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winterene's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | | 10:18 pm |
A Precious Shame
This is just one of many articles/reports: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120531986&ps=cprsThe article is titled "'Precious' Character Is Reality For Some Girls"... but it doesn't have to be. First thing, let me say that I have not seen the film, but given that neither abortion nor adoption were mentioned in any of the reports I have heard, I think there is a good chance that neither of these two options are advocated by the film. Regulation procreation is an emotionally explosive subject at best, taboo at worst. Many people demonstrate an emotionally and intellectual incapacity to even consider the subject rational. They often overlook the fact that here in the United States, procreation is in fact subject to regulation, if one extends the definition of procreation to include the raising of children. Although no women is forced to abort a child in this country, state governments do remove children from their parents. I think few people would argue that a parent who physically beats a child should lose his parental rights. Unfortunately, the same people who would support removing a child from an abusive situation would shun the idea of preventing that child from being born into abuse to begin with. Rational action is based on probability, not possibility. While it is possible for a person to drive while intoxicated without causing any harm, most societies prohibit this activity because it is probable that it will cause harm. It is similarly probably that harm will result when children are born into certain conditions. For example, a quick google of terms like "children born teenage mothers poverty rate" produces articles such as this one ( http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/news.aspx?id=472711fe-6c23-4674-af23-98e0ee87454b). If credible science shows that a child born to an unwed teenage mother without a high school diploman is nine times more likely to live in poverty, and if we have before us 100 such pregnant teenagers, then by making the conscious decision to allow those females to birth and raise those children, we are making the decision to condemn a certain percentage of those children to poverty. Most people will want to assign the brunt of responsibility to the teenagers, but that is like blaming a dog for birthing an unwanted litter of puppies. Humans are animals, and in the absence of education and other factors, humans will act exactly like animals and reproduce like animals. Just as we humans take responsibility for preventing dogs and cats from having unwanted offspring, it is the responsibility of those with the education and the power to prevent procreation by those who simply don't know any better. We have the power to prevent countless girls from having to grow up like Precious, but we as a society have to transcend the emotional and psychological barriers that prevent us from saving others from the suffering that Precious had to endure. | | Friday, November 13th, 2009 | | 8:15 am |
| | Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | | 2:34 pm |
Insouciant
Wow--all this time I'd thought "insouciant" was a pejorative term, but as it turns out, it's not. I'm rather pleased to call myself insouciant. | | Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | | 6:12 pm |
Hostile and Unnecessary
Just tried to comment on Joey Mallick's annotation of his Cape Cod game #6 against me (specifically regarding TONGLESS*), and LiveJournal told me I was "banned" from commenting on that journal. Seems like a pretty hostile and unnecessary act, to ban other users unless there is some sort of history of abusive comments. | | Monday, November 9th, 2009 | | 8:48 am |
| | Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | | 8:55 pm |
We Can Beat the Odds
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120026976This could be prevented. This could absolutely be prevented. Not for children already born, at least not immediately, but the government absolutely has the power to prevent the births of a large percentage of children who would otherwise be born to parents that can reasonably be judged to have a poor likelihood of being able to provide a suitable upbringing. By preventing those births, through a combination of compulsory sex education, free contraception, free sterilization, compulsory adoption, compulsory abortion, and compulsory sterilization (for repeat offenders), the government could prevent countless children from living lives of privation and subsequently growing up to be undereducated and unskilled second-class citizens or outright criminals. In the reality that we commonly perceive, one plus one is two no matter how much a person's misguided emotions might encourage him to believe otherwise, and probability works the same way. If this study is accurate, a certain percentage of children born to undeserving parents will end up on food stamps and will suffer the consequences. If you support allowing those children to be born, then you support allowing children to suffer privation, and you are essentially making a selfish choice, to support your emotional principles instead of supporting a childhood free of privation. All humans are not created equal, but the government, through regulation of procreation, could do much towards increasing the likelihood that fewer children are born to inequality. | | Saturday, October 31st, 2009 | | 10:33 pm |
| | Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | | 12:03 pm |
| | 10:18 am |
I KNEW IT--CHILDREN = BAD!!!
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/07/local/me-greenspace7FINALLY!!! I've been writing this in my blog for years, and I've mentioned it a few times, just to people who I thought might understand. I had no research to back it up, but it was obvious to me that the environmental impact of having a child had to be great, probably greater than any savings to be had from green living. Forget raising global awareness of climate change--this is the message that needs to be spread as widely as possible, that having children does real harm to the environment. | | Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 | | 10:30 pm |
How to Stop Masturbating So Much
Camping out here on Callowhill in Philly, and something occurs to me. There's probably guys out there struggling with too much masturbation. I got over that when I was a teenager, but others might not have it so easy. Well, when you are sleeping in a car a night, masturbation is not really safe (you risk detection and arrest), so if you get that urge it's easy to shrug it off. Driving around looking for privacy is not really worth it, unless you've got a real hard-core compulsion, I supposed. So the question is, how can I monetize this revelation and help countless men out there stop masturbating? | | 4:26 pm |
| | 4:03 pm |
AARRGHH!!! STUPID WRITERS OR STUPID PRIEST!!!
In an earlier episode of "House", a doctor faked a test result to effect the death of an African dictator who was killing his own people. In last week's episode, the doctor goes to confession and asks what he needs to do to receive absolution, and the priest tells him he needs to turn himself into the authorities. This is a moronic statement. Whether or not killing the dictator was the right thing from the perspective of Catholicism has nothing to do with the legal system. If the fictional priest couldn't see that, he's a moron, and if the writers didn't realize this, they are morons. | | Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | | 2:04 pm |
There Is a God and She Hates Me, Part II
As I was about to walk into the Starbucks at Hillcroft and US-59 in Houston, a young woman, redhead, which I like, was sitting at a table. The wind knocked over her tall can of Arizona iced tea, and I used that as an excuse to break the ice and speak to her. Unlike most attractive women, especially ones wearing headphones, she did not keep her headphones on, or immediately put them back in, but she took out her headphone and set it on the table, a sign that she didn't mind me talking to her. When I came back out with my coffee I chatted with her some more, but here's the catch--just an hour earlier I had accepted a contract position in Princeton. So yeah, as soon as the first attractive woman in a long time seems like she might be interested, I have to leave town. | | Friday, October 16th, 2009 | | 2:17 pm |
| | Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | | 8:59 pm |
| | Saturday, September 26th, 2009 | | 1:15 pm |
| | Monday, September 14th, 2009 | | 10:26 pm |
There's Something Stupid About Mary
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/09/14.php#27153If you actually listen to the whole report, I point out one thing that is never stated. As bad as poverty is today, in 20 years, it is likely to be as bad or worse given the history of humanity so far. However, the poverty that will exist in a generation can be decimated by realizing that poverty starts with childbirth and then taking logical action. I'm too tired to rant, so I'll keep this short. There is a caller towards the end (at timepoint 39:30 in the podcast), a single mother named Mary who elicits sympathy from the host with her sob story about not getting callbacks on interviews and not being able to pay the rent for herself and her three children. Fuck Mary. She doesn't deserve sympathy. She claims to be educated, and if that is true, then she bears the brunt of the blame for having had three children with having first secured $1.5 million ($500 grand per child, an estimate based on a calculator at babycenter.com). Assuming the children are under 18, she must have had then after 1992, and any supposedly educated person at that time should have been able to predict that it is getting harder and harder for most people to earn a living for themselves and their children. Of course, most people are not educated, so their is no point in blaming them for having unsecured children. The responsibility must fall on the government to prevent people from having children without having the funds for a proper upbringing, simply because the government is most capable of doing so. | | Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | | 9:15 am |
Selfish
Listen to this "Talk of the Nation" guest, and try to find one point at which she expresses a viewpoint that is anything other than selfish. Her whole viewpoint is based on Americans eating what they want (or as much as they want), cheaply, without regard for the effects. Most egregious are her two comments about how the problems of China are not our problems, and the problems of Mexico are not our problems. http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=8-31-2009I wish the host had challenged her a bit more, and at least, even subtly, pointed out that she was expressing an extremely selfish viewpoint. The world's problems will never be solved until we start pushing back against selfishness. Imagine the transformation that the world could see if every person was assessed for selfishness, and only the least selfish were allowed to procreate. | | Saturday, August 29th, 2009 | | 4:01 pm |
| | 1:10 pm |
AARRGHH!!! THERE IS A GOD AND SHE HATES ME!!!
So I walk into my second Starbucks of the day, the flagship store at the Galleria, and look for a table close to an outlet. At the one free table happens to be sitting a reasonably attractive young light-skinned African American woman, and for some reason we start up a conversation. Turns out we had a few things in common, like having gone to the same elementary school (magnet program) and having recently visited London. She finishes her lunch and gets back to her pharmacy studies, and start up my Scrabble study and decide it's chilly. I go out to the car for a long-sleeved shirt, and when I get back I see it--she's chunky. Beautiful face, not a 9 or 10 but definitely someone I would consider attractive, but she's definitely packing more than a few extra pounds around the mid-section. (I'd post a pic, but invariably she would be creeped out if I tried to take a photo of her.) Anyway, I instantly knew why she had even been talking to me. Had she been slender, she would never have given me the time of day, in accordance with my curse. More examples--go to HotOrNot.com and do a search of all women in the Houston area aged 18 to 40, and look at how many hotties there are. Now look at the ones who want to meet me. See a pattern? http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=NZSLRSA&mp=1http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=OUHEHQA&mp=1http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=OMOZO8K&mp=1http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=O8BRKMS&mp=1So what I am going to do? Of course I'm going to try and ask this girl out, because I don't really have a choice. Unless I've got money to offer her, no truly attractive, fit, woman is interested, which means I have to settle for fatties. I was an unplanned pregnancy. Why didn't my mother just abort me when she had the chance instead of subjecting me to this miserable existence??? Of course I can't really blame her when I myself am too weak to just go ahead and kill myself. |
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