakness."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">"at 4 pm PT, the tech giant will hold an all-hands meeting to discuss the firing of James Damore and the controversial internal memo he wrote about women and their biological weaknesses related to tech that </span><span style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(237, 43, 35); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-color: inherit; text-decoration-style: inherit; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; vertical-align: inherit;">got him canned</span><span style="background-color: white;"> from the company." (<a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/8/10/16125452/google-sundar-pichai-fire-james-damore-diversity-memo" target="_blank">source</a>)<br /><br />Note again that word "weakness." James Damore never wrote about biological weaknesses. He wrote about statistical preferences and choices that men and women make. I would be surprised if he did consider the various preferences of men and women a sign of "weakness."<br /><br />This bothers me because it denigrates the choices women make more often than men. Are only the choices which more men make than women indicative of strength? Are women weak if they want to drop out of the workforce to raise their children? <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/186050/children-key-factor-women-desire-work-outside-home.aspx" target="_blank">Studies say a majority of women with children under 18 would prefer to be a homemaker.</a> The number of men who prefer to do so is much, much smaller. Does this make women weaker than men?</span><span style="background-color: white;">Then there are the routine misrepresentations of the Damore article. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Here's one misrepresentation by the Google CEO, "</span><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sundar-pichai-anti-diversity-manifesto-fired-2017-8" target="_blank">To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.</a>"<br /><br />Damore never did that. He clearly stated that googlers were different than average people. He also clearly stated that one could never assume things about individuals based on group averages. I'm pretty sure that applies to small, non-representative subsets of women, such as one finds at Google. He was simply making the argument that individual choices driven in part by biology would make absolute equality of numbers impossible in the workplace without coercive efforts that ignore women's preferences and are unresponsive to their needs. He also suggested some ways to increase workforce participation that would be non-coercive in nature. </span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br />Here's another misrepresentation, "</span><span style="background-color: white;">T<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-engineer-anti-diversity-manifesto-causes-uproar-2017-8" target="_blank">he 10-page treatise also claims that biological difference between men and women are responsible for the underrepresentation of women in the tech industry.</a>"</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br />Again, not what he said. He said it was partly responsible. He readily admitted that sexism exists and should be rooted out. He just didn't think it was the whole story and thought that assuming it was the whole story misdiagnosed the problem and would have negative consequences.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br />Damore's firing and the misrepresentation of his viewpoints to justify that firing do not bode well for free speech in this country. It also points to the fact that the greatest danger to free speech right now is not government but the business community. Heck, even when the government does come down against free speech, it is often at the behest of powerful business interests (e.g., religious freedom protection acts being struck down).</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br />I care about this issue because I have a daughter and am trying to figure out how to raise her in such a way that her choices, options, and happiness in life are maximized/optimized. I've actively encouraged her to pursue STEM fields, even though she has said she wants to be a teacher, because I think STEM subjects are the least likely to be tainted with ideological biases that corrupt students and ultimately make them unhappy. For a long time, I've been keeping my eyes out for female STEM mentors and have actively reached out to them in preparation for her getting older. However, I know that in doing so, I'm encouraging her to take a longer route to getting a degree in her primary interest (MS in education) and wonder if her choice to change fields will be viewed by feminists and their ideological supporters as a sign of "weakness."</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br />I hope not.</span></span>Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-10591309280772324032017-08-09T22:04:00.001-07:002017-08-09T22:04:31.831-07:00Cartel Violence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: start;">Someone recently equated cartel violence with people on the border tracking down illegal immigrants and holding them until the authorities arrive. I don't hold to that view, given that no violence is being committed by the people assisting ICE. I may not agree with their methods, but compared to what I'm posting below, there is no comparison. </span></div>
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<br />Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-61109369372538235582013-01-11T12:34:00.000-08:002013-01-21T19:22:47.492-08:00Does Child Sponsorship Work?<span style="font-weight: normal;">Normally, I really like the Freakanomics podcast and think they provide many thought-provoking and educational articles/podcasts. However, a quote from a recent blog got my ire up a bit. The question was raised as to whether child sponsorship can improve the lot of girls in India, and <a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/01/11/whats-the-best-way-to-sponsor-baby-girls/?sc=1#comments" target="_blank">here is what NYU economist and development scholar </a><span style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/01/11/whats-the-best-way-to-sponsor-baby-girls/?sc=1#comments" target="_blank">William Easterly had to say.</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">Stephen and Steve, can I volunteer my services to save you from embarrassment on the blog post today on sponsoring infant girls? </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">It’s been known in aid and development for decades that child sponsorship does not work (unless you by “work” you mean attract donations). The NGOs that originally did it (most notoriously Save the Children) have been forced by critics to abandon it, and no reputable NGO promotes child sponsorship today. The reason it never worked (and in fact Save the Children was also forced to admit that they really never even actually did it) is simple: the administrative costs of tracking small donations from an individual donor to an individual recipient child are enormous, so that the administrative costs would eat up all of the donation and then some. So there’s no need to crowdsource this question: just ask any development economist or NGO veteran.</span>
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All the best,</div>
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Bill"</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">To which I say, "balderdash!" Having seen the results of child sponsorship first-hand and even blogged about it a bit </span><a href="http://embracingtherisk.blogspot.com/2010/03/compassion-bloggers-kenya-2010.html" style="line-height: 21px;" target="_blank">here </a><span style="line-height: 21px;">and </span><a href="http://embracingtherisk.blogspot.com/2011/08/interview-with-shaun-groves.html" style="line-height: 21px;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="line-height: 21px;"> and </span><a href="http://embracingtherisk.blogspot.com/2008/07/sponsoring-elderly-through-cfca.html" style="line-height: 21px;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="line-height: 21px;">, I just don't buy it. For one thing, Dr. Easterly seems to be using an unnecessarily stringent and misleading description of child sponsorship. Of course child sponsorship doesn't work exactly the way he defines it most of the time. First world donors donate every month to cover the </span><u style="line-height: 21px;"><i>average</i></u><span style="line-height: 21px;"> cost of providing the NGO's services for an individual child (e.g., typically food assistance, basic health care and most importantly education). No child sponsorship organization that I'm aware of tracks individual dollars from all donors to the particular child recipient.* Christmas and birthday gifts are most often separate donations, but even those are averaged out so that no child is left out if a family can't make an extra donation to cover the gifts and parties. Honestly, it sounds to me like the guy is basing his opinion on either weird definitions of child sponsorship or shoddy, 30 year old "research." As someone in the comm boxes noted, the only scholarly work that I'm aware of to look at this question found demonstrative positive effects, and this was looking at Compassion International (an organization that IMO is the leader in sheer numbers but not in the effectiveness of their child sponsorship programs).</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://usf.usfca.edu/fac-staff/wydick/csp.pdf">http://usf.usfca.edu/fac-staff/wydick/csp.pdf</a><br /><br />Also, critically, I think Dr. Easterly is missing the whole point of the child sponsorship program benefits vs. other models. The core idea isn't to link individual donations to individual children. It is to average out the donations across large pools of people and to <u><b>make individual personal connections</b></u>. That is the key. Child sponsorship organizations don't just provide the opportunity for a first world family to provide for the average cost of education, food, etc. for a child in the developing world: they provide an opportunity for people to get to know each other across cultures and become close friends through letters, pictures and even personal visits (if the first world family can afford it). So many of our charitable donations go to faceless organizations to provide services to people whom we will never meet or get to know and understand. One of the most valuable services child sponsorship organizations provide is cultural exchange. The opportunity for people in the first and 3rd worlds to get to know one another and to share their joys and dreams. This provides hope and encouragement to kids in the developing world and a dose of reality to us cosseted first worlders who forget that we are some of the luckiest people on the planet, resource-wise. In a recent letter that we got from our oldest sponsored girl, she wrote that she was looking forward to graduating from college "so that my father will never have to work again." Talk about culture shock: how many American's do we know who could/would ever say something like that? We live in a country that spends relatively little on education and children relative to what we spend on the elderly. Grandparents often live on their own and have more disposable income than their grown children and grandchildren. It is easy to forget that the developing world isn't like that. It is kid's who get more government spending in the form of school subsidies while the elderly are mostly ignored and left by governments' to their families' care. My wife has sponsored this young lady for over thirteen years now (since the sponsored girl was in grade school and before my wife and I were even dating). Looking at all this young lady has overcome and accomplished and at how grateful she is to her father and others who have helped her along her way is very humbling and awe-inspiring. She truly is one of my greatest heroes and I hope (if we have another daughter) to name her after this young lady and to be able to point my daughter to the letters we have received if she ever asks how/shy she got that name.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">How many NGOs can you point to that provide such inspiration and proof of the excellent work they do, and all for the cost of a few translators. Far from not working, child sponsorship through groups like <a href="http://www.cfcausa.org/" target="_blank">the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging</a> provide some of the most demonstrably effective aid of any group, anywhere. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 21px;">I recognize that the folks at Freakanomics are bigshots who would probably never read a podunk blog like this. I also realize that they were posting someone else's opinion about which they expressed their own doubts. However, I really think they missed the boat on this topic and posted some very inaccurate claims. It is my hope that they look into this topic further and either offer some evidence/clarification on how/why child sponsorship (as implemented in the real world) doesn't work or a retraction. Heck, I'd even settle for them offering an alternative point of view, perhaps from one of the U. of San Francisco folks who wrote the article countering the claim of Dr. Easterly.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Doug<br /><br />*As a clarification, I'm not saying donations from particular individuals to particular recipients *never* happens, only that it is rare and the exception to the rule for efficiency reasons. As an example of an exception to the rule, when one of our sponsored kids got to college, her educational costs increased dramatically to the point that our sponsorship amount was only covering fraction of her tuition, books, etc. and she had to make up the rest with scholarships, jobs and meager family contributions. When the economic collapse hit in 2008, one of her primary scholarships was cut due to funding shortages, leading her to write that she would be dropping out of college one year shy of getting her degree and would not be able to continue correspondence after a few months. After our sponsored girl got so close, my wife and I could see that she was heartbroken at not being able to finish college and provide a stable and reliable income for her family. I made a call to CFCA and was able to inquire as to what it would take to cover for the cut scholarship, allowing her to graduate. However, such circumstances are unusual and not the rule. That said, how much tracking is really required to implement something like that. It took two phone calls between myself and CFCA's front office and an inquiry between the CFCA's US office and their overseas office to make all the arrangements to cover the increased scholarship/sponsorship donations for the next year. That hardly seems like a exorbitant overhead burden, especially considering CFCA didn't have to (and wouldn't have) pursued special fundraising to make up the difference for one individual. When the costs rise significantly above the average that they quote to donors, they most often have to cut the kids from the program. There are too many other kids waiting for help for whom the average cost is sufficient. However, in staying true to their mission, if an individual donor steps up their donations, they make sure the child gets it.</span></span></div>
Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-88692755472299625102012-12-26T14:28:00.000-08:002012-12-26T14:30:34.716-08:00What Color are Your Glasses?Do you ever wonder where people purportedly writing about the same set of events get their information? Awhile back I had that experience when comparing how professors at Boise State and UC Santa Barbara wrote about the Reformation in Germany. The tone, some of the facts and the overall character of the articles is so different.<br />
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<a href="http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu/antillians/reformation2.html">http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu/antillians/reformation2.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://europeanhistory.boisestate.edu/reformation/germany/reformingermany.shtml">http://europeanhistory.boisestate.edu/reformation/germany/reformingermany.shtml</a><br />
(<a href="http://europeanhistory.boisestate.edu/reformation/germany/">http://europeanhistory.boisestate.edu/reformation/germany/</a>)Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-54582333902983756082012-12-26T13:47:00.000-08:002012-12-26T14:29:07.271-08:00An Atheist Chaplain?I'm not sure exactly who thought an atheist chaplain at Stanford would be a good idea, but it seems destined for failure. Atheism is just too closely correlated with hedonism and not giving a rip about other people if one can't get anything out of it for something like this to work. <br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">"A lot of people go back to religious organizations when they start having children," whether or not they believe in God, because religion offers community, Figdor said. "What I really want to do is create a vibrant, humanist community here in Silicon Valley, where people can find babysitters for their kids and young people can meet each other."</span><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Stanford-gets-a-chaplain-for-atheists-4139991.php#page-1" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19px;">http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Stanford-gets-a-chaplain-for-atheists-4139991.php#page-1</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">The problem is, you can't create a vibrant atheist community around babysitting groups. Vibrant communities form when people have a common purpose and atheism itself is a really crappy motivator. Any "religion" that teaches it's adherents that life is ultimately meaningless and there is no lasting purpose to existence is going to have trouble motivating people to do anything that requires sacrifice. The article's explanation of why students themselves like having an atheist chaplain says it all.</span><br />
"Armand Rundquist... president of AHA! - the campus group of atheists, humanists and agnostics - said many atheists aren't interested in having a chaplain.<br />
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Then they discovered additional benefits to Figdor's talents.<br />
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"He got us some discount tickets to the atheist film festival in San Francisco," said Rundquist, adding that "it's been really great" to have Figdor as part of what he called a new movement at Stanford."<br />
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Discounted entertainment! Now that may be a reason to meet when you're a college student at one of our hedonistic universities, but it's destined for irrelevancy when one tries to apply it to the broader culture. Learning that life is has no ultimate purpose or meaning is thin gruel after experiencing one of life's many setbacks. Religion (especially historical Christianity), offers community that is there for you from cradle to grave. It requires great sacrifice, but offers benefits for members and society at large that no atheist group can dream of matching. Have you ever heard of a soup kitchen run by a voluntary community of dedicated atheists? Do you have a family member with a disability or mental illness? Good luck getting help from your local atheist community.</span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Speaking from my own personal experience, my wife's best friend from high school went out to their gradeschool playground and blew her brains out last summer. It was a tragedy that hit my wife hard and left her unable to function for months. It was clear within a couple weeks that homeschooling which had been tenuous before was no longer a possibility. With just two weeks to go before school started, I had to find a place for my kids to attend. The public schools in my state are just awful and sending them there was tantamount to handing them over to atheists who didn't give a rat's patootie about their spiritual life and would at best be educating them to mediocrity. On the other hand the last couple years have seen my family experience some financial setbacks that made sending them to our parish school impossible until some people at our church stepped forward and quietly paid half the cost for my kids to attend. I don't know these benefactors well. I've never had them over for a meal and have only spoken to them before or after mass, but they cared enough about my family to fork over thousands dollars so that my kids could get a top notch education this year (and for as long as they are able and we need it). Our parish school depends on many donors like this, since tuition only covers half the cost of operation for our 3 year old parish school that is operating on a shoestring budget. The principal and teachers have all taken massive cuts in pay compared to what they could make elsewhere in order to create a rigorous academic and thoroughly Catholic educational environment. It is this sort of sacrifice that is common among Christian communities, but is almost unheard of in atheist ones. When life throws people curveballs, atheist communities just aren't there for each other. For all the problems in our Christian communities, we are there for each other. Is it any wonder that of all the religious groups in America, atheists have the lowest retention rate: just 30% of children raised by atheist parents remain atheist. By leveraging control of our elite cultural institutions atheists have been successful in converting many Americans to their religion of meaninglessness, but they have failed where it matters most for long term viability: their own children. Add that to the fact that committed atheists have very few children, and maintaining a stranglehold on our educational establishments and elite cultural institutions is the only way atheists have of reproducing ideologically. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2012/07/12/press-the-panic-button-protestants/">http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2012/07/12/press-the-panic-button-protestants/</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://blog.adw.org/2012/07/did-you-know-that-atheists-have-the-lowest-retention-rate-of-any-religious-group-some-interesting-data-from-cara/">http://blog.adw.org/2012/07/did-you-know-that-atheists-have-the-lowest-retention-rate-of-any-religious-group-some-interesting-data-from-cara/</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://blog.adw.org/2012/07/did-you-know-that-atheists-have-the-lowest-retention-rate-of-any-religious-group-some-interesting-data-from-cara/"><br /></a></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">As an aside, non-denominational Christians don't do much better in retaining their children: they are a full 24% below Catholics (hardly a healthy group to compare oneself with). That rather surprised me, to be honest. I can explain some of the Protestant non-retension to simple church hopping, but that has always struck me as more of a one-way street toward less denominationalism. Are we seeing the children of non-denominational Protestants stick with a denomination or are they abandoning the faith altogether? Does Pew survey </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">adequately</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">address</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> these questions for Protestants? These sorts of questions are always muddier and more difficult to answer for Protestants than for atheists, Hindus, Catholics and Mormons due to the clarity of their beliefs and religious </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 17.999998092651367px; text-align: justify;">identities</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-46370338561105778972012-07-25T17:17:00.002-07:002012-07-25T17:17:36.297-07:00The Lure of DecriminalizationWhen people talk about the dangers of the black market, and the benefits that come from decriminalization, they are usually talking about drugs. Make drugs legal, they say, and most of the societal ills (and prison overcrowding) that come from the black market will go away almost overnight.
This may be true. Particularly with low-impact drugs such as marijuana, this is an enticing idea.
Today, on the Volokh Conspiracy blog, Ilya Somin trots out an even more extreme idea for decriminalization... <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/25/illegal-organ-markets-in-europe/">creating a legal market in organs</a>. Make it so that somebody who needs, say, an extra $10,000, can offer to sell a kidney on Craigslist. Somebody who needs a kidney can find one, pay the up-front cost, and get a new lease on life.
I'm having a hard time finding the problem in his idea. I'm sure it's there, and I'm hoping one of you can point it out to me. It sure is a fascinating thought...
MarkMarkChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14783588922999884233noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-78010539648590746132012-06-21T03:18:00.001-07:002012-06-21T03:22:00.030-07:00Outcomes for Adult Children of Homosexual Parents<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">The largest ever (and only decently sized) random sample study of the adult children of homosexual parents was published in a peer reviewed journal a couple weeks ago. The media has fed us a steady diet of studies of the children of gay households based on non-random samples with subjects recruited from advocacy groups, so it will come as a shocker for many that a truly random study doesn't agre</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">e with earlier "snowball" studies. Honestly, given the media conditioning we've received in the last few years, even I was shocked at the magnitude of some discrepancies in the well being of adults with a parent whose had a gay relationship. </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Some highlights...</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">a) 31% of adult children with lesbian mothers have been forced to have sex against their will vs. 8% from intact biological families.</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">b) 23% of adult children with lesbian mothers have been sexually touched by a parent or adult caregiver vs. 2% from intact biological families</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">c) 13% of adult children from intact biological families have had an affair while married or cohabiting vs. 41% with a lesbian mother</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">d) 61% of adults with lesbian mothers identify entirely as heterosexual vs. 90% for adults from intact bio. families.</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px;">e) only 29% of adults with lesbian mothers are currently employed full time while 28% are currently unemployed vs. 49% of adults with intact bio families having full time employment and only 8% being unemployed.</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">f) While faring worse overall than adult children from intact biological families, adult children of gay men fare much better than adult children of lesbians. I found this incredibly counter-intuitive given the reputations women have over men as parents. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Here are some some random reasons I've brainstormed on that last one... </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">f1) I've read elsewhere lesbians tend to break up more than gay men (e.g., have a higher rate of dissolution of civil ceremonies/"marriages"). Unintuitive at first for me, until it was pointed out that women initiate more divorces. Period. Doubling the number of women in a relationship greatly increases the relationship standards and doubles the gender most likely to initiate.</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">f2) the number of people with gay men as parents were much lower than the number of of people with lesbian mothers, since it's more unusual to have a parent who's a gay man and they typically have to work much harder to become a parent than women. That is, self selection for parenting plays a greater role for men.</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">f3) The reputation women have as being more competent parents is extremely over-rated. </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px;">f4) Lesbian women are more bitter than gay men, and children with bitter parents don't fare as well. Before anyone gets mad at me for saying this, I've only heard it from people in favor of gay marriage and it honestly doesn't jive too well with most lesbians I've known. So, get mad at other people, not me.</span></span></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">f5) Your idea here________________</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px;">Overall, it's a fascinating read for those interested in such things.</span></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px;">http://www.sciencedirect.com/<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break" style="display: inline-block;"></span>science/article/pii/<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break" style="display: inline-block;"></span>S0049089X12000610</a></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px;"><br /></a></span>Of course, none of this will matter, let alone get much media attention, because it doesn't agree with elite views on how society should be structured. That and society hasn't given a rat's patootie about how divorce affects kids for the last 50+ years, so why should we start worrying now? Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead into cultural suicide!!!!<br />
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">As an added bonus, here is a review of the totally inferior studies cited in the APA's brief on gay parenting.</span><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000580" style="background-color: white;">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000580</a><br />
<br />Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-61760819872175121882012-05-18T04:07:00.002-07:002012-05-18T23:48:37.030-07:00Obama Births Birthers?So, Obama himself appears to have likely <a href="http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-12/news/31681374_1_elizabeth-warren-native-american-harvard-law-school">pulled an Elizabeth Warren</a> and in the process given birth to the birther movement. His publicist used the "born in Kenya" story in his biographical sketches for 16 years, until a month after Obama declared his candidacy for POTUS.<br />
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I find it ironic and more than a little funny that the biggest nutjobs in the conservative movement have bought a liberal lie so fully; hook, line and sinker. This is perfect material to use when one runs into that crazy conservative uncle. It's one thing to tell an extremist they're wrong; it's another to laugh at them for being so fooled by a lie originating with the very politician they so despise. Suckers!<br />
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Of course, if the crazies can spot that something just doesn't add up, why did it take the MSM so long to report on it? Oh, yeah, their hand was forced by Andrew Brietbart, <i>posthumously</i>.<br />
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This story is so good, you couldn't make it up if you tried. Well, at least I couldn't. I'm a terrible story teller. But I bet I'm not alone in not seeing this coming. I figured Obama may have lied on his law school application or something like that (politicians are not the most honest folk and those records have never been released). I never imagined that something this obvious would escape the attention of our erstwhile fourth estate. The guy was campaigning to be the the most prominent leader in the world, for crying out loud. Bar none. How could they miss it?
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<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/The-Vetting-Barack-Obama-Literary-Agent-1991-Born-in-Kenya-Raised-Indonesia-Hawaii">http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/The-Vetting-Barack-Obama-Literary-Agent-1991-Born-in-Kenya-Raised-Indonesia-Hawaii</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/A-Fact-Checking-Error-Repeated-Multiple-Times-Over-Several-Years-by-Different-Agencies">http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/A-Fact-Checking-Error-Repeated-Multiple-Times-Over-Several-Years-by-Different-Agencies</a><br />
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<a href="http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-12/news/31681374_1_elizabeth-warren-native-american-harvard-law-school">http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-12/news/31681374_1_elizabeth-warren-native-american-harvard-law-school</a>Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-83487908393257998182012-04-25T22:55:00.001-07:002012-04-26T08:17:58.857-07:00Obama Groupie: "Amurica. Fuck ya!"If you hadn't noticed, a photo of a student in a Colorado bar went viral yesterday. The gal has the most hilarious look on her face.
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<a href="https://instagr.am/p/J0qd80H9qW/media/?size=l" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="612" width="612" src="https://instagr.am/p/J0qd80H9qW/media/?size=l" /></a></div>
I looked through a couple more images in her Twitter feed and one with an American flag caught my eye. However, boy was I surprised by the caption. "Amurica. Fuck ya!"
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJRUUA_CFuUhc2m84Wq611EQou30era_bWdDZovfWxGsLcsL7G7qsK7mXFDMDjcj-st5-vOJ0JxUp_QuapRe4kwAMJO3teCYGZX6g6E_jBHh7ytrh3XWcRYkgsFIpZN__aDhwIw/s1600/Obama_Groupie_20120309B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="386" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJRUUA_CFuUhc2m84Wq611EQou30era_bWdDZovfWxGsLcsL7G7qsK7mXFDMDjcj-st5-vOJ0JxUp_QuapRe4kwAMJO3teCYGZX6g6E_jBHh7ytrh3XWcRYkgsFIpZN__aDhwIw/s400/Obama_Groupie_20120309B.jpg" /></a></div>
It can be found on Twitter at the following link until she decides to take it down.
<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/Madloid55/media/slideshow?url=http%3A%2F%2Finstagr.am%2Fp%2FH-KfeoH9uJ%2F">https://twitter.com/#!/Madloid55/media/slideshow?url=http%3A%2F%2Finstagr.am%2Fp%2FH-KfeoH9uJ%2F</a>
Really?!?! The Obama student fanboy picture that goes viral features a viciously anti-American "pro student." Count me as someone who's not impressed with many of the folks this President attracts.
Of course, nobody in the media would report something like this. Probably because that's the industry with the highest percentage of ignorant Obama groupies.Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-24191378462079210942012-02-29T11:30:00.008-08:002012-02-29T14:37:43.633-08:00Nobody Cares About the Sports League with the Third Highest Attendance Numbers in the US<a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ys-forbes-atlanta_most_miserable_sports_cities_022812">"No offense to that club, but there’s no reason to go down the slippery slope that could lead us to Triple-A baseball, Major League Soccer and the WNBA. Better to draw the line at the major sports leagues, i.e. those that significant numbers of people care about."</a><br /><br />Journalists are a pretty ignorant lot in general, and sports writers are the jocks of journalism, but I still expect better than this. Here's a guy who says that there aren't significant numbers of people who care about Major League Soccer, despite the fact that the MLS has the third highest per game attendance average of any sports league: more than the NBA and more than the NHL, which he includes in his list of leagues people care about. Maybe that was true 10 years ago. It was certainly true 20 years ago. However, to lump the MLS of today with the WNBA is ludicrous. There isn't a single AAA baseball team that averaged more than 10,000 fans per game. The WNBA can't even attract 10,000 people to their post-season games. <br />http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=160<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_National_Basketball_Association<br /><br />To keep it local, the Portland Trailblazers are considered the premier sports team in Portland, Oregon. They averaged 20,500 people the last couple years.<br />http://www.databasebasketball.com/teams/teamatt.htm?tm=por&lg=n <br /><br />In contrast, the Portland Timbers sold out every home game last year and expanded seating to 20,000 for the last couple games to accomodate the crowds. This year, they will boost seating to 23,000 and expect to sell out every game. This will put give them a higher attendance per game attendance average than the Trailblazers, and the Trailblazers are consistently in the top 3 for attendance in the NBA.<br /><br />The Seattle Mariners averaged 23,400 and the Seahawks averaged 66,400 in per game attendance. The Seattle Sounders averaged 38,500 fans for attendance. <br /><br />Now, I know it isn't exactly fair to compare per game attendance numbers due to the larger number of games that the NBA and MLB have compared to the NFL and MLS, and due to the larger number of teams all those leagues have. Unlike the MLB, NHL, NBA and NFL, the MLS isn't the premier league in soccer. It isn't even close to being in the top 3. The best soccer players play in Europe where teams outspend even the New York Yankees. The MLS also has a long ways to go in reaching the average consumer: they don't have the history to attract much attention from non-sports fans, and there are still significant numbers of people with an anti-soccer bias due to its perception as a European sport. However, just because the best players play in Europe, doesn't mean the the MLS doesn't have quality players and a significant following. To write it off as an also-ran league comparable to the WNBA or minor league baseball is ludicrous. People who make their living writing about sports should know better.<br /><br />My own opinion as to why the MLS has trouble garnering reasonable journalistic coverage has to do with advertising dollars. Most popular American sports leagues can make tons of money selling commercial time during stoppage of play. Soccer is a free-flowing game 90 minutes long where the only opportunity to sell commercials is pretty much limited to halftime. That greatly limits advertising dollars and makes it harder for TV networks to justify the airtime. It also means that soccer has to demonstrate strong grassroots support before networks will even consider airing a game. Also, due to the break-free nature of soccer, there are fewer opportunities for commentators to break down plays and explain to TV spectators what just happened. Either you get it or you don't. There is little time to bring the spectator up to speed.Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-72652631416267179822012-02-02T12:33:00.001-08:002012-02-02T12:45:49.941-08:00NBC News Tells Women to Avoid "Suffering" a Pregnancy, Get a "Termination Kit."And the march toward classifying pregnancy as a disease to be cured continues...<br /><a href="http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2012/02/nbc-news-tells-women-to-avoid-suffering.html">NBC News Tells Women to Avoid "Suffering" a Pregnancy, Get a "Termination Kit."</a><br /><br />Just another reminder that <a href="http://embracingtherisk.blogspot.com/2011/01/increased-contraceptive-use-results-in.html">a contracepting culture is an aborting culture</a>, especially given that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/2135382">a woman's chance of getting pregnant while on the pill is 70% over 10 years</a>.<br /><br />But what else could we expect from a liberal media in a country of sexual bulimics?Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-59151343138073251402012-01-20T20:21:00.001-08:002012-01-21T00:28:25.687-08:00Attacking the First AmendmentJust last week Obama's justice department experienced a 9-0 drubbing at the Supreme Court in which the administration tried to dramatically increase government control over religion. This wasn't just a decision that went against Obama's justice department on a technicality. The idea they were proferring (that the government can interfere in who religions appoint to teach their faith) was roundly criticized by even Obama's own appointees as <a href="http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/HosannaTabor_Evangelical_Lutheran_Church__Sch_v_EEOC_No_10553_201">"extreme," "remarkable" and "untenable."</a><br /><br />And so, a couple days later, the Obama Administration issued a <a href="http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/president-obama-issues-proclamation-for-religious-freedom-day/politics/2012/01/13/33166">proclamation honoring religious freedom.</a> One might be forgiven for thinking that they had heard the rebuke and the first amendment would be safe. Alas, such thinking would be naive. <br /><br />Instead the Obama Administration turned around 9 days after the 9-0 defeat at the Supreme Court and 7 days after issuing the proclamation on religious freedom and finalized the next point of attack in their war on religious freedom in the US. This time they are targeting religious organizations that believe that either contraception is wrong or that life begins at conception and killing early embryos is immoral. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services is requiring that all employers, including religious employers, cover all HHS defined contraceptives including Plan B (the morning after pill) and Ella (the week after pill that is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/health/policy/14pill.html">"chemically similar to RU-486"</a> and according to the <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamacare-mandates-coverage-abortion-drug_581969.html?nopager=1">FDA clearly caused abortions in rats and rabbits.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/hhs-secretary-sebelius-church-groups-must-provide-contraception/">Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, had this to say. “Kathleen Sebelius says her decision to require Catholic colleges, hospitals and charitable associations to provide contraceptive and abortion-inducing drugs respects religious freedom. How so? They have a year to get in line, or get out of business.”</a><br /><br /><br />What does the Obama Administration have to gain by attacking the First Amendment once more right on the heels of a 9-0 defeat for the same thing? I don't see it myself. <br /><br /><br /><br />References:<br />----------------------<br />Hosanna Tabor vs. EEOC<br /><a href="http://www.becketfund.org/eeoc-v-hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-michigan-2010-%E2%80%93-current/">http://www.becketfund.org/eeoc-v-hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-michigan-2010-%E2%80%93-current/</a><br /><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-v-eeoc/">http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-v-eeoc/</a><br /><a href="http://www.pewforum.org/Church-State-Law/The-Supreme-Court-Takes-Up-Church-Employment-Disputes-and-the-%E2%80%9CMinisterial-Exception%E2%80%9D.aspx">http://www.pewforum.org/Church-State-Law/The-Supreme-Court-Takes-Up-Church-Employment-Disputes-and-the-%E2%80%9CMinisterial-Exception%E2%80%9D.aspx</a><br />*as a note, the Pew Forum got it wrong in their prebrief analysis when they said that the Obama Justice Dept. supported the ministerial exemption. That was the assumption based on the 6th circuit decision, but the Justice Dept. went off the rails in a later briefing and rejected the ministerial exemption outright. This is not covered in the Pew Forum's Sept. analysis of the case.<br /><a href="http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/national_news/jewish_groups_welcome_courts_ministerial_exception/29168">http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/national_news/jewish_groups_welcome_courts_ministerial_exception/29168</a><br />-----------------<br /><a href="http://www.becketfund.org/ccu/">Colorado Christian College vs. Sebelius</a><br /><a href="http://www.becketfund.org/belmont-abbey-college-v-sebelius-2011-current/">Belmont Abbey College vs. Sebelius</a><br /><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/17/catholic-christian-colleges-challenge-contraception-coverage-clause">http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/17/catholic-christian-colleges-challenge-contraception-coverage-clause</a>Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-76467903791359577952011-12-22T21:15:00.000-08:002011-12-22T21:16:03.898-08:00Merry Christmas, Everybody!From Stevie and Sophia Pinheads, and all the Pinhead Clan!steviepinheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15841252955084784464noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-49524348927313815982011-11-30T13:27:00.000-08:002011-11-30T13:35:45.184-08:00Origins of the Jewish Holiday Tree<a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69400.html">Lincoln Chaffee has offended some people by insisting on calling the Statehouse Christmas tree a “Holiday” tree</a>. Now, some of us may be wondering why all the fuss? After all, lots of religions other than Christianity decorate trees with lights and ornaments and put them up in their homes this time of year. Now, thanks to the intrepid reporters at the Colbert Report, we have finally uncovered the true origins of the Hanukkah tree as seen in the picture below. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7rQ9ZNmmV3bLl86E9_zg3dq2HP59kwt_dsLx3gOS97Tslu8xy__UJbaxuYAxF0_Uxitl-s13qg4cprciJezMi5F3nHLdHHMGAtchBorRwh7RiS_myHI-YLylbvse_2xwCBfOrhA/s1600/Jewish_Holiday_Tree.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 305px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7rQ9ZNmmV3bLl86E9_zg3dq2HP59kwt_dsLx3gOS97Tslu8xy__UJbaxuYAxF0_Uxitl-s13qg4cprciJezMi5F3nHLdHHMGAtchBorRwh7RiS_myHI-YLylbvse_2xwCBfOrhA/s400/Jewish_Holiday_Tree.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680905338110293586" /></a><br /><br />So, you see, calling our seasonal, coniferous, living room decoration a Christmas tree instead of a Holiday tree is really just WASPy prejudice. All religions are basically the same, right down to the little trees they decorate and place in their living rooms and their desire to <a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/8-questions-gentiles-love-asking-about-hanukkah/">pollute their most holy days with crass<br />commercialism</a> while ignoring the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSJCSR4MuhU">true meaning of the holiday</a>. <br /><br />Next in our series on the origins of the Holiday tree: the Kwanza and Diwali trees. Because inventing history is far more interesting than <a href="http://branthansen.typepad.com/letters_from_kamp_krusty/2007/12/dont-tell-me-it.html">pretending our culture appeared out of thin air 10 years ago</a>.Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-15575868004442595012011-11-23T17:33:00.000-08:002011-11-23T18:38:42.631-08:00Marriage and the Single Life in Theology and PracticeIn the past, I have attempted <a href="http://embracingtherisk.blogspot.com/2010/08/mating-conundrum.html">a tongue-in-cheek explanation for why so many women who want to marry end up single and frustrated</a>. Today I'm going to attempt to critique a much smaller subset of the problem, though one that I think is important for several reasons.<br /><br />By basically ignoring passages in Scripture such as I Corinthians 7:1-9 and never developing a robust theology and practice of the consecrated single life, Protestantism condemns numerous women to either 1) a lifetime of seemingly purposeless singlehood/second class life compared to married people or 2) marrying men who are entirely unserious about their faith.<br /><br />Throughout history the percentage of men who are serious about their faith has always been smaller than the percentage of women, especially after leaving the home. In the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, offering the option of becoming a nun to young women helps to balance the marriage market and increases the odds of young women finding a partner with whom they can be "equally yoked."<br /><br />It is incredibly ironic to me that a subset of Christianity which has accepted contraception, in practice even the kind that sometimes stops implantation, has no visible representation of the consecrated single life which Scripture and the early church recommend so highly. I suppose though, it makes sense that a society which finds it unrealistic for married people to practice periodic abstinence would also have difficulty creating a vibrant culture where the unmarried could enjoy a meaningful, joyful sexless existence while feeling just as valued in their churches as their married comrades.<br /><br />Anyway, that's my reaction to having been on both sides of the Protestant/Historic Christianity divide and hearing far more Protestant women complain bitterly about the lack of Godly men than Catholic/Orthodox. While the pain of not finding one's spouse/vocation can be visceral and real on both sides of the 16th century theological divide (especially in today's culture where many men are still living the life of an adolescent into their thirties), in my limited experience, it seems to run deeper and to be more common on the Protestant side of things... and the only (mainstream) answer seems to be <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/11/23/dont-give-up-on-marriage-ladies/">"Don't Give Up on Marriage,"</a> which strikes me as entirely inadequate.Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064119946449926285noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27237113.post-88777689876550778642011-10-20T10:52:00.000-07:002011-10-20T11:02:52.948-07:00Flat Tax? 9-9-9?Is this the year when a scrap-and-rewrite of the tax code will finally come to reality? It seems like a rite of passage in the Republican primaries for at least one less-popular candidate to get attention by announcing some version of tax simplification. This year we've got two. Herman Cain started the fun with his 9-9-9 tax proposal. Rick Perry is now trying to resurrect his campaign with a more "traditional" flat-tax proposal.<br /><br />I can't imagine either plan ever being enacted, even in a modified form, and I'm not at all sure I would want either one, or anything like them. But, I've had a difficult time clearly understanding my hesitancy. Scott Adams (he of the Dilbert comics) helped me out today with a post on his blog.<br /><br /><a href="http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/flat_tax">Flat Tax</a><br /><br />The quote that really stood out to me:<br /><br /><font color=red>"I think most people like the idea of a simpler tax code. No argument there. But I've never met a person who would volunteer to pay higher taxes in exchange for simplicity."</font><br /><br />He goes on to explain that these ideas play on a vague impression many of us have that the rich in our country pay a lower tax rate than the middle class, because they find some way to trick the system. That may be true for a few, but it is probably not true for most.<br /><br />If we are going to simplify the tax code, I think we need to do it gradually over about 20 years, systematically removing tax exemptions, addon taxes, and other tax complexities, and compensating for each change with slight increases in the base tax rates.<br /><br />Adams also makes a great point about the use of the word "fair", and how both sides of the argument use it for their own purposes. It has not real meaning in itself (it means whatever the hearer thinks it should mean), but it carries great emotional power. That gives it a unique power to be divisive.<br /><br />What do you think? Do you have a great suggestion for revolutionizing our tax code? How would you define "fair" taxation? Flat tax? Progressive tax? Something else?<br /><br />MarkMarkChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14783588922999884233noreply@blogger.com22