I’m sure you’ve read articles discussing the pros and cons (mostly cons) of Governor Walker’s budget plan. But have you heard that it may lead to more deaths from cervical cancer? Because Walker’s proposal  eliminates $266,400 for cervical cancer screening, the risk for women contracting cervical cancer and having it progress to a lethal state will increase. These cuts are part of a larger elimination of $3.8 million in state funding for family planning services. Scary? Very. Scarier? That these kinds of cuts could end up being passed on a federal level if the Tea Party continues to exert itself.

The Catholic Church asked for an investigation conducted on the trends in child molestation cases over the past few decades in order to “help identify patterns of abuse.”

Here’s what the report concluded:

The report from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice said the majority of molestation cases involved priests who were ordained in the 1940s and 1950s, at a time when seminaries did not properly train them to live a celibate life. These men were not equipped to withstand the social upheaval of the 1960s, which was a time of an increase in sexual deviancy and crime in society at large, the authors said.

Lets just reconsider what they’re suggesting.

These men were not taught how to deal with “new” sexual deviance and … rising crime…?

So… because they were uncomfortable with all that deviance during the 60′s… they sought for solace from young boys… who they then molested…?

OR as Gawker put it:

They forgot to “properly train” the guys back then by saying, “Hey, when you see dope-smoking teens having free love in the park in your town, don’t run back to the church and molest any children.” By the time they added that section to the priest-training curriculum, well, certain mistakes had been made. It could have happened to any group of deluded, horny pedophiles.

Jokes aside. Does this sound reasonable to you?

This is a sensitive topic. So I’m going to end the post right HERE and let you mull it over.

–Pragya

Pragya sent me this thought-provoking piece from David Brooks about the research being done on the evolutionary disadvantages of selfishness. Many people are now saying that humans have been able to become the way we are–cultured and such–because of our instinctual desire and need to cooperate. To quote one of the more interesting research results:

“An infant of 12 months will inform others about something by pointing. Chimpanzees and other apes do not helpfully inform each other about things. Infants share food readily with strangers. Chimpanzees rarely even offer food to their own offspring.”

If you have spent any time with toddlers, you also know that as we get older, we become even more helpful (though often for less innocent reasons). All of these findings are certainly optimistic–perhaps we humans are not as ruthlessly self-absorbed as we believe. History and sociology support these findings. After all, when has any major event or transformation been driven just by one person?

My one problem with the article itself is the conclusion Brooks comes to. He suggests that all of this research inevitably implies that if cooperation permeates our structure as humans, so does morality, which he connects to ethics and religion. The morality leap in itself is too much for me; the instinct to cooperate still comes from a basic need for the self to survive. This is not morality, but simply a desire to live. And religion? Seriously? Why do people still automatically connect religion with ethics or morality? That’s not to say that there aren’t morals or ethics within religion, but to unquestioningly suggest that religion as a general whole equates to ethics or morals is a stretch for me personally.

Tagged: david brooks, evolution ]]> http://bitesofnews.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/nice-people-continue-being-nice/feed/ 0 bitesofnews http://bitesofnews.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/men-deserve-bling-too/ http://bitesofnews.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/men-deserve-bling-too/#comments Mon, 16 May 2011 22:31:55 +0000 bitesofnews http://bitesofnews.wordpress.com/?p=935 ]]> Know this for: keeping up with all those blasphemous ideas circulating out there.

Washington Post has an annual “Spring Cleaning List” – things that society could really do without.

What’s on the list this year?!

Oh you know… the usual: democracy, leftovers, smartphones (but how will i check my email while talking to my mother while texting my honey WHILE paying my bills on the metro??), and engagement rings.

Someone has dared go AT IT with the engagement ring.

I know. I know. Many girls and women have long thought about the day they will receive that ring. The proposal, blah blah, etc etc. And  so many of us are really attached to the “romantic” idea of it all.

But what does it all really signify and why do we continue to partake in this?

Men write to me to say that they’re ready to get married, but given school debt and the depressed economy, they simply can’t afford a good enough ring, and they despair whether they’ll ever be able to pop the question. Here’s a secret that the folks at De Beers don’t want young people to know: All you need to do to become officially engaged is tell everyone, “We’re getting married!”

Did you know that? That’s all it takes. Literally. You’re like ONE Facebook status away from being engaged.

But seriously, the concept of the engagement ring makes a woman wait for a man to ask her to marry him. Why do I have to wait for him? What if he needs to wait for me?

But here’s the worst part: guys don’t even get to rock some bling to show the world that someone loves them. As an equalist, I am very troubled by this.

Perhaps the solution is NOT that we get rid of engagement rings. During this age of excess lets gender neutralize the engagement ring! I think my future fiancee totes deserves a rock to show the world how much I love him!

Hahaha… That’s a joke. Who actually wants to spend all that money?

–Pragya

(I’m not trying to say it’s wrong to want an engagement ring or to love the one you already have. I think its an interesting idea, and raises pertinent questions)

When you hear Obama talk about his tax plans, he often says that taxes need to be raised for those who make +$250,000. This article asks, why begin the tax bracket at 250,000? Is it fair? How will it affect many families? About 2% of US households make $250,00 or more a year. It’s suggested that the number 250,000 hearkens back to the Clinton presidency who started the tax bracket at 250,000 in ’93, but now economists point out that if we adjust for inflation the bracket should actually start at 386,075.

I’m all about whipping kids’ brains into shape, and pushing them to excel academically, but this is a bit much for me. NYT reports on these new programs run by tutoring centers such as Kumon. Their program is called Junior Kumon and here’s a description:

Parents pay $200 to $300 a month for their 2-, 3-, 4- or 5-year-old to spend up to an hour twice weekly being tutored at a Junior Kumon center — 20 to 30 minutes each on reading and math. Children are then expected to do 20 minutes of homework on each subject every day, with their parents guiding and grading them.

Child psychologists are shaking their heads in disdain upon hearing this. I’m sorry, but just click on the link and look at the picture of that poor little toddler who’s doing hw. I think even Amy Chua would soften at seeing her.

Miracle foods? Have you noticed how every time you walk down the aisles of a grocery store suddenly it seems as though eating Rice Krispies will cure cancer and the yogurt combats the common cold? Everything has 600 vitamins and minerals from the WATER to cheese to those fruit gummy snacks. We’re surrounded by food on steroids (you know what happens when you use steroids). NYT looks into the hype.

Consumer advocates and some nutritionists are equally blunt. They say shoppers are being bamboozled by slick marketing. Many people grab products with healthy claims on the front of the package and overlook crucial nutritional information, like calorie counts, in the small print on the back.

Food for thought? Corny pun?

Too much?

I think so.

–Pragya

Trump has announced he won’t run for president.

This is unfortunate, because I was hoping he would add comedic relief during the election season. You know, while the legitimate candidates talked about real issues like marital infidelities and if Obama is a socialist.

Here’s the BEST part though.

“This decision does not come easily or without regret,” he said in a brief statement. ”I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election,” Mr Trump added.

This makes perfect sense.

I will not run for president. But not because I know that I am wholly unqualified and have the most inane haircut in the world. I will not run for president because I’m afraid that if I win… I’ll actually have to be president.

–Pragya

I’m writing this post from my phone, so it’ll be pretty short. I’ve been reading a lot of reports about the GOP side of the 2012 election and things are very unsettled as of now. Recently Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race, leaving the field wide open. There are no clear frontrunners, with oft-mentioned Mitt Romney being criticized by outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich dealing with scandal. Meanwhile, major donors are still resistant to choosing a candidate to back.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is how it will stay. (And breathing a sigh of relief at Huckabee’s decision).

–Val

China’s tired of measuring everything based on the economy. Money? Pah. The Chinese government is interested in increasing the happiness of its people. And when the Chinese government goes for something, it goes hard. Evan Osnos has an informative post about this new venture at Letter from China. And if you don’t have the time to read through it, the last paragraph really sums up the sentiment:

“Wen Jiabao, the premier, knows the deep relationship between happiness and a moral way of life. At a press conference four years ago, Jeremy Page of the Wall Street Journal recalled recently, Wen quoted a famous Chinese poem: “If you ask me what happiness means, I tell you to ask a meadow in bloom, or a river that’s no longer frozen.” Who was the poet? Ai Qing, the father of Ai Weiwei. Ai the younger has been detained without official word of his whereabouts for more than two weeks.”

Wowie.

Here we go. Again.

“Kids these days are so damn selfish!”

Or the newest finding in a long line of them:

Now, after a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs, Dr. DeWall and other psychologists report finding what they were looking for: a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. As they hypothesized, the words “I” and “me” appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there’s been a corresponding decline in “we” and “us” and the expression of positive emotions.

“Late adolescents and college students love themselves more today than ever before,” Dr. DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, says.

(The rest of the article does a good job giving the point of view of skeptics)

I want everyone to know that I love myself. I love myself SO SO SO much. I change my profile picture on Facebook every 10 minutes so that everyone can see as many pictures of me being funny/cool/pretty/artsy/quirky/whatever. I call up my parents and refuse to ask them about how they’re doing, I mean aren’t they solely on this earth to listen to me complain?

AND. I only like songs, which utilize the words “I” and “me” at least 5 times every minute.

I don’t give to charities. And I feel no obligation to give back to society.

Oh yeah. And all my friends are like me too.

In fact. Did you know? It is because of MY generation that our deficit is in the trillions, that Wall Street screwed us over (a lot), the environment is a mess, our country is ridden with a failing education system, and our health care is abysmally expensive.

LOL. JK.

Looking at the mess that our parent’s generation and grandparent’s generation left us, I can only wonder: how much is because everyone pursued exactly what was good for them in the short-term? Isn’t that kind of… self-absorbed?

Basically. I don’t care about the multitude of “scientifically legitimate” studies that attempt to quantify just how much more narcissistic my generation is supposed to be. It’s not true. Everyone has selfish thoughts, maybe our generation admits it more. We were born, and told that we could “have it our way” (thanks BK!). Our teachers told us that we could and should pursue our personal dreams. Mr. Rogers told me I was special just the way I was.

And I still believe him.

Knowing we’re special, may translate to thinking highly of ourselves. Pursuing what we want, and now what is expected of us, may translate to slightly higher levels of self-absorption (and happiness?). But these things don’t necessarily mean our generation feels entitled to the world. And most of us don’t really go out into the world with an “IMA DO ME” attitude**.

As for how many times “I” and “me” appears in a song as a legitimate way to judge how narcissistic a generation is… I just can’t do anything but ask “researchers” to come up with more socially relevant uses of their time and grant money.

–Pragya

** this has been said with the awareness that there are people in every generation who are selfish a-holes, will forever only care about themselves, and will not contribute to anyone’s happiness but their own. they didn’t watch enough Mr. Rogers growing up.

Found this interesting article about how many Chinese immigrants in the US do not speak English, due to inaccessibility of language classes and other factors.

“The report also found that 42.5% of Asian Americans reside in linguistically isolated households, or homes where no one over five years old speaks English with proficiency. “

Though the article focuses on Asian-Americans, I think this issue with language is a prevalent and debilitating one in most immigrant communities. As someone who participated in ESL as a tutor (and a student), I know first-hand how difficult and frustrating it is for many foreigners who are older to master English. Some are not even literate in their native language, which makes it even harder.