I’m not quite sure what it was, but there must have been one, because the AGI health checks on indigenous children in the NT last year did not record a single case. (Update: this claim of zero cases of trachoma recorded, taken from the post linked to below, has been contradicted, although the rate recorded is still extraordinarily low.)
Fred Hollows must be causing a scene around the Pearly Gates in the way he’s kicking himself for missing such a simple and effective solution to a common cause of blindness that was a special concern to him due to Australia’s central desert regions having the highest incidence of trachoma in the world.
This (long) post is inspired by the tapes of self-styled seduction guru Dimitri The Lover (AKA James Sears) that are being discussed on blogs all over at the moment (or at least linked to with a LOLOLOL!!1!), and the arguments as to whether they are genuine recordings of a creep or performance art from a guy engaging in viral marketing for a movie. I’ll get to them later, but first a little about the background of the “seduction community”, because Sears claims to be a different kind of seduction guru.
There’s been a lot written about the seduction community (AKA players/PUAs (Pick Up Artists)) in the last few years, and it’s worth emphasising here that most men join these (largely online) communities because they are simply looking to gain more confidence when interacting with women, that there’s nothing wrong in principle with seeking sex without commitment for either men or women as long as everybody’s being emotionally honest and physically safe/sane, and that most of these men probably do ultimately want a committed relationship one day. These points are usually clouded by the best-known Community gurus emphasising cynical bedpost-notching above all (and making a lot of money talking about the ways that their special techniques allegedly make women powerless to resist them).
One of the aims of the Community is to correct a common problem for inexperienced men - an overly romantic view of women as sweet, pure and sexually demure that makes these men overly hesitant and overly eager to please. The Community doesn’t tend to mention that this package usually includes a belief that sex is inherently dirty, resulting in a side-serve of self-loathing for their desire to defile women, which is the part of their attitude that is most offputting, rather than the common plaint that the men are just “being too nice”.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with correcting the pernicious stereotype that sex sullies women and that men must supplicate and compensate women for their dirty male desires. Done properly it can lead to a more realistic, relaxed and confident style of social interaction that both sexes can appreciate. Unfortunately, instead of moving away from gender-stereotypes to view women as people with highly individual wants and needs (that often do actually include sex for fun with the right person at the right time), what tends to happen in the Community is that one gender-stereotype is replaced with another: women as fickle, emotional, selfish and easily manipulated. The idea that sex demeans women remains, but is recast as sluts deserve to be demeaned. Then the Community wonders why folks (not just feminists) find fault with their collective wisdom. Continue reading ‘Cognitive dissonance in the Seduction Community’
And she’s all alone at the office today! I would have left a comment on that post, but the Haloscan commenting system won’t let me. Seeing as I would hate for her to think that no comments means that no-one cares, I’m saying it here instead, via the Fab Four.
Never mind that he wasn’t even born, add her to the many victims on the Obama Death List, which miraculously includes the name of a man who was also apparently part of the Clinton Body Count 10 years earlier. (That comments thread on the first link is a mess due to heaps of comments being despaminated after multiple repostings, but there are some amusing nuggets.)
Some of the entries appear to be quite obviously originally intended as ludicrous jokes, but it comes as no surprise that it’s being passed around uncritically by some anti-Obama partisans (although to their credit, most of the big Republican-leaning sites have quickly had it shot down as a hoax and Free Republic even took it down entirely).
The opening:
Good God, David, his body count has almost surpassed that of the Clintons! See http://www.etherzone.com/body.html..
I wish this wasn’t true, but I checked it out on Snopes and they confirmed it. Please send this to as many people as you can, especially those who might be thinking of voting for B. Hussen Obama. We cannot have a man like this in office.
The Obama Death List
The following is a partial list of deaths of persons connected to Barack HUSSEIN Obama during his time inside the United States. Read the list and judge for yourself…
I could have used many harsher terms, but I was exhausted from outrage and despair after reading his latest, and couldn’t really give him my best invective.
Apparently, despite decades of study from medical and childhood health professions, Michael Savage knows better than all of them when it comes to autism. (Like so many of his fellow cultural warrior pundits, an awful lot of it boils down to WIMMIN R DOIN IT RONG (AS USUAL (COZ WIMMIN R LOOSRS)), but there’s a nasty side-dish of JUST SNAP OUT OF IT)
That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’” Savage concluded, “[I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.
So some politicians have finally noticed that when one group of people define torture so that it includes waterboarding and another group defines torture so that it excludes waterboarding, then the word torture itself becomes stripped of substance in terms of the debate over the ethical and humane treatment of prisoners (let alone which techniques are actually effective at intelligence-gathering).
The imputation is clear. The Rudd Government education “revolution” involves continuing with the unfair funding arrangements of the Howard government. Why? This can be explained by a simple political calculus, which suggests that the Government has more votes to lose than to gain by a level funding playing field as operates in most OECD countries. This is where private schools receive public funding only on the condition that their total spending per student is no higher than for government school students.
It is not to denigrate government schools to point out that they educate most of the “at risk” students. It is irrefutable that each dollar spent on these schools will generate a much bigger pay-off in economic and social terms than a dollar spent on non-government schools, which are already better resourced than government schools.
Combine this failure to ensure a more level playing field with the fiasco enveloping the plan to give all school kids a computer and the current government’s education policies are looking more shambolic every day. I knew that this centrist government was never going to sort out everything on my progressive wishlist, but I thought they’d do better than this.
I can’t think of anything in particular to add to Senator Bartlett’s summary, and totally agree that the best recommendation of the report is the one advocating “more comprehensive education programs on sexual health and relationships”.
Implementation of such comprehensive education would do more than just help address the way in which children are sexualised, it would also help people generally be more rational in weighing up their options in pursuing sexual liasons and relationships, which should also improve matters such as STDs, unplanned pregnancies, and maybe even the separations and divorces that are due to the disappointment of unrealistic expectations.
The report also offers recommendations for industry guidelines and ethical codes, but Bartlett, while acknowledging the importance of particular aspects of our media culture, is not so sure that they are the most important arena for tackling the problem. His major points that aren’t being discussed enough in the overall debate: Continue reading ‘Senate report on the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media’
It appears that some folks here really like a good old rant. I understand that, being a great respecter of the cathartic power of a good old rant myself. It just appears that some of our ranters need a bit of corralling if they’re not to deafen others trying to have a quieter discussion.
So, to keep people busy over a winter weekend, this is an invitation to readers to offer up a rant. However, this is not Rant Club where anything goes. This is Rantledon, and there are rules and a code of etiquette, and everyone watching has an opinion on your serve. Queensbury Rules of Stoush, if you like.
Update July 3rd: the Medical Board has now approved the registration of the recruited doctor. Now they just have to get him sorted with a Medicare provider number and he can start providing care to Dorrigo.
* * * * *
From today the two doctors who service the population of Dorrigo are on strike, and at least one of them has resigned from the local hospital as part of their protest: they will continue to attend life or death emergencies and to provide palliative care for the dying, but anyone else in need of medical attention who can make it down the mountain alive to the hospital in Coffs Harbour will be sent there.
Their reason? After finally successfully recruiting a third doctor to alleviate their horrendous workload and provide better services for the Dorrigo community, their overseas-trained recruit (now an Australian citizen) has not been able to gain approval for his registration as a General Practitioner, without which he cannot come and practise in Dorrigo. This final piece of paper was originally supposed to be issued in April when he passed his Board assessment with flying colours, but there has been bureaucratic delay after delay, based on a (ETA) compulsory and arguably inappropriately rigorous assessment of his English competency when he has been working in hospitals here effectively for the last 6 years.
Dr Herb and his colleague just heard that the approval of the registration application has been further delayed until at least the 2nd of July. Unsure of whether this will merely be delayed again, they have declined to renew the lease on the accommodation they had secured for their recruit and his family, as they have been paying hundreds of dollars a week on an empty house since March while waiting for the paperwork to be sorted out, and are unwilling to keep on doing so with no promise of a timely resolution. Suitable accommodation is difficult to find in Dorrigo, and they now don’t know whether, when their recruit is finally approved for registration to practise, they will be able to secure him appropriate accomodation at that time.
In utter frustration, they have decided to go on strike.
Well, hasn’t it been a busy week or so for NSW Minister John Della Bosca and his wife, Federal backbencher MP Belinda Neal?
Of course, for the last few days we’ve only been hearing about her, despite Della Bosca’s documented history of multiple traffic offences leading to a revoked driving license and allegations that he was part of the alleged drunken and abusive behaviour in a Central Coast nightclub last weekend.
Last month Della Bosca’s licence was revoked for six months following a series of speeding offences, after which he reportedly swore at a newspaper photographer for taking pictures of him riding a bicycle.
Yesterday, he refused to speak to irate teachers who invaded his office to vent their fury at the Government’s decision to change the rules under which school principals hire staff. [source]
Perhaps the newspapers are a bit bored with Della Bosca’s temper, plus although people like to lampoon him he’s simply not that easy a target for anything more (such as collecting a political scalp for the editor’s wall), due to the degree of power he wields in the NSW Labor party. But his wife doesn’t have the same powerbase behind her, and besides - a woman with a filthy temper, there’s a news story with legs - cue hordes of gleefully chortling editors. Neal’s excesses have made the international newspapers now, which gives us a very pithy summary of the key points that are being latched onto for the news cycle: Continue reading ‘Power couple politics NSW style and the alleged disciplinary double standard’
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Their reason? After finally successfully recruiting a third doctor to alleviate their horrendous workload and provide better services for the Dorrigo community, their overseas-trained recruit (now an Australian citizen) has not been able to gain approval for his registration as a General Practitioner, without which he cannot come and practise in Dorrigo. This final piece of paper was originally supposed to be issued in April when he passed his Board assessment with flying colours, but there has been bureaucratic delay after delay, based on a (ETA) compulsory and arguably inappropriately rigorous assessment of his English competency when he has been working in hospitals here effectively for the last 6 years.
Happy Birthday to Mindy!
And she’s all alone at the office today! I would have left a comment on that post, but the Haloscan commenting system won’t let me. Seeing as I would hate for her to think that no comments means that no-one cares, I’m saying it here instead, via the Fab Four.