Tag Archives: Arrested development

30% of Americans are bigots

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Acceptance, or judgment?

Biden slammed for Christmas ‘unity’ speech after year of political attacks: ‘Spare us, you old grinch’ | Fox News

There is a segment of the population who won’t accede to any gesture of reconciliation.  Though I myself didn’t approve of Joe Biden’s divisive remarks about MAGA people in September ’22, the reactions quoted in the article, to Biden’s Christmas ’22 message, are telling.  On the one hand, most of the people quoted are actually outside the conservative mainstream.  On the other hand, they’re there, which is the subject of this post.  The quote from Kevin McCarthy’s spokesperson is particularly troubling; I will not examine whether these folks correctly say Biden said what they say he said. Continue reading 30% of Americans are bigots →

Naughty girls ISO the Kingdom

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I have been spending lots of time at church during the week. I took to looking askance at two particular neighborhood teens who participate in a number of our programs — garden club, after-school, youth group — because they seem to manage always to be in the wrong place (an unauthorized place) at the wrong time, and Shontay in particular wears this mischievous grin, as if she’s looking for trouble.

One Sunday in mid-November, my attitude toward them changed completely.

Continue reading Naughty girls ISO the Kingdom →

Hate speech is normally protected.

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That’s the law.

Accordingly, this speech I just heard a mother direct to her one-year old:

“Shut the fuck up.  Yo’ little punk ass always cryin’ an shit.”

First point:  Do I have a right to be offended by that?  Do I have a right to say it offends me?

Second point:  Look at the exact words used.  As with many people I meet from day to day, the words they use indicate conclusively that their lives revolve around their privates.

Related:  The Word of the Day
Related:  The self-loving reptile

Originally posted 2016-04-04.

Podcast — Love and Order

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Love and Order

Related:

Music:  The Jonas Brothers, “Sucker”
Continue reading Podcast — Love and Order →

A landmark study

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Stress in low-income families can affect children’s learning

I am very excited about this.

This is, as far as I know, the first study to attempt to measure the degree of chaos in the home.

The researchers in an earlier-mentioned study (Related:  Poor children have smaller brains) speculated that “poor families tend to live more chaotic lives, and that stress could inhibit healthy brain development.”  The current study seems to indicate that it is directly so.

As of this writing, my hypothesis has become as follows:  the chaos of a growing child’s environment causes comparatively more resources to be devoted to the limbic system and less to the cerebral cortex, resulting in a body with reduced capacity to learn.

Related:  A MUST-READ CONCERNING JUSTICE AND POVERTY
Related: Chaos overwhelms the poor
Related: Wisdom teaching in poor black homes

(Originally posted 2015-07-08; reblogged 10/13/16.)

Where trees thrive, people thrive

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This thinking goes back to 1973.

I was a senior in high school, running an errand in the family car.  I must have been listening to WKSU.  This 5- or 15-minute segment came on.  A female spokesperson for the ACLU said that, under the compulsory school attendance law, a minor can only be in one of two places: a school, or a penal facility.  In her view there was no real difference.

I was an honors student and deeply convicted that education is the answer to poverty.  Thus her remarks left me incensed.  More than that, whereas I’ve never been a conservative, it seemed to me that the ACLU and other, like-minded movements were bent on destroying all order in society.  The family unit was under attack.  Marriage was under attack.  The schools were under attack.  Change for its own sake, which seemed to be what these people were after, isn’t good.  Nothing can be built on a foundation of chaos.  A child needs to root oneself in earth that will be in the same place today as tomorrow.  A tree can’t grow in quicksand.

Continue reading Where trees thrive, people thrive →