Bizarre sign of the times?

You have no doubt heard many bewail the lack of attention, or ability to reflect quietly, in young people today. People go about constantly plugged into their phones, ipods, the internet as if, if one is not constantly in contact with others, one is lost. Bloggers know all about that. On the one hand, this is a sign of the growth in various forms of human reciprocity, which is not necessarily a bad thing; indeed it's often for the good. On the other, one wonders if people are losing the ability to slow down time and reflect on serious works of thinking and arts that might provide models for integrating some significant part of the information flowing through them, so as to become more complete persons themselves, able to deal with the many clashing imperatives, the ethical and cognitive paradoxes, that constitute our humanity, all the more so in an age of massive and instant interpersonal communications.

This is just to preface a short note: Google has added a new feature to Gmail. You can now add a panic button to your Gmail service, so that any mail you send will be held for five seconds before it is really sent; in those five seconds you can cancel the mail (if you are quick with the fingers in a panic).

No doubt we've all sent emails we later regretted. While I'm not hooked into facebook and other social networking sites, I'm not that much older than those immersed in them; anyway, I find it baffling as I try to conceive how I could get into or out of a state of discombobulation (if that's what it is) that I would know or intuit or fear, within five seconds, that I shouldn't have sent a mail. My moments of madness tend to last longer than that!

Is this new service a sign of some quick-thinking, but somehow not reflective (in advance), generation, or of some deeper addiction of message ping-ponging that is somewhat, if not always in advance, controllable?

Maybe I am reading too much into the market that seeks to provide people with endless new features for their electronic products. I guess there will always be people who can be convinced they need a little panic insurance.

Gratitude: The Science Of Seeing Positive Information?

Well, here comes a personal anecdote I never expected to have relevance to any blog post I would ever write..!

I was walking back to the office with two co-workers a few weeks ago, returning from a small-scale industry function. A few glitches but overall a very rewarding afternoon, I thought. One of the co-workers is a friend of mine, and I was curious to ask my friend what he thought about a couple of the fun incidents that had spontaneously taken place; from where he was stationed maybe he had even noticed some that I missed. I had also met a lot of wonderful people, made a few good connections, as well as accomplishing the business at hand, so I was smiling wistfully as I organized my memories, preparing to start chatting with my friend.

Suddenly the pleasant experience was abruptly shattered by the other co-worker walking with us. He started going on a rant of complaints about all the petty things that had gone wrong, things that we knew were not right but that no one else would have noticed. He carefully itemized the stupid mistakes that the company and our fellow co-workers had made, and made negative and snarky remarks in general for several blocks, to the point where I was hard-pressed to get a word in edge-wise with my friend. I never did get to compare my fun memories with his; that had to wait for a later time.

As silly an experience as it was, it nevertheless stayed with me as yet another cautionary example of how negative people tend to only see the negative in their lives, and how positive people might remain positive by seeing not just the negative, but to stretch their point of view so that it can encompass the good, the positive, as well.

Is a person positive-minded from having suddenly seen the positive in their lives, or were they already positive anyway, making it easier for them to see it? If someone wasn't positive-minded, how could they become so? How can they suddenly start seeing these formerly unseen images surrounding them? I've often wondered about this chicken-and-egg question about optimism.

I thought I had the answer with my belief in the value of gratitude. Whether in prayer, or in person with friends and family, and especially with customers, I try to always show my appreciation for the blessings that come my way. By hearing myself say "Thank You" it reminds me that there is something to be thankful for, which helps me to overcome my depression, and remain positive.

Therefore I was particularly interested in this new study out of Ohio State University, which claims that positive people are positive despite seeing negative information, whereas negative people remain negative because they fail to see positive information. In other words, optimism is related to perception skills:

While depression is often linked to negative thoughts and emotions, a new study suggests the real problem may be a failure to appreciate positive experiences.

Researchers at Ohio State University found that depressed and non-depressed people were about equal in their ability to learn negative information that was presented to them.

But depressed people weren't nearly as successful at learning positive information as were their non-depressed counterparts.

"Since depression is characterized by negative thinking, it is easy to assume that depressed people learn the negative lessons of life better than non-depressed people - but that's not true," said Laren Conklin, co-author of the study and a graduate student in psychology at Ohio State.
...
This study is one of the first to be able to link clinical levels of depression to how people form attitudes when they encounter new events or information, said Daniel Strunk, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State.
...
"Depressed people may have a tendency to remember the negative experiences
in a situation, but not remember the good things that happened," Conklin said. "Therapists need to be aware of that."
For example, a depressed person who is trying out a new exercise program may mention how it makes him feel sore and tired - but not consider the weight he has lost as a result of the exercise.
"Therapists might focus more on helping their depressed clients recognize and remember the positive aspects of their new experiences," Strunk said.

The lesson I learn here is an affirmation of the old saying, The Key To Finding Happiness Is To Search For The Good In Life. To which I add: "...and the key to staying happy is to feel grateful for finding it."

(Hat Tip to Henry at Why Homeschool)

Food Safety Modernization Act: "It's Just Frightening What Can Happen With Good Intentions"

Fear of lead poisoning in children's toys caused the US Congress to almost unanimously pass a legal disaster known as the CPSIA, the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008. I've been blogging about it for a while now, as it serves as such a clear moral lesson in how good intentions are not an automatic shield against bad results. In the mad rush to be seen to be doing something, anything, to "save the children", the Congress passed a law that they evidently didn't even read, otherwise how else to explain the one-size-fits-all broad brush that suggests 12-year old children will eat books, winter coats, motorcycles and innumerable other products from other industries.... all because of carelessly-worded legislation that is needlessly destroying billions of dollars worth of inventories across America.

Now fear of food poisoning is causing the same US Congress to feel compelled to pass a compost heap of good intentions called the FSMA, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. Once again, a one-size-fits-all solution is being fermented with blind faith in the government legislators who now want to use the same expertise they brought to bear on shepherding banks and toys, to the United States' food supply.

Under the FSMA, a whole new government agency would be grown, called the Food Safety Administration (FSA), which will treat the smallest family farm as no different than the largest food processing factory.

Radio journalist, writer and entrepreneur Michael Olson identifies a series of problems that will befall the American farmer like a horde of locusts if H.R. 875, the FSMA, and its seed, the FSA, becomes law. Here are a few of the fruits of the FSA's potential harvest:

· Binds all State and County Departments of Agriculture to federal authority
· Superintends everyone who grows food, whether they sell it or not.
· Superintends the production of meat of any kind.
· Allows the FSA, or its agents, physical access to all farms.
· Allows the FSA, or its agents, to copy all farm documents.
· Forces farmers who sell direct to consumers to make their customer lists available to FSA, or its agents.
· Grants FSA, or its agents, authority to punish rule-breakers with fines of up to $1 million per day.
· Allows FSA to hire industry leaders to decide how program would be administered.

HR 875 will, for all intents and purposes, make the entire Food Chain of the USA subservient to the federal government, in the name of food safety.

In the March 14 broadcast of his radio show The Food Chain, Michael conducted a lively and well-balanced debate on the controversial bill. Towards the end of the show, a caller points out the kind of simple fact that seems to forever escape the notice of civic-minded Congresspersons: the family on the farm is the first tester of the products of those farms, because the family eats the food it grows. If the food is bad the family will be the first to get sick. What system can the government devise to be more full-proof than that?

While the act is not supposed to affect farms engaged in certain intra-state transactions, guest Peter Kennedy, acting-president of the Farm to Consumer Legal Protection Fund, clarified how farms would now have the burden of showing how they are not engaged in inter-state commerce. Meaning, the small farm would have to track each and every sale in order to prove that they are engaging in intra-state, rather than inter-state, commerce; how does a small farm possibly do that?

As was the case with the poisonous toys from China, there are grounds for legitimate concern about the quality of the food we buy, whether it's pet food or peanut butter. The answer isn't "no oversight"; but would throwing as much fertilizer as the FSMA proposes be any more effective as a solution? Where is the faith in the common sense of the common man to be able to take care of himself?

After his radio program Michael Olson was interviewed himself, for an article on the FSMA that recently appeared in World Net Daily:

[Olson] told WND the government should focus on regulating food production in countries such as China and Mexico rather than burdening small and organic farmers in the U.S. with overreaching regulations.
"We need somebody to watch over us when we're eating food that comes from thousands and thousands of miles away. We need some help there," he said. "But when food comes from our neighbors or from farmers who we know, we don't need all of those rules. If your neighbor sells you something that is bad and you get sick, you are going to get your hands on that farmer, and that will be the end of it. It regulates itself."
...
Federal regulators will be tasked with ensuring that food producers, processors and distributors – both large and small – prevent and minimize food safety hazards such as food-borne illnesses and contaminants such as bacteria, chemicals, natural toxins or manufactured toxicants, viruses, parasites, prions, physical hazards or other human pathogens.
Under the legislation's broad wording, slaughterhouses, seafood processing plants, establishments that process, store, hold or transport all categories of food products prior to delivery for retail sale, farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, aquaculture facilities and confined animal-feeding operations would be subject to strict government regulation.
Government inspectors would be required to visit and examine food production facilities, including small farms, to ensure compliance.
...
Olson believes the regulations could create unjustifiable financial hardships for small farmers and run them out of business.
"That is often the purpose of rules and regulations: to get rid of your competition," he said.
"Only people who are very, very large can afford to comply. They can hire one person to do paperwork. There's a specialization of labor there, and when you are very small, you can't afford to do all of these things."
Olson said despite good intentions behind the legislation, this act could devastate small U.S. farms.
"Every time we pass a rule or a law or a regulation to make the world a better place, it seems like what we do is subsidize production offshore," he said. "We tell farmers they can no longer drive diesel tractors because they make bad smoke. Well, essentially what we're doing is giving China a subsidy to grow our crops for us, or Mexico or anyone else."
...
"It's just frightening what can happen with good intentions," Olson said. "It's probably the most radical notions on the face of this Earth, but local agriculture doesn't need government because it takes care of itself."

Insight into the God of secular liberalism: He Who Recycles

We know from history that fear of death has driven men to do many evil things to their fellows humans. However, some people shudder at your irrationality if you make any such statement in relation to those who would merely harvest stem cells from some already-aborted foetus for therapeutic use in an established human being. And generally, people have yet fewer quibbles with harvesting cells from human embryos no longer needed by fertility clinics. I wonder, however, how far the avatars of such reason will try to justify their pragmatism when/if it evolves in terms of a larger vision or ideology of human recycling:

London, England, Mar 13, 2009 / 04:04 am (CNA).- A leading embryonic stem cell expert in Britain has called for organs from aborted babies to be used in transplants to increase the supply of organs available for donation, drawing criticism from pro-life and Christian groups who called the proposal “absolutely horrifying.”

Professor Sir Richard Gardner of Oxford University, an advisor to the Royal Society and the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, made his comments at an Oxford International Biomedical Center conference, the Daily Mail reports.

Expressing surprise that the possibility has not been considered, he said using fetal tissues for organ transplant is “probably a more realistic technique in dealing with the shortage of kidney donors than others.”

Experiments in mice, he said, have shown that fetal kidneys grow extremely quickly when transplanted into adult animals.

Using aborted fetuses “is something that could be done but it's not something that's talked about much.”

“It is at least a temporary solution,” he said, also calling for a study into the feasibility of such procedures.

Professor Stuart Campbell, a London obstetrician who argued for the abortion time limit to be lowered, had no ethical objections to the proposal, arguing that many babies were aborted quite late.

“If they are going to be terminated, it is a shame to waste their organs,” he claimed.

“I am sure very few of those on the transplant list would rather die than accept an organ from an aborted fetus,” he told the Daily Mail.

Dr. Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship said the transplants would be immoral because every human being deserves “protection, respect, wonder and empathy.”

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, called the proposal “absolutely horrifying,” telling the Daily Mail:

“At what stage do you say to the woman who is to have an abortion, ‘Can we have some organs for transplant?’”

It now becomes clearer for me why it is a point of morality for the religious to believe in a God who resurrects his children in a world to come (or, perhaps, why in many primitive religions significant items of wealth are buried along with the dead). Because if you don't, you may find it difficult to resist making some vision of nature's recycling into a human-centred religion so that you won't see wrong with using some humans, or human parts, to extend other peoples' lives. History teaches that some men, like Aztec or Eugenic priests, will go to great lengths to cannibalize their fellow humans, if it means keeping their dreams for this world alive. What could be the next terrain conquered by the ethic of reduce, reuse, recycle?

'Absolutely horrifying’ proposal calls for using aborted babies as organ donors (HT: Gil Bailie)

Slip of the tongue or revelation into Obama's mind?

I guess this story has been big news, but I just learned about it from a print copy of the Globe and Mail. There was a line break after the seventh word in the article:

Perhaps U.S. President Barack Obama should retire...

That had me really excited (as I thought maybe people are reading Thomas Sowell).

...his bowling shoes.

First, he was caught on tape throwing nothing but gutter balls on the presidential campaign trail. Now, he's lobbed a verbal gutter ball equating his poor performance in the White House bowling alley with that of a Special Olympian.

After a difficult week in Washington as tension rose over AIG bonuses, Mr. Obama attempted to yuk it up with comedian Jay Leno on The Tonight Show on Thursday, but ended up insulting mentally disabled people and causing quite an uproar.

The President told the late night talk show host that he'd been practising rolling the ball down the White House bowling alley, but wasn't too thrilled with his score of 129. Then he said: "It was like the Special Olympics, or something."

As much as Obama must take responsibility for his sense of humour, what are his handlers thinking putting him on a late-night comedy show, the first sitting President ever to go on such a show? Don't the handlers know that comedy requires a common set of values that allow you to laugh at a common understanding that is revealed as odd or paradoxical, and/or to laugh at a shared scapegoat? And don't they know that in the normal world the President must preserve his transcendence, his political capital, by always being careful to act as if he represents all Americans (and so humour in public is always a huge risk and rarely done)?

And in the PC world, the culture fundamental to the Democratic Party, you're not supposed to laugh either at the common understandings of the party line, or at a victim figure, unless the target is some duly-sanctioned "reactionary" like say Sarah Palin. In other words, even though it's not funny to laugh at the disabled, the mere assertion by Obama and those in the audience who laughed with him that "we" share a common understanding, any common understanding, let alone about watching the Special Olympics, is antithetical to all the moral and cultural relativism that the postmodern Democratic Party stands for. How dare "we" be invited to laugh when we are officially humourless except when a Christian redneck is in the room!?

Didn't the handlers see the risk that Obama, needing to crack a joke, might crack a joke of the kind that left-liberals and Democrats can only crack in the confidence of close friends, those to whom you can reveal what "we", in our gated communities and private schools, really think about the other within?

Making his way back on Air Force One to Washington from Burbank, Calif., Mr. Obama called the chairman of the Special Olympics to apologize.

"He said that he did not intend to humiliate Special Olympics athletes or people with intellectual disabilities. He was sincere and heartfelt," Timothy Shriver said in statement yesterday.

Still, Mr. Shriver described it as a teachable moment. "Words hurt and words matter," he said. "And using Special Olympics in a negative or derogatory context can be a humiliating put-down to people with special needs."

Mr. Shriver is the son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics, a global non-profit organization serving 200 million people with intellectual disabilities. He is also the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy, who was among the early Democrats to endorse Mr. Obama's candidacy.

In the old days when a would-be leader was in trouble, he might try to take a time out, to gather his mind in quiet, to avoid the media. That Obama's handlers feel he must be constantly "out there", selling himself as "The One", constantly campaigning, is a sad sign of how little control they feel they have over the situation they are in. They are squandering their bank of Obama-is-sacred/transcendent credit, not unlike how they are squandering America's credit.

globeandmail.com: Slip of the tongue lands Obama in gutter. Note also the headline: would a Republican making this joke be granted a "slip of the tongue" by an MSM organ? It's unlikely, which is just why Obama probably can't really be forgiven by his own crowd for drawing attention to their own hypocrisy. Thus the Globe and Mail reporter, in a piece that is ostensibly strictly reporting, has to start her piece with some prescriptive humour: "Perhaps U.S. President Barack Obama should retire..."

What comes before reporting is protecting the party line. However, fool that I am, at first I read it straight.

CPSIA: Malcolm Smith Riding To The Rescue Of Hard-Hit ATV Industry

CPSIA update: Riverside, California, where kids are wiser than Congressmen, saw an organized and advertised act of civil disobediance this week:

In defiance of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 - or CPSIA - which prohibits the sale of youth motorcycles and ATVs deemed unhealthy for children under 12 due to supposed high-levels of lead content, motorcycle dealer Malcolm Smith will sell these banned vehicles as a sign of protest.

Retailer and off-road motorcycle legend Malcolm Smith sold three children's bikes, which, according to the letter of the new law, could cost him a grand total of $300,000 in fines:

"We're selling a few bikes, and only a few because I can only afford so many fines!" Malcolm Smith said with a laugh. "I'm going to have to ask the public to donate to pay them if they put me in jail."

In their attempt to reduce the possibility of children contracting lead poisoning from toys, Congressional wisdom seemed to have been running on empty since their CPSIA over-reaction became law this February. The vague wording of their new consumer protection law means that real children's vehicles such as motorbikes and snowmobiles can fall under the CPSIA's mercurial reach as well as toy versions of them, since they are all products manufactured for children aged 12 years and under.

As part of his protest, and as a revelation of how little contact the Washington ruling elite seems to have with much of anything out of the doors of Congress, let alone the outdoor off-road vehicle industry, Malcolm Smith points out how the law should be affecting the fishing industry:

As an example of how ridiculous he believes the new regulations to be, he pulled out a bag of lead split fishing sinkers that he purchased at a sporting goods store down the street from his shop. Anybody could go in and buy them, he said, and most of the time people use their teeth to clamp them down on the fishing line.

The tipping point that sparked Smith's high-profile protest seems to be the singular incident when he surprised a customer with the news of the CPSIA's existence:

“Not long ago, about a week ago, a woman came in and was going to buy a bike for her daughter so her whole family would be able to ride together in the desert,” Smith said. “And I said, ‘You can’t buy one.’ She could not believe it. “Then, I just had enough.”

... Smith figures he’s lost at least $5,000 in net profit since Feb. 10, on lost revenues of more than $30,000 for units and parts and riding gear that he couldn’t sell. The Motorcycle Industry Council estimates that the ban could cost the industry $1 billion this year, and Dealernews magazine estimates there is more than $100 million of unsold inventory sitting in dealer storage areas.

Public outrage has been muted because the public in general had been kept in the dark by a largely indifferent mainstream media. (Although that is slowly changing, as the effects grow too large and too far-reaching to continue to ignore.) Specialized media, however, has definitely not been asleep at the wheel in their reporting of the ongoing conflict between good intentions and common sense.

Fortunately, the attention of the specialized media has been sufficient to get Federal wheels turning in Congress and the Senate, to finally start addressing the CPSIA overkill:

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce will consider H.R. 1510, introduced by Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana. The short bill amends the law to allow the CPSC to exempt dirtbikes, ATVs and snowmobiles — but only if the commission determines that it is not technologically feasible for the vehicles to comply with the lead limits due to necessary components.

More important, the bill strikes out the word “any” from a certain passage of the law. This use of the word, the CPSC has argued, prevents it from exempting powersports vehicles.

The second bill, S. 608, introduced by Sen. Jon Tester (also of Montana), will be considered by the Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation. The legislation exempts vehicles intended primarily for children ages 7 and up. Much broader than the House bill, it also excludes all pre-owned children’s products and repairs made to children’s products

If this post is your first introduction to this unbeliavable story, may I direct you to the best resource for continuing coverage of the CPSIA controversy: Walter Olson's reporting at Overlawyered.com. (A tip of the helmet to Overlawyered for many of the links used in this post.)

For a quick overview of the story so far, I highly recommend the interview conducted with both Walter Olson and attorney Gary Wolensky earlier this week by radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Audio of the interview can be heard here, my transcripts are here and here.

What are the limits to putting faith in freedom of speech?

Yesterday, B'nai Brith Canada released the following press release (received via email):

B'nai Brith Canada calls on Toronto police to investigate display of flags of all banned terrorist groups

TORONTO, March 18, 2009 - B'nai Brith Canada has called on Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair to expand its investigation into the display of flags belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a banned terrorist group in Canada. The Jewish human rights organization has asked Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair to include in his investigation the display of other terrorist flags, notably Hamas and Hezbollah, to determine whether Canada's anti-terrorism laws have been breached.

"We commend the Toronto Police for launching an investigation into the display of the flag of the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group outlawed in this country," said Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President of B'nai Brith Canada. "However, there have been many other instances of flags of other banned terrorist entities, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, that have been in full public view at rallies, most recently early this year
during the period of the Gaza conflict. The appearance of the Hamas and Hezbollah flags at public rallies has often been accompanied by chants of 'Death to Jews'.

"We call on Chief Blair to expand his police investigation to include the display on our city streets of the Hamas and Hezbollah flags as well. We hope that other jurisdictions will also take similar action.

"The display of terrorist symbolism must be recognized as the promotion of a dangerous agenda of hatred and violence. Surely, the open promotion of such hatred runs counter to Canada's values of tolerance and respect for all people, and undermin

Today, Blazing Cat Fur was kind enough to forward me the following story:

Toronto, March 19 (IANS) Toronto police late Wednesday gave its clean chit to the use of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) flags by Tamil protesters at a rally here Monday.

Earlier, police had said they were investigating whether their action violated Canada’s new anti-terror laws.

A police spokesman said their lawyers found “nothing illegal” about the use of LTTE flags by the protesters. “The best advice that we have from our lawyers is that it does not contravene any law,” a spokesman was quoted as saying by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The LTTE flag features a tiger jumping through a ring of fire and two crossed rifles.

The current Conservative government banned the LTTE in 2006 for using suicide bombers and child soldiers in its goal for an independent homeland for Sri Lankan Tamils.

More than 50,000 Tamils had joined in a “human chain” in the heart of the city, urging Canada to lift its ban on the LTTE and seek support for an independent Tamil Eelam.

Justifying the use of the flag, Canadian Tamil Congress spokesman David Poopalapillai told IANS: “What we waved at the rally was the national flag of a future Tamil Eelam. It is not the flag of any organisation or the LTTE.”

He said: “Under the Canadian ban on the LTTE, one is (not) allowed to raise funds. But one is free to espouse any political cause in a peaceful manner. That’s what we did Monday in a peaceful manner.”

It is not the first time that protesters in Canada have waved the flags of banned organisations.

Supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas, which are also banned in Canada, have often waved their flags at protest rallies.

In fact, B’nai Brith, the national body of Canadian Jews, Wednesday urged the city police to expand its probe into the display of LTTE flags to include Hamas and Hezbollah.

It seems to me that it's for the best, right now, that the law distinguishes between funding terrorists and waving their flags, though I would argue the Tamil Tigers are not the same kind of terrorists as are Hamas or Hezbollah: the Tigers can still be taken somewhat seriously as a movement of national liberation that strives to build a viable state that will take responsibility for its people in the community of nation-states, that would one day, if successful, negotiate its existence along with Sri Lanka's. In contrast, I see neither Hamas or Hezbollah as really wanting a responsible Palestinian (or Lebanese) state that would negotiate with the realities of Israel's existence; rather they are fundamentally motivated by a desire to destroy Israel, and also to kill Jews wherever, according to some Utopian vision of a non-national world ruled by a renewed Caliphate and universal Sharia. In other words, those who wave the Hamas or Hezbollah flags are, to my mind, advocating genocide, not national liberation, and this, I believe, is how many Canadian Jews and others experience the sight of these flag wavers on our streets. It seems to me the Tamil Tigers, however evil, nonetheless indulge in suicide bombings for somewhat less Utopian or nihilistic reasons.

But such differences aside, I find B'nai Brith's position an interesting problem for us free speech advocates because in thinking how best to defend free speech I don't think we can have any general rules or principles that should be thought always to apply in all imaginable situations. And it's not a simple question of free speech needing to come to an end where incitement to violence (or fraud, libel) is happening, because how do you know where that line is: there are always degrees of incitement, or risk of violence, we have to weigh in allowing for free speech (keeping in mind that there is often a greater risk in not allowing for the mediation of tensions and resentments that free speech provides).

So it is a question of what kind of freedom can be tolerated in a given time or place, with a given assumption of risk, and thus of knowing what kind of time or place you're living in. I would imagine that when a once free nation becomes home to, say, ten or more percent of people who are committed Islamists, people who are committed to replacing the liberal constitution with Sharia law, you can't both seriously defend the existence of a free society and still admit the same freedom to wave genocidal terrorist flags, as you might have done when there was no serious threat of constitutional overthrow.

In other words, free speech may be the best way to keep a society open and to avoid conflicts stagnating and building up, with no ready way to release pressure, with none of the mediation and insight into reality that comes with free speech. In most times and places, free speech may well be the best way to avoid a social conflict ever leading a society towards civil war. But when constitutional overthrow or civil war is a clear enough possibility on the horizon, the tolerance for incitement, political or tactical organizing, and public provocations, inevitably will or should change to some degree.

In other words, the defense of free speech is not best done in abstract metaphysical language that attempts to build an all-purpose model of reality that can be applied in all times and places; rather our defense of freedom has to be tied to a way of thinking that is always modeling the reality in front of us, in the here and now. The cry of "free speech" must be tied to an understanding of the need forever to fight to maximize or reveal the yet untold uses of freedom, given that there will always be people who resent and try to limit human freedom because freedom threatens their model of reality.

What's more, while we have a high obligation to allow people freely to argue through the resentments and philosophies that have evolved within our own society - we need to allow ways to work through the conflicts that have evolved as part of our nation's history - I don't think we have the same need or obligation to import from other countries all manner of belief, especially in respect to people who would overthrow our constitutional system. I don't think the same degree of freedom of speech needs to be granted to imported revolutionary ideologies as we might grant to our home-grown would-be revolutionaries.

But to what degree, in this global village, are ideas or anyone really outside our system of democratic rule? There is now a single global economy and communications network; does that mean we are now a single global civilization? I think it probably does; but that still does not mean, it seems to me, that each and every nation has to entertain freedom for all ideologies that would overthrow the nation's constitution. It depends, not on some abstract principle, but on an ongoing engagement with reality and risk. The problem is that we live in an age when "risk" is often invoked by our control-freak elites to justify all kinds of unnecessary government strangling of our freedom. Unless we have a government that loves and respects our freedom, because it sees itself as representative of same, those of us fighting for a free society will tend to defend the freedom of all even at the risk of providing fertile ground for the kinds of Islamist movements that are actively suppressed by many states in the Islamic world. So, I think we need to learn about and dance through this reality with more than one possible move or idea in mind.

In any case, I am interested in what readers think of B'nai Brith's proposal.

"That’s A CPSIA Toy, We Can’t Sell It To You", Says Store Clerk To Customer

Continuing my transcript of Hugh Hewitt's radio program from earlier this evening, where he spent the first hour of his show discussing the economic implications of the disgraceful CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) with writer/scholar/blogger Walter Olson and lawyer Gary Wolensky.

The audio of Hugh's show is here. Part one of my transcript is here. Now part two [corrections welcome]:

[20:58] Hugh Hewitt: Gary Wolensky, the CPSC, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, yesterday told libraries they had to take all old library books off their shelves, and today they reversed themselves. This is an agency that is melting down.

Gary Wolensky: That’s exactly right. This demonstrates the problem of giving, of conflicting advice to businesses, and this has been going on since August. Fact of the matter is, Wolfson [Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission] came out yesterday and said, “Pull all the books, children’s books manufactured before 1986, off of the shelves.” And there’s no reason for that. And then the CPSC reversed themselves today.

HH: In the meantime, every librarian in the country is walking around wondering, when will the plaintiffs lawyer decide, there was a predicate for doing this, because the CPSC cannot immunize them unless they pass an exemption. And if they’re selling those books… you know, a lot of those libraries do the ten cent book giveaways sort of thing, I begin to worry if I’m a school district, I go out and get cautious because, again, private lawyers can bring… that’s what I want to drive home right now. The big danger to Malcolm Smith, and to everybody, is not the Consumer Products Safety Commission going to send out some lawyer from Washington DC, it’s some desperate lawyer who hasn’t worked in a while, who decides, I’ll take a swing at that, I’ll get my attorney’s fees.

GW: You’re going to have a cottage industry, no question that these industries will need an exemption. But let me just say one thing to all the librarians out there around the country. Don’t do anything. Don’t pull your books, your kids books, off the shelves, don’t quarantine them, don’t burn them, just leave them where they are.

HH: I got another e-mail today. From a consumer who went to Toys ‘R Us. Major retailer. Now, I’m not the kind of guy who goes in to Toys ‘R Us, I don’t have to buy any toys for kids. But, they had gone in to buy a present for a nephew, and they tried to take something off the shelf, and were told by a Toys ‘R Us employee, “we can’t sell you that, leave it on the shelf because we’ve got bare shelves; that’s a CPSIA toy, we can’t sell it to you.” Is that urban myth or is that happening?

GW: That is happening. For anyone who does go in to Toys ‘R Us to buy gifts for kids, they will see that in just about any Toys ‘R Us store, that there are shelves that are empty, or half empty, and that is directly related to this Act.
…
[commercial break]

[28:07] HH: [taking a call] Steve in Tuscon, welcome to the program, you’re on the Hugh Hewitt show.

Caller: Hey Hugh. … I work for a privately held company, so I can’t mention the name on the radio, but we’re the world’s largest wholesaler of library books. To school libraries, and public libraries. We represent every large publisher… so, this has created quite a problem, especially for a company like ours, the inventory that we hold, we have to start looking at the huge, millions and millions of titles and decide which ones schools may not order, if this continues. And the loss of the inventory there. Also, your comment about, it is true: “hey libraries, you’ve got to take these books off the shelf”, and not one library that we know of even took that seriously. It was just the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard. I mean, how are you going to go through your whole library.

HH: I know! It’s an insane law.

Caller: And one of my customers pointed out to me, yes this is costing a lot of money, from the manufacturers’ point of view, of toys, books, whatever; but think of the manpower dollars it would take up if we had to start doing some of these stupid things.

HH: Gary Wolensky? Non-compliance is actually… you can’t recommend non-compliance but it sure is rational in some instances.

GW: It is. What you need, what your company needs, what the industry needs, is to try their darndest to get an exemption. Short of that, then the way the law reads right now, is that you have to look and figure out which books are written for kids under thirteen years of age, and then you need to make sure [laughter], that it complies with the lead content and lead paint standards.
…
HH: One more call on this. Teresa, also in Tuscon. Hi Teresa…

Caller: Hi. As an adult, can I walk in to Toys ‘R Us or one of these stores and buy one of these toys for myself, let’s just say that I collect toys or I like toys, as an adult.

GW: The answer to that, is no. Because, even if you tell somebody at Toys ‘R Us that the toy is for you, they’re never going to believe it, and if the toy is not off the shelf, they’re just going to say that they can’t sell these toys.
…

By the end of the show, both Hugh and his in-studio guest Gary Wolensky were laughing and sounding like they were having a bit of trouble suppressing a collective case of the giggles. Who can blame them, the subject is so idiotic that, when the story is laid out in detail, it almost defies belief. Sometimes truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's also much crueler.

[thanks to the watchful Overlawyered.com for many of the links]

CPSIA: "It's Hard To Remember Anything In The Last 20 Years As Crazy As This"

CPSIA update: Hugh Hewitt had a riveting first hour on his radio talk show tonight, as he continued his significant coverage of the economic carnage being wrought by the legal insanity known as the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which was let loose upon an unsuspecting America this past February. Hundreds of product lines have been unduly affected by this monstrosity born of good intentions, who-knows-how-many millions (or has it reached billions..?) of dollars worth of inventories are being needlessly destroyed, businesses are going out of business and there's no relief in sight.

Hugh Hewitt has been far and away the most responsive journalist in spreading awareness of this unbelievable economic scourge; as he himself points out later in the interview, he's even telling other journalists about CPSIA's infernal existence. For his program this evening Hugh interviewed a guest he's had on before on this subject, attorney Gary Wolensky, who represents the besieged motor bike industry, and the Manhattan Institute's indefatigable Walter Olson. It was a great discussion. Well, "great" is a relative term in this case, as the story being discussed is a preposterous example of the complete indifference that Congressional elites have for working class Americans.

The audio is here. It doesn't seem like Hugh is going to provide a transcript as he sometimes does with important interviews, so as my small contribution to keeping people informed on this story, I've quickly put one together myself. Here's part one [corrections welcome]:

[11:00] HH: ...We’re arguing about $165 million in bonuses to AIG, what is your best estimate about what the CPSIA has cost America?

Walter Olson: It’s hard to get a peg on it. Certainly billions of dollars. And it’s hard to measure what happens when a small business has to close down. What happens to that family, what happens to the employees. But, we know that in just one industry, the mini-cycle/dirt-bike industry, they’re talking about a billion dollars of damage this year. That’s just one of many industries affected by this.

HH: Now Walter Olson, we’ve talked in the past before, we know that sometimes laws lead to extraordinary hardships, wrongfully. In this instance, everyone knows what’s going on, but do you see any signs in Congress that they are going to move to save these billions of dollars, these tens of thousands of jobs, which they did not intend, at least they say they did not intend to kill.

WO: It’s very discouraging in a way, because even though you’ve now got a lot of talk going from people on the Republican side, even John Dingell, one of the Democrats is making some of the right noises, the ones in control are Henry Waxman and his counterparts on the Democratic side of the Senate, they are stonewalling, they are saying they will not even have hearings let alone amend the law.

HH: Gary Wolensky, Walter Olson mentioned ATVs, off-road vehicles, all-terrain vehicles; on this show on Friday, Chairwoman Nord of the Consumer Products Safety Commission told me there was going to be a hearing this week on this and I urged them to just pass an exemption regardless of what the law said. Has that hearing happened?

Gary Wolensky: The hearing has not happened up to now Hugh, and I have not heard that in fact there is going to be a hearing this week.

HH: Do you have… do you think she was shining me on? Did you hear that interview?

GW: I heard the interview. I think she’s a very nice person, unfortunately she’s irrelevant, because her hands are tied and she can’t get anything done. And she won’t go adversarial, which she can do but won’t.

HH: Walter Olson, my urging of the chairwoman on Friday was, they just instruct their staff, to pass exemptions out left and right, because this is a nutty law that is endangering children. Their mission is to protect consumers, but if you put kids on adult bikes they get injured, some of them get killed. Do you see any sign within the CPSC that their staff will do whatever it takes to stop this outrage from happening?

WO: Well, they are being driven by their legal staff on this, because I think that legal staff is telling them that the statutes are written to tie their hands, and they might lose a lawsuit if they ignore the crazy language that Congress put in.

HH: But Walter I was a General Counsellor to two Federal agencies, I know what it’s like to see crazy language, but I also know that I did what the boss said; if the boss came out and said “we’re not going to do stupid things, we’re going to give exemptions”, they have to go that way. If media generated some demand on the CPSC, do you think that would matter?

WO: [sigh] I’m fairly skeptic it would not have, because… remember, they tried to do a common-sensical thing on the inventories, the stuff with the plastic, and they got struck down in court. Apparently they were trying to soften the blow on some of the crazy things in the law, but they pointed to specific language, that “not any lead exposure”, so the mini-bike people, the ball-point pen people, who knows who else who can’t take the lead out of their products without losing the product, who knows what’s going to happen to them.

HH: Gary Wolensky, today a motorcyclist announced that he was simply going to sell the ATVs. “Screw ‘em”. “Tell them to come prosecute me.” What’s your reaction to such obvious civil disobediance? I’ll get his name off the printer at the break.

GW: I saw that. As a lawyer, giving my best legal advice, I certainly would not tell anyone to break the law.

HH: Do you think they’ll prosecute him?

GW: I don’t think they are going to prosecute him.

HH: Walter Olson, what do you think about that? Have you read that story yet?

WO: I’ve read the story, I think it’s going to rev up the press’ interest in this. He’s a very well-known person…

HH: His name is Malcolm Smith…

WO: Malcolm Smith, very famous in that sport.. it could be like H.L. Mencken on Boston Common, remember when he sold the banned book and he became a cause celebre. In that case I think they arrested him but nothing happened to him. In this case… you know, they’re not going to send someone to arrest him, it’s… it’s not as if a public citizen is going to do a citizen’s arrest, I don’t **think** anything will happen.

HH: What I worry about, Gary Wolensky, is that since there’s a private plaintiff’s action attached in the law, some idiot plaintiffs lawyer will go and lay a suit against Malcolm Smith Motorsports and that that lawyer will get a summary judgment.

GW: Well, I can see it coming two ways. Number one, a private plaintiff’s attorney, also, a state’s Attorney General, our state Attorney General sees something like the statement that you’ve just referred to, and he can start an injuction proceeding. I can also see a plaintiff’s attorney, getting a motion for summary judgment, and also compulsatory damages.

HH; Malcolm Smith, God love you. Malcolm Smith Motorsports located on Indiana avenue in Riverside, you can read about this on Motorcycle-usa.com. Walter Olson, what’s the interest of the readers of your blog? Obviously, you’ve covered litigation abuse for a decade now… you’ve been doing this for 17, 18 years now, and this really one of the most outrageous episodes in the law that I’ve ever covered; what’s the interest at Overlawyered.com?

WO: I happened onto it. I have to say, I neglected it last year when they were actually passing this darn thing, but as I began seeing the stories, I realized that in some ways this is the craziest legislation that I will get a chance to write about… [chuckles]

HH: Yes!!

WO: … in this decade. And it is so full of interest, there are so many different, innocent people out there, nice people, the sort of people you would want to be making things for your kids, but who are having their lives turned upside down by this. I can’t resist the human interest. Secondly, simply as a defiance of cost-benefit analysis and common sense, it’s hard for me to remember anything in the last twenty years that was as crazy as this.

HH: Now I also want to press you, Walter, as we’re both journalists, and we’re both lawyers – Mr. Walensky does not have to share the shame of being a journalist – I find mainstream media abysmally incompetent here. Now I’ve asked a number of my pals who’ve called in, guys I like a lot, like [Newsweek's] Howard Fineman, [the Washington Post's] E.J. Dionne, if they’ve even heard of the law. And they haven’t heard of the law. Mark Steyn has, by the way. Are you as astonished as I am that nobody cares about this?

WO: I am astonished, and I’ve even written about this, why is it the more you lead the press to this the more totally out to lunch they are on this issue. The east coast, the New York Times and so forth, they just have no clue what is going on out there, almost none of the good journalism has come out of Washington on this, even though that’s where the Agency is, that’s where most of the legal knowledge is and so forth. Instead, the AP is finally doing something good, after months and months, it’s coming out of Jefferson City Missouri, because they’ve got one good reporter there, who's actually figured out it’s a major issue.

HH: Last question for Walter Olson… if President Obama came out, and said, “I am going to fix this”, do you think that would be a huge political plus for him?

WO: Well I think it would be a huge political plus, because as soon as people learned about the issue, and of course you’ve got librarians and book people and so forth all suffering under the law, there would be overwhelmingly on his side. In fact all he would have to do is stare down Henry Waxman, which they’ll tell you in Washington is impossible. I don’t actually think it would be impossible, at all. Barack Obama, you can do it.

HH: I don’t know why Henry Waxman wants to dis-employ so many people....

[commercial break]

[Part two of the transcript continues here]

Keeping Faith In Music

With many schools eliminating the funding for all their art programs, especially music, this latest study linking reading skills to musical literacy may strike just the right note for keeping faith in the value of music to the life of a child:

Children tutored in music involving progressively complex rhythmic, tonal and practical skills display superior reading skills than their peers, according to a new study.
...
[Joseph M. Piro and Camilo Ortiz from Long Island University] investigated the hypothesis that children (in two elementary schools) who have received keyboard instruction as part of a music curriculum that becomes progressively difficult over the years, would demonstrate significantly better performance on vocabulary and verbal sequencing than students who did not receive keyboard instruction.
Several studies have reported positive associations between music education and increased abilities in non-musical (linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children.
The authors said there are similarities in the way individuals interpret music and language and “because neural response to music is a widely distributed system within the brain…. It would not be unreasonable to expect that some processing networks for music and language behaviours, namely reading, located in both hemispheres of the brain would overlap.”
Using a quasi-experimental design, the investigators selected second-grade children from two school sites located in the same geographic vicinity and with similar demographic characteristics, to ensure the two groups of children were as similar as possible apart from their music experience.
Children in the intervention school studied piano formally for a period of three consecutive years as part of a comprehensive instructional intervention program.
Children attending control school received no formal musical training on any musical instrument and had never taken music lessons as part of their general school curriculum or in private study.
Both schools followed comprehensive balanced literacy programmes that integrate skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
All participants were individually tested to assess their reading skills at the start and close of a standard 10-month school year using the Structure of Intellect (SOI) measure, said a Long Island University release.
Results analysed at the end of the year showed that the music-learning group had significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores than did the non-music-learning control group.

There comes an age when children listen to their childish efforts at music and suddenly hear it all with new ears, causing many of them to declare, "Hey, I'm not really a good musician"; this fresh insight leads them to abandon their flutes and pianos for other things, as it might with their singing, with their painting, with their writing... with most of their acts of creation.

It seems a rite of passage into adulthood, to assess one's abilities as "amateurish", and therefore so second-rate that their very existence is a threat against our adult pose as "professional" experts at living. Who will take us seriously, if they hear our amateurish attempts at music, if they see our amateurish approach to creativity itself?

Once upon a time, the word "amateur" was not the sour note it tends to be thought of today. In its original, literal definition, to be an "amateur" means simply to be "a lover of something"... in French, it still retains this old-fashioned sense of the term, as we would say that I'm an "amateur de baseball", a lover of baseball. My skill has no relation to my passion.

I think one of the reasons that adolescents tend to be so cynical, so nihilistic in their point of view, is that there is not enough effort placed on convincing them to stay in love with life. They've left so much behind, all they can see is the hole that such abandonment brings; no wonder they wear black, I'd be in mourning too if I felt I had left so much of my previous life behind me.

The amateur's passion they once may have felt when devoting themselves for hours to their various acts of creation, especially playing music, is a romance worth remembering, and renewing. The courage needed to create new things comes partially from the childlike faith that our personal accomplishments can actually make a genuine difference in the world around us. As adults, our supposedly heightened powers of observation often end up obscuring that which is most important to perceive: it pays to have faith, to stretch our perspective so that it sees the single note of the present in the context of an overall melody of moments, especially those to come. That which we are today, is not necessarily all that we ever will be: we are creations forever in the process of becoming.

It's a lesson renewed by the experience of parenthood, probably the ultimate example of amateurism. That first time where a parent cradles their new-born baby, and takes inventory of their creation: what is there to see, except the fog of a far-off future? The little, tiny hands, inexpert at the simplest of tasks. The closed eyes, not yet able to register much of anything in their orbit. The probing mind, not yet aware of even what questions there are to ask about the world it's entered into. And yet from parental love springs the faith to perceive the hoped-for symphony, that the hand, the eyes and the mind that orchestrates this harmonious duet will someday truly make a difference.

It takes a lifetime to practice this art, so why not start as early and as often as possible, especially by keeping faith in the blessing that making music may bring to the life of a child.

One Bad Ass Mistake America

The Death of the Grown-Up | Diana West > Home - Janet Napolitano & the Dept. of Homeland Causation of Insecurity Prevention

"Terrorism" is out. "Man-caused disaster" is in. And you can just forget all about "jihad." From an interview with Janet Napolitano at Der Spiegel Online:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

Is this a joke, a late-night skit's attempt to skewer PC lingo?

No, this is PC lingo. Having abandoned the idiotic but at least somewhat bellicose moniker "War on Terror," we are now into, what...the "Intervention into Man-Caused Disaster."

Of course, there are two PC problems with the "nuance" Mzzz Napolitano claims.

There is that pesky term "man"--sure to rile the feminists, let alone the female suicide bombers. Brace for the day when Secretary Janet discusses "Person-Caused Disasters."

But that leaves the fact that the kind of "persons" who cause the "disasters" in question believe that Allah, not man (and certainly not woman) causes everything. Remember Operation Infinite Justice? That was the name the US tagged onto the military campaign against the Taliban until Muslims complained (p. 166) on the grounds that they believe only Allah dispenses justice, infinite or otherwise. (And that was enough for Uncle Sam to changes names, natch.) This line of religious belief surely makes "Man/Person-Caused Disaster" practically a term of defamation. I'm thinking Madame Secretary will have to go with something else, maybe renaming the whole agency for futher sensitivity's sake. Department for the Prevention of Allah-Caused Disasters, anyone?

Perssonally, I don't think "War on Terror" was idiotic since it was clearly not Bush's desire to fight a war against all Muslims, and that made much tactical sense. Bush drew the line between those willing to join sides with the modern world and those for whom terror is the only response to modern freedom and freedom's antipathy to barbarism and dissimulating religion.

Time for Canada to wise up and drop the dicatator-dominated United Nations

Egypt blindsides Canada’s efforts to create free speech laws at U.N. :: International Free Press Society

“Canada will continue to speak out against limitations in freedom of speech at all levels. While there is not yet a resolution tabled, Canada has in the past made it clear that it will not support any text which would undermine this fundamental right,” said Catherine Loubier, spokeswoman for Cannon.

Well, it's not enough to "speak out". Time for the liberal democracies to break ranks with the dictators and deniers of Islam-critical speech, the Caliphascist dreamers, and rethink inter-national relations.

Another day, another Christian minister in the UK beaten up

Minister beaten after clashing with Muslims on his TV show | Mail Online.

Maybe these guys have the right idea.

A woman in hijab is gunned down in the streets of California...

...The suspect is Hispanic. What is the first thing that comes to your mind: anti-Islamic hate crime? family feud contract killing? drug dealers' war? Miss Kelly : Passing Off Rumor as Fact, Alia Ansari's Tragic Death describes the industry that makes a living from promoting one scenario.

Class Action

Clothes make the man, so they say. And if such is true, then I'm a dud. I asked a buddy in the jungle why I never got attacked, and he said it's because I look like I'm not worth the effort. Of course I am. I can talk about Spinoza for hours.

Redneck? My cowboy boots tell a different story. They say: "Big Class."

I don't wear my cowboy boots every day. I wear them when I'm dressing up and going out to impress people. Usually I don't care to try to impress anyone. Sarah Palin doesn't know this or that? Obama knows all things cool and smart? I know a few things about class that Obama must have missed in Marxism 101. I know a few things about class that Debra Jackson knows.

Do-Sa-Do: Square Dancing and Mindfulness

When I was 12, one of my best friends was a square dancer. Twice a week, her family would pile into the Country Squire station wagon and head to the Grange Hall, where they'd gather with their square dancing club for an evening of music, friendship and do-sa-do.

As a regular guest, I was fascinated by the form but, in the height of my coolness-conscious years, also acutely aware of the overwhelming dork factor. These people lived to square dance.

They skipped around for two or three hours at a time, twirling and smiling and dabbing at their foreheads between dances. They hunted for holiday-themed fabric months before special dances in order to whip up the perfect ruffled dress and matching shirt for each occasion. They packed their petticoats and headed to Penticton, British Columbia every summer for a regional square dancers' convergence.

The square dance girls were just as boy-crazy as my regular friends, but they had a built-in way to hold hands with the guys they liked. As for me, I had a major crush on my friend's older brother who, at 15, was an articulate, ambitious student body president with piercing blue eyes and blond hair to his shoulders (it was 1972, after all).

In one of our (for me, anyway) excruciating conversations involving much blushing, he told me that square dancing was like meditation. "It's a way to forget about everything except what's going on right now. You have to pay attention to what the caller says, and let your mind and body make sense of it naturally, without trying too hard."

http://ambafrance-do.org/alternative/19621.php

When we take a class action and return ourselves to our home, maybe then I'll go home too. For now, home doesn't impress me. I'm not dressed up for it. Folks'd sneer at me, I do think so. When I go back home and walk through the door and see the Debras dressed to dance, and when I smell the hay and cattle and the clouds, then do sa do. That's a class action I'll be part of.

Blessings In Disguise: Tragedy And The Inner Strength Of The Young

I do my share of complaining about "kids today", about the cynicism and sloth and vulgarity I see in such abundance in young people. Therefore it's all the more important for me to pay proper respect to the bigger picture, admitting that there's also a lot to be proud of about our newest generation. Old(er) dogs like me could learn a few new tricks from the many wonderful examples of their inner strength... if we can but summon the humility to perceive the good within them as readily as the bad.

First, the amazing example of 17 year-old Nick Goldner's remarkable efforts to renew the lives of children marked by tragedy... as he was when he was younger himself:

West Allis - Nick Goldner still remembers the treasured Dr. Seuss anthology he read over and over after his family lost everything - even his favorite blanket - in a house fire a decade ago.
He turned to it constantly for comfort in the two-bedroom apartment he shared with his parents and three brothers as they waited for their home to be rebuilt and their lives to restart.
...
So when it came time for Goldner to choose an Eagle Scout project, he selected a charity that provides books to children in crisis situations. His enthusiastic efforts resulted in the largest single donation ever to the Waunakee-based With Wings and a Halo, according to the organization's chief executive and co-founder Paul Gilbertson.
"I'm really proud of him," said Gilbertson, whose organization provides backpacks filled with children's books to sheriff's deputies throughout the state.
So far, Goldner has collected 4,000 books and about $1,100. In addition to the donation to With Wings and a Halo, Goldner said, he also plans to give some of the books to local fire departments so they can be passed on to other children who have lost their homes.
Although he estimates he has put about 350 hours into the project, Goldner credits the generosity of other students - both Nathan Hale and others in the Milwaukee area - for making it such a success.
"Here, I was really only expecting 1,000 books and 50 bucks," he said. "But the students here at Hale blew my expectations out of the water."
...
Goldner also highlighted efforts by Hoover Elementary School in New Berlin, where students gave 480 books - more than one per student - and Fox River Christian Church, which donated $100 and some books to the charity.
The work for the students isn't over yet. Goldner said he plans to drive the books in a donated truck to Waunakee, where he and 10 friends will sort through them by their intended readers' ages and place them - about a dozen at a time - into backpacks.

We follow that with another incredible story, this time out of Florida, where one inspiring 13 year-old's example is used to shine a light on the silent sacrifices made by an estimated million other young people:

BOYNTON BEACH — When she gets home after a long day, Ashley Coyle does what any grown up would do.
She prepares dinner, washes dishes, folds laundry and gives her sister a bath. All typical household chores for most any adult.
Only Ashley is no grown up.
She's barely a teen.
The 13-year-old is a grown-up kid - children in mostly single-family homes who take on adult roles because the parents can't juggle it all. It's becoming all too common lately with more people losing jobs and families cutting costs.
That's why the American Association of Caregiving Youth has a waiting list of middle schoolers hoping to join its program.
The Caregiving Youth Project, based out of Boca Raton, searches for middle schoolers like Ashley whose daily responsibilities extend beyond homework and making the bed. It is the only branch of AACY in the United States.
Project staff is working with more than 200 students in five Palm Beach County schools who care for sick or elderly relatives or for brothers and sisters at home while their mom or dad works. They're in charge of medicine, food, cleaning, cooking. And most of the time, homework comes last.
"As soon as I get home, I see what my sister needs first and then do the chores," Ashley said.
The staff of Caregiving Youth works to prevent these children from dropping out of school to care for their family.
"These kids have stress," said Connie Siskowski, who started the project in 2006. "Knowing they're not alone is important to them."
An estimated 1.3 million children throughout the United States ages 8-18 are youth caregivers, according to Siskowski. ...
In Ashley's case, her mother, Tania Coyle, works full-time and her sister, Jessica, who was born with a genetic disorder, needs constant attention. Though Jessica is the big sister at age 18, she looks no older than Ashley. She rarely speaks and trusts few people. Ashley is her best friend.
Their mom works as a nurse's aid and barely earns $10 an hour - not enough to pay for daycare or even a babysitter, which is why Ashley is in charge.
"I never in my life thought I'd have to depend on my daughter like I do," Coyle said. "It's been very hard. I need my daughter to feel like a kid."
Through generous donors, Caregiving Youth provides help with home health care so the children can be with friends or get to school on time. It's raised money for laptops and for items like wheelchair ramps and scooters for families in medical need. It also provides field trips to grocery stores where the children are taught how to shop and how to use a slow cooker.
...
"It's hard. Some days are not always the best," Ashley said. "My mom gets so stressed and my sister gets in a bad mood. I always want them to be happy."
...
At Boca Raton Community Middle School, where Ashley is in the eighth grade, enrollment in the Caregiving Youth Project doubled last year. It jumped from 8.5 percent to 16 percent and Siskowski expects those numbers to keep growing.

I note that both these stories of amazing young people seem to share a common origin; it was from seeds of tragedy that they were able to grow their respective abilities to see the good in life, particularly how to find the potential for good waiting to grow within themselves. However unbidden their struggles may have been, their inspiring accomplishments may never have been realized if theirs had been less eventful childhoods. One generation's visible success against great odds can ensure a migration of that success, handing it down to the next generation coming behind them (or ahead of them), by learning from example.

We can't always choose our circumstances, but we can choose our reactions to them; that's a timely lesson we need to re-affirm, no matter our age.

When gender freedom clashes horribly with nature...

...the liberal, relativist, nihilist, media call an alleged attempt at violent rape and forced insemination, of a "wife", by a "wife", "a fight": Insemination fight ends in wife's arrest - Berkshire Eagle Online

A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother's semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery.

It's only alleged, but in any case I can't bring myself to comment on this "woman"; and it sounds like that brother is not exactly a man...

Italian judges hate women, roll over and die.

Via Ghost of a Flea, my first exposure to this amazing story: Shari'a making inroads in the West | Op-Ed Contributors | Jerusalem Post

In Italy, three members of a Brescia-based Maghrebi family (father, mother and eldest son) were accused of beating and sequestering their daughter/sister Fatima because she had wanted to live a "Western" life.

In the first trial, the three were sentenced for sequestration and abuse. The court acknowledged that the teenager had been "brutally beaten up" for having "dated" a non-Muslim and, in general, for "living a life not conforming with the culture" of her family. But on appeal, the family was acquitted because the court deemed that the young woman had been beaten for "her own good."

The Bologna public prosecutor's office then disputed the acquittal of the three accused parties, but the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation dismissed it and ruled in favor of the charged parties.

Interestingly, two Italian political leaders on opposite sides of the political spectrum - Isabella Bertolini, vice president of the MPs of the right-wing party Forza Italia, and Barbara Pollastrini, a post-communist former minister - condemned the Supreme Court decision, calling it "one of the darkest pages in the history of the law in our country." Bertolini was upset that the court had "allied itself with radical Islam." Pollastrini is now pushing for parliament to pass a law condemning violence against women. "Now more than ever, it is urgent to defend the rights of a large number of immigrant women victims of an intolerable patriarchal culture," she says.

Muslim women were quick to denounce the Supreme Court's decision. Among them was Souad Sbai, president of the Organization of Moroccan Women in Italy. She said, "It is a shame, this verdict is worthy of an Arab country where the Shari'a is vigorously enforced. In the name of multiculturalism and respect for traditions, the judges apply two kinds of rules: one for the Italians and one for the immigrants. A Catholic father who had acted this way would have been severely sentenced."

According to her organization, at least nine Muslim women have recently been killed in Italy by close relatives. The number of young girls forced to wear the hijab "as early as eight or 12" is on the rise, as is the number of female teenagers fleeing home, and "lots of them are looking to flee to France." But France might not be the panacea either...

One wonders how such madness inflicts a judiciary in what was at least to some degree a Western democracy founded on the sacredness of the Christian person: do they suffer some confused idea that recognizing "diversity" in this way is tto maintain social peace and order? But how can any thinking person come seriously to think that a people living under different laws in the same state can come together in anything other but a seriously diminished capacity for building a common order? I fear that Flea has it right:

It is not only the Swat Valley that has been conceded to the Taliban. For many in the West, there is nothing to surrender - no patriotism, no pride, no history, no civilization - so why not get it over with. The nullity they have made of modern life makes the prospect of a new Dark Age appealing to them.

As to their sisters and wives and daughters - let alone their daughters' daughters - to hell with them. Such is the selfish logic of a suicide.

And so our only response is to act and say to hell with those who have given in to nihilism and civilizational despair. To hell with those who would procure our young women, our fellow citizens under our common law, for the brutal trade in sharia.

Condemn the nihilist, wherever you find him.

A Memorable Auction In Winnipeg

Here's a heart-warming story out of Winnipeg that suggests how often sudden initiative can play a role in acts of kindness:

Last Thursday turned into a memorable evening for auctioneer Andy Kaye. Unpaid storage fees had led to the regrettable sale of a storage locker's contents at Kaye's Auctions. A three year-old boy approached auctioneer Andy before the sale began, to ask him if he could "have some of his toys". His mom was present as well, as it was their family's possessions being auctioned off.

"Sure", said Andy, "Go Ahead."

After the young fellow had grabbed what few toys his little figure could handle, the auction started in earnest. Karen, a longtime regular of Kaye's auctions, bid for a couple of the boxes on sale, and immediately donated them back to the family.

One by one other attendees followed Karen's example, and by the end of the auction the mother and son had received much of their stored possessions back again.

"I've been in this business a long time," says Andy, "and I have to tell you, that was really something. The little guy's mom certainly had tears in her eyes."

Consumer Product Safety Chairman On CPSIA: "There Are Some Real Problems Here"

The economic scourge caused by the CPSIA continues to destroy billions of dollars worth of inventories in this recessionary ecomony, and the US Congress doesn't appear in any hurry to amend any of the unintended consequences of their Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. They seem unable to admit they have made a mistake, and the final cost for this vanity is reaching an astonishing level.

Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt continues to do an excellent job of covering this appalling story, in fact he's one of the only media voices giving this economic plague any regular attention. Yesterday Hugh Hewitt interviewed Nancy Nord, Chairman of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, looking for some answers to the obvious question: What is being done to fix this problem?

The good news: the commission knows about the economic damage the CPSIA is causing.
The bad news: there doesn't seem to be anything they can do to stop the damage from continuing.

From the transcript:

...
Hugh Hewitt: Congress and the commission are now sort of pointing fingers at each other. I’ve been forwarded e-mails from Senator Durbin’s office to some of the impacted business out there saying it’s up to you guys to grant exemptions. And I’ve read some statements from commission staff saying we don’t have the authority to grant exemptions. You know, so the finger pointing goes on, and the businesses are burning down. What’s happening?

Nancy Nord: Well, it really is something that we’re very concerned about. Congress passed this very well-intended piece of legislation in response to the recalls of 2007-2008. They did it very quickly, and perhaps did not give sufficient thought to some of the provisions. You raised the exemption provision, and that is a very, very good example of what I’m talking about. Although the legislation indicates that we can give exemptions from the lead provisions of the law, in certain circumstances, those circumstances are very, very limited. And Congress was very precise in telling us when we could give exemptions, and when we could not. And unfortunately, we are now seeing many, many more products that have trace amounts of lead, products that really are not going to harm consumers at all. They’re not unsafe. But they don’t meet the very, very strict standards of the law. And the way the law is written, our hands are tied. So Congress really needs to find, to help us find some wiggle room here, if you will. We’re very hard-pressed to find exclusions from this new law.

HH: Now if I were your general counsel, and I have been the general counsel of two federal agencies, OPM and NEH, I’d come in and I’d say to you, Madame Chairman, we’ve got to take a stand here, we’ve got to issue an exemption, for example, to all-terrain vehicles, regardless of the trace amounts of lead, because they’re dying, people are losing their jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars of inventory are lost, and let the chips fall. You’re not going to go to jail, I’m not going to go to jail, but these people are going to go out of business. How do you respond to that?

NN: Well, our job as a regulatory agency is to implement the law that Congress wrote as Congress wrote it. So that is what we need to do. You should be aware, I’m sure you probably are aware that we did try to take a reasonable approach with respect to implementing one of the provisions dealing with a substance called phthalates, which are used in plasticizers. It’s what makes a rubber ducky squeezable, if you will. And a federal district court overturned us and said no, our reading of the law was incorrect, that Congress really intended that everything in inventory, everything on store shelves, things sitting in container ships making their way to this country, they were all outlawed if they were not tested for phthalates.
...
HH: I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails, you probably have as well…from very small businesses, people who make a thousand dollars worth of products, or five thousand dollars worth of products. Now I’ve had big time lawyers on like Wolensky of Snell and Wilmer, and they represent sporting goods and all-terrain vehicles, and they can go argue the case to the commission. But these small timers, they’re just wiped out. Are you getting those e-mails as well?

NN: Well, of course we are. One of the problems with this law, and actually, I think one of the biggest problems with this law, is the fact that it basically is retroactive. It put in place a ban on lead in children’s products, and it applies not only to products manufactured after the effective date of February 10th, but it applies to all products sold in the United States after that date, which pulls in inventory, it pulls in products on store shelves, things that were deemed perfectly safe on February 9th, on February 10th, are deemed to be illegal. And that is perhaps not the best way to regulate...
...
The thing that I think you need to understand, and your listeners need to understand, is that the law has been pretty precise in what they have told us to do, and that is what we need to do. Our obligation as a regulatory agency is to implement the CPSIA.
...
Now as we have gone through this process, we have found that there are some real problems here. We have brought them to the attention of Congress. I would hope that we can work with Congress to solve these problems as quickly as we possibly can, because the last thing that we want to do, that I want to do, is to impose economic havoc on businesses that are really just trying to provide safe products to the consumers.