Parents, when emotional, sometimes regret deciding to be parents and other great surprises

I’ve been quiet today because I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the great feminist DOS attacks of the moment and the long long long threads discussing them: who’s responsible, what they were reacting to, whether what they claim actually occurred, who’s right, who’s wrong etc etc etc. One of those threads is currently running at 1000+ comments.

Short summary:

• Womensspace, a website founded by radical feminist (and notorious successful ex-fundamentalist litigant) Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff aka Heart, has been shut down due to DOS attacks.
• Heart has discussed this on her blog, which is run on a separate site.
• At least one and maybe more script-kid “hacker” forums have bragged about the coordinated DOS attack on Heart’s website and the websites of several people associated with Heart, and some people with an axe to grind over this incident have also sent Heart and commentors on Heart’s blog hate-mail and comments threatening rape and murder.

Filed under: cyberbullying, netgeek, reproductive freedoms, sexuality

The irrational electorate and economics

Ross Gittins today in the SMH, regarding the bewilderment of the Howard government’s economic-rationalism ideologues as to why we sheeple aren’t more happy about the wonderful economy: It’s not only the economy, stupid

Gittins points out that growth in real incomes is not enough to satisfy when people no longer compare their circumstances only with themselves 10 years ago but also with the people around them, and all can see that the disparity in wealth between the social classes is growing. The evidence in the electoral polls shows that a growing proportion of voters prefer predictable job security to a booming share price, and are made more anxious that their children will be able to afford home-ownership than grateful over their own capital gains in the skyrocketing property market.

Economic-rationalism has never sufficiently factored in people’s attachment to intangible goods. Gittins’ final line nails it:

Another explanation for our base ingratitude, of course, could be our dawning realisation that there’s more to life than economics. No, that couldn’t possibly be right.

Filed under: Sociology, economics, elections

Pell draws lines

The great tradition of religious tolerance in Catholic parochial schools in New South Wales is under fire. Many thousands of children of all faiths have been educated in a system often chosen by parents due to a complex perception of superior education outcomes rather than as a response to the promulgation of faith within the schools, and many non-Catholics and non-Christians remember their time at a Catholic school very fondly. But from now on such experiences may be fewer and further between than in previous generations.

Cardinal George Pell and NSW Bishops have sent out a pastoral letter which bemoans the trend for more non-Catholics to attend Catholic schools and for more Catholics to send their children to public schools, and announces methods which the hierarchy wishes to implement to reverse these trends – a four way selection process giving preference first to children from the school’s local parish, then to Catholics from other parishes, then to other Christians and finally children from other religions. They also plan to move into preschool education in order to “foster the spiritual development” of younger children, which would at least be a welcome addition to the chronically short supply of pre-school places. The Cardinal and Bishops also want recruitment of staff to favour more practising Catholics and to actively encourage the school population to participate in Catholic events outside the school.

Here’s the doozy – acknowledgement that they actually considered barring non-Catholics altogether:

The Church will not ban non-Catholic students from enrolment – it says it considered, but rejected, plans for a formal “downsizing to accommodate only those who are committed to the faith”.

Filed under: culture wars, education, religion

Invisible Illness Bingo.

I’ve posted before on my experience with invisible disability, and linked to amandaw on the “But you don’t look sick!” phenomenon. And for further background, everyone should read the “Open Letter to Those Without CFS/Fibro” at Not Done Living.

Now Annaham at Hamblog has come out with the Invisible Illness Bingo card, v. 1.0. “But you don’t look sick!” features, as does “Lucky! You get to stay in bed all day!” and “But I went through hard times too, and I managed just fine. Let’s talk about what a great person I am.”

Anyone who has experienced chronic illness is likely to recognise a few of these. (Perhaps you’d like to punch a wall or two.) If you haven’t had the pleasure of a debilitating but invisible illness, you might still recognise a few of these as having flitted through your head (or even emerged from your mouth) in the past when confronted with the frustrating reality of chronic illness in others. Perhaps when they’re all down on a card like this, we can all recognise these comments for what they are, and for what they do to people on the sharp end.

Filed under: disability, health, peeves

Hey, we can say it

An attack has been made on the Australian media from the front page of Life Decisions International (LDI), whose domain name is the far more accurate fightpp.org (PP being the USA’s Planned Parenthood, the family planning organisation that offers comprehensive sex education and pregnancy services including abortion for those who choose it). The LDI are upset that somebody noticed an association between them and serial ministerial bungler Kevin Andrews.

Australian Media Shows No Regard For The Truth

It is not unusual for pro-abortion activists to use their allies in the media to attack pro-life leaders and lawmakers. But some in the Australian media are taking the practice to a whole new level. LDI has issued a response to an attack on an Australian lawmaker.

When we go to the response, the target of our media’s attack is made more explicit (the weird hyphenation of some words is in the original):

Australia Media Shows No Regard For Truth In Attack On Pro-Life Minister
8.6.2007

WASHINGTON, D.C.–It’s nothing new. Pro-abortion activ-ists work with their allies in the media to attack pro-life leaders and lawmakers. The most recent vociferous attack is against the Honorable Kevin Andrews, a Member of the Australian Parliament and Minister for Immigration and Citizenship.

“It is obvious that some pro-abortion zealot was in the United States or was searching the Internet in an effort to find something that could be used to attack Mr. Andrews,” said Douglas R. Scott, president of Life Decisions Interna-tional (LDI). “They eventually discovered that Mr. Andrews and his wife, Margaret, are members of our Board of Advi-sors. To pro-abortion activists, one may as well be a mem-ber of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Filed under: Politics, culture wars, ethics, religion, sexuality

Soundbites on YouTube

Politicians around the world are gingerly using YouTube to make policy statements, or maybe just to get their soundbites out there while avoiding having to have a press conference.

Now some Catholic seminarians have parodied the Mac vs PC ads (which I already loathed anyway) to convey the Vatican’s doctrine on Natural Family Planning vs Contraception.

They’ve got three videos up now, with more planned.

Now I disagree with the practicality of Natural Family Planning, although I applaud much of the sentiment: avoiding excessive chemical intervention with bodily functions, increased communication and intimacy between partners about avoiding unplanned pregnancies etc. Increased communication about sex before it actually happens can only be a good thing.

Unfortunately, NFP requires abstention during ovulation, which is the woman’s peak time of sexual desire, thus NFP involves a lifetime of women acquiescing to sex outside their peak period of desire and being forbidden from other forms of attaining orgasm during the peak period of sexual desire. Sounds like a recipe for frustration and resentment for me.

I notice that these videos simply don’t mention at all that NFP works (as far as it does work) only for people who are in monogamous committed relationships, which of course to the Church means marriage. So they’re simply not addressing the rather large population of adults who are not yet married but who are interested in sexual intercourse anyway. The unsaid only option for unmarried adults is abstinence. I’m not surprised that they’re not addressing that.

Anyway, it’s a very interesting exercise in propogating a set of policy soundbites. I await the replies that will surely multiply in the next few weeks with great interest. I also wonder when various lobbying groups on various social issues are going to fully embrace the viral aspect of YouTube etc for getting their soundbites more effectively out into the social consciousness. Let’s face it – I’m blogging about the videos above because they were put together with a modicum of wit about a controversial issue. Other people will do the same. If other groups do similiar things, those videos will be viraled and generate discussion. Get your issues out there, folks.

crossposted at LP

Filed under: Media, activism/charity, culture wars, netgeek, performance, religion, reproductive freedoms, technology

Applying Bill of Ockham’s sharp thing

Carey Roberts, a withered geriatrarch of the he-man-she-haters club, is once again complaining that women are meanyheads: in Misandry in the least likely of places Roberts clutches his pearls over the lyrics of a Country song about a revenge scenario on an untrusted lover.

But it’s the title — Before He Cheats — that turns this song into a bitter gender tirade. Just imagine a male star reaching platinum for crooning, Before She Aborts.

Country songs about Cheatin’, oh my, Carey Roberts! Such razor-sharp insight! Who’s ever heard of such a thing! Why, it’s not as if it’s such a trope in country music that there’s actually songs about cheating songs or anything.

Cause she just started liking cheatin’ songs
And what’s bothering me
I don’t know if its the cheatin’ she likes
Or just the melody

As various commentors over at Sadly, No!’s excellent fisking of Roberts have observed, it’s hard to see how just the title makes this particular country song an outstandingly bitter gender tirade in comparison to such shining lights of relationship modelling as “Momma’s in the Graveyard (Poppa’s in the Pen)” or “He hit me (and it felt like a kiss)”.

You’d think drawing such a long bow would have tuckered Carey out, but no – he’s only warming up for the Hyperbole Steeplechase:

Filed under: moral panics, religion, reproductive freedoms

Insert tinnie/tinnie joke here

The Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, has announced an exemption to the alcohol bans in 70 remote indigenous communities in the NT that were announced as a core component of the government’s Indigenous Emergency Plan to combat the sexual abuse of indigenous minors. The exemption applies to rivers being used for recreational fishing on or adjacent to Aboriginal land.

Why is such a core measure being undermined?

The professor of indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, Marcia Langton, said yesterday that relaxing the bans would open the floodgates for alcohol to be smuggled into the 70 communities where it was banned.

“It will allow illegal grog runners to sell grog into the communities,” she said.

“It’s the kind of loophole that can bring the whole system undone, by giving the big tick-off to the grog runners. It’s not going to work.”

What could be more important than protecting the children who are the whole justification for the sweeping authoritian emergency plan in the first place?

Filed under: authoritarianism, indigenous, law, racism

More heat than light on Haneef: where’s the transcripts then?

Crossposted on Larvatus Prodeo, where each of the previous Haneef threads has generated hundreds of comments.

Much was made yesterday of claims that Indian police believe that there are links between Haneef and extreme jihadists. To kick this thread off, from The Hindu (Online edition of India’s National Newspaper):

Meanwhile, reports in a section of the Australian media that a dossier prepared by the Bangalore police on Mohammed Haneef on his alleged links with the Al-Qaeda have come as a surprise to the police here.

Bangalore Police Commissioner Neelam Achuta Rao told The Hindu on Wednesday that they had not prepared any such dossier.

So where has the alleged Haneef dossier actually come from?

Secondly,

Filed under: Politics, authoritarianism, law, sheer incompetence

Slouching toward Bushism

And the police state lurches ever closer, with the SMH today reporting on proposed legislation for “New secret search powers”.

The proposed powers would give police the right to execute search, seizure and surveillance under so-called “delayed notification warrants”, without judicial oversight, and including the assumption of false identities by police to gain access. The subject can be denied notice of the s/s/s for up to six months, with extensions available on Ministerial approval, again with no judicial involvement:

The lack of judicial oversight was justified by the Minister for Justice and Customs, David Johnston, on the grounds that a court or judicial officer might leak news of the warrant.

“I don’t want to impugn anyone, but the security of these operations has to be pristine,” Senator Johnston told the Herald.

The article continues:

The position of the Labor Opposition is unknown. The party did not return calls yesterday.

Filed under: Politics, authoritarianism, law, moral panics, obstreperation