Family, Personal Development, Philosophy

What not to wear, or our desire to make people conform

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Dave Policar cited this post which I rather like and thought I would repost as well:

Today, as usual, $name_radacted got up and dressed herself in a frilly
purple dress, a delicate purple knitted sweater, and blue fleece pants
with hearts on them. Then she came downstairs and did gymnastics for a
while and then we went to daycare and tried to do chin-ups on the adult
tables. I love that. You love it. Everyone loves it. Later in life she
will face unfairness and they will tell her she can't do the rings in
gymnastics and she'll learn that women's hockey is different and that
women's uniforms are skimpy and she'll watch Olympic volleyball players
sliding across the sand in bikinis, but right now she is in a perfect
halcyon moment of freedom and joy.

Here is how it is for boys.
Boys are policed for dress and behavior at two, three years old. I left
a local parent's email list because people kept writing in for advice
on how to stop their three-year-old sons from wearing dresses. It was
couched in this vile language of "I worry about him at school" but
there was not even a breath of "how can I help my son be okay at
school" or "how can I support my son's choices even if school doesn't
allow it." No. It was all "how can I make him stop." In other words:
"Help me enforce the repression I assume will come from his classmates.
Help it come from me."

Let me be blunt: you must never do this.
Never. Parenting styles are different and families are different and
children are different but on this point there can be no negotiation:
you must never do this. You must never do it to your own children, to
your friends's children, to children at the park. You must never
sympathize with other parents who do it. It should be melodrama and
hysteria to say this kills children but we know, right now, that
it's not.

I know it's not easy. I know it's ingrained. I know
it's uncomfortable. I know it's habit. I know other people judge. We
can talk about how and when and practice and flinching away from
conflict. Those are fine. But we are adults. It is hideous and insane
and unbearable that the stakes are this high, but we do not let
children pay our debts just because we can't believe anyone agreed to
those terms. Our embarassment is not more important than a child's
heart.

The comments are pretty interesting, but then that is what I expect of people posting on Dave's blog.

Still, the post above reminded me of one of my favorite XKCD cartoons:

Grownups

Economy

Touchy, Touchy Bankers

4 Comments

I really cannot say it better than Paul Krugman in this case:

A great piece about Wall Street rage
by Max Abelson. Basically, they feel underappreciated [sic]. How dare Obama
talk about fat cats, or suggest that runaway finance had something to do
with the mess we’re in?

Bankers are offended. They speak of betrayal. Feelings have been hurt.

Did our nation’s elite always consist of such spoiled brats? I don’t
think so. We’re in the new Gilded Age — but while the old robber barons
said “The public be damned”, the new ones say “Ma! He’s looking at me
funny!”

And these are the Masters Of The Universe.

By Will Alone, Games

Working on By Will Alone rules, contact me if you want to help play test.

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I am planning to start a gaming space in the basement (if my son doesn't beat me to it), which will allow me to setup a table on which I can run By Will Alone games. More opportunities to test the rules should hopefully lead to me finishing the By Will Alone rules by the end of the year.

If you are in the Boston, Massachusetts area, and want to help me play test the rules, just call or txt me at: (617) 863-0385

Ecology, Economy, Energy

I don’t believe in the death penalty, but …

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after reading about BP & its compatriots desire to increase profits by cutting corners and the resulting human, animal and ecological devastation in the Gulf of Mexico, I'll make an exception for BP and the other corporations that created this mess.

See:

By Will Alone, Current Affairs, Thailand

Thai government begins crackdown

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The Red-Shirts' accepted Prime Minister Abhisit's offer to dissolve parliament and hold a November election, but demanded that Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban to
face criminal charges for his
role in the April 10 crackdown.   Abhisit rejected the Red-Shirts' demand, rescinded the offer of a November election and announced that his government will expel the Red-Shirts from their encampment in the business district in Bangkok.  The Red-Shirts have called for reinforcements.

According to Voice of America, the government crackdown has begun with the shooting of a Thai general who is supportive of the Red-Shirts in their encampment.

Other reporting: Christian Science Monitor, BBC, Times, Al Jazeera, New York Times.  I would have included the Bangkok Post, but I couldn't get to their articles for some unknown reason.

By Will Alone, Strategy & Tactics, Thailand

People power in Thailand undermining government support among the Thai army

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It appears that the Thai government has offered a reconciliation plan that includes an election on November 14th.  The Guardian says that the Red Shirts have accepted the proposal, while the BBC says that the Red Shirts are willing to talk.

There seems to be a group called the Multi-Colored Shirts who are opposing the Red Shirts, though other sources refer to them as Yellow Shirts, the group that used nonviolence to overthrow the previous government, and wants to limit who can actually be in parliament.

The Red Shirts had fortified their positions in Bangkok and halted army forces from entering Bangkok (New York Times though "thailand protest train" gets 405 hits in news.google.com):

… antigovernment demonstrators in the northeast stopped a train carrying military vehicles, underlining the impunity of the protest movement and the government’s weakening control of the populous hinterland.

While the Guardian wrote that army soldiers may not be reliable:

However, there has been speculation that the army is reluctant to move against the protesters again after a failed attempt to clear them from the streets a week ago. The army chief, Anupong Paochinda, has said an election is the only solution to Thailand's political crisis.

Many soldiers, particularly in the lower ranks, are openly supportive of the red shirts' cause. Protesters have nicknamed them "watermelon soldiers", for their green uniforms on the outside and red sympathies within.

Looks like the Red Shirts are undermining the support of the government.

Government, Privacy & Surveillance, War on Terror

What type of government surveillance do you want?

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Over at Volokh Conspiracy, Stewart Baker posted a blog post entitled Times Square bombing — where were the cameras? and posits that it is better to have lots of small surveillance cameras that can only be accessed after the fact instead of fewer surveillance cameras that are centrally recorded and administered.  The comments are pretty good, but this one caught my eye:

… if we’re all soldiers in the war to defend the Constitution against terrorists, some of us are going to get killed in that defense. And some of us will be killed because ‘defending the Constitution’ means observing the limits it puts on government even when violating them might be more tactically opportune.

I’m sure cameras everywhere would be effective; it just wouldn’t be very American.

The musings of Jamie O'Keefe: pirate party activist, geek, father and gamer.