It’s Dangerous To Be A Guy on Campus

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I received a letter from the folks at SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments).  They’re a group of people dedicated to improving the effectiveness of America’s approach to solving the problem of domestic violence through education, training, and awareness programs.  Well, they’ve expanded a little and are actively protesting against a new set of rules issued by the Department of Education regarding sexual assault on campus.  I’ve decided to reprint the letter here:

When sexual morality breaks down, lives get chaotic. When lives get chaotic, the government steps in to deal with the mess – and that rarely ends well.

Two recent stories vividly illustrate this principle:

Story 1: Newsweek just released an unusual and provocative set of college rankings. One of the lists – we kid you not – is the 25 “horniest” campuses. These are the colleges “where students have the best odds of hooking up.” This is presented as an appealing feature of these campuses.

Story 2: The Department of Education recently issued new rules telling colleges, in great detail, how they must handle accusations of sexual assault or harassment. The rules in effect strip accused men (students or faculty) of the presumption of innocence and the right to confront their accuser, even when they’re facing expulsion.

So on the one hand, liberals celebrate the “hook up” culture, the ultimate expression of their precious sexual revolution. And the place where liberalism reigns supreme – the American university – is now the scene of sexual anarchy. On the other hand, college boys who have obediently “explored their sexuality” face career-ending prosecution by an academic inquisition that will probe every salacious detail of their intimate encounters. The irony couldn’t be richer.

The results are seen in an illuminating article in Philadelphia magazine: “The New Rules of College Sex.” And we now have the inevitable lawsuit, brought by a young man who was expelled from Sewanee after an obviously fraudulent accusation of rape: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2011/aug/24/sewanee-lawsuit-trial-begins/

The federal rules about sexual assault on campus are such an egregious assault on basic civil rights that a backlash is brewing. (Even the American Association of University Professors has protested.) SAVE is leading the charge against these rules. We advocate for men falsely accused on domestic violence. Your listeners can find our more at our website saveservices.org.

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE)

Pedophilia is Normal Say Some Mental Health Pros

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About 10 years ago, there was a major point I could not get people to see or believe. I said the sole end game of the liberalization of sexuality in our culture was to have sex with children. 

You look at societies throughout history and there are many societies in which having sex with children was okay.  You look at a place like Afghanistan and unless the men want to have babies, they do boys and animals.  This is nothing new on the face of the earth.  But, in western civilization, this is an issue and I said back then the end game was to have sex with kids. 

So, I found an article on Fox News titled “Mental Health Group Looks to Remove Stigma From Pedophilia,” which says:

“A group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals say it’s time to change the way society views individuals who have physical attractions to children.

The organization, which calls itself B4U-Act, is lobbying for changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the guideline of standards on mental health that’s put together by the American Psychiatric Association.”

The DSM is the one where you look up a number for the disorder so the insurance companies will pay.  And, let me remind you for the umpteenth time:  there is nothing in psychology that makes it a science.  What goes in and out of the DSM as a disorder is based on social pressures and voting.  It has nothing to do with science.  I want you all clear…psychology is NOT a science.

“The group says its mission is to help pedophiles before they create a crisis, and to do so by offering a less critical view of the disorder.”

That’s just a bunch of bull and it’s words.  Words sell things, and even “nice” words can be co-opted to do some awful things.

“B4U-Act said that 38 individuals attended a symposium in Baltimore …[and] the speakers in attendance concluded that “minor-attracted” individuals are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized even as their actions should be discouraged.”

I said a long time ago the end game of all this social liberalization (unknown to people even amidst the social liberalization) was to do your kids and not be criminalized for it, and this is what this article refers to.

Many of you may not know or may not remember the American Psychological Association published the infamous “Rind article” in its 1998 Psychological Bulletin.  This was a study which downplayed the impact of men having sex with boys, finding quite a few of the boys remembered their molestations positively, and not every child who has been molested has problems.
 
That’s like saying “I shot you in the head and you survived; therefore getting shot in the head is not a bad thing.”  This article was published by the American Psychological Association, and it said essentially man/boy sex was okay as long as the boys consented, because it was “love.”

I went on the air after the Rind article was published and I was very clear about this article wanting to decriminalize screwing your kids.  Grown men screwing your boys:  “it wasn’t a bad thing, it was a ‘love’ thing.  It’s a cultural problem;  people are just misunderstanding it.”

Well, I went ballistic and I got everyone in my office on the phone to Congress, and I asked the audience to do the same. I want to tell you the upshot, and I’m going to take all the credit for it.  It was my pressure which made Congress condemn the study and the American Psychological Association for the first time in its entire history backed down and apologized and the president of the American Psychological Association found another job.  I am proud to say I had enough power to mobilize enough people.  And Rind and his buddies were still invited to talk everywhere and were still published in other places.
 
Well, that may have happened, but we still have mental health professionals going to a symposium from a group which looks to remove the stigma from pedophilia.  “It’s a cultural thing.”  If the culture allows it, it’s not a bad thing, they say.  It’s not a bad thing for example in Afghanistan.  So, if it’s the norm (like Rome before it fell), what’s the big deal?  This is savage and all I can say is, I warned you.
 
I want you to understand the attempt to normalize screwing your children is still on in full gear.
 
They refer to pedophiles as “minor-attracted individuals.” How benign can you make it?  That’s why I call things as they are.  There needs to be clarity.  When you say “minor-attracted individuals,” you can follow it up with “are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized.”  So, don’t be impressed just because someone is a psychologist or a psychiatrist.  You have to be very afraid because people get into positions of power to change things.  If I were a pedophile and I wanted to get it normalized and not criminalized, I would secretly and quietly get a bunch of my buddies and we’d join the psychological associations and teacher associations –  everywhere there are kids — and get in positions of power.  And then we’d gently start using different words (i.e., words that don’t shock, words that don’t alarm, words that don’t send up red flags) and slowly make it happen.  Remember the Rind study said it was not a problem; kids were not hurt by this.  And the American Psychological Association actually published that.

Work Habits That Work

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A lot of you are struggling with making sure you keep your jobs in this economic climate.  I think the qualities for making sure you keep your job are closely related to the ones you need even if you want to get a promotion, much less keep your job.  So I did a little research on the types of behaviors that keep you employed and possibly even get promoted.
 
First of all, constantly look around and see what else you can do.  A lot of people have a sense of entitlement:  “Well my job description is ‘blankety-blank’ so, you know, I’m not going to put more paper in the copier.”  When I first went through all of the qualities I’ll mention here, I thought about all my peeps.  Each of my peeps has a job description, but when push comes to shove, they each act like the company is theirs.  So if there’s no paper in the copier, well their company doesn’t have paper in the copier so they put paper in.  No one (including me) thinks they’re above doing anything.  I am notorious for cleaning up…they’re always going “here she goes again”.  That’s not in my job description; I am the host.  Heck, we’re all in this together and whatever needs to be done, we do it.  That’s a team effort.  And people who have the team effort mentality do better with their bosses and do better with their co-workers.

Now everything I’m going to say presumes you’re not working for a nutcase.  We leave out the nutcases.  If you’re working for a nutcase, get another job.  Nonetheless, 99.9% are working for reasonable people.  If you behave as though you’re part of the team, everybody will appreciate you, including the boss who will find you indispensable.  “This is a person who will put the coffee on, as well as made the PowerPoint presentation for the CEO of this Fortune 500″…whatever.  So that’s really important.
 
Next?  Be observant.  Pay attention to the people who seem to be doing well with the company.  I ask that question a lot when people have concerns about what’s going on at work.  “Well, who are the people that are doing very well?   Who are the people who are liked?  Who are the people seemingly getting ahead?  Who are the people who have the eye of the boss? What is it they do?  How do they behave?  What do they contribute?  What are their people skills?  Communication skills?  How do they get along with people?”   So observe.  Drop the competitiveness, drop the cattiness and just observe.  What skills, what attitudes do the people doing well have you could take?
 
In addition to being a team player (this may sound counterintuitive, but it’s not) you have to find a way to stand out.  Make yourself indispensable; be proactive.  On my racing sailboat (and sometimes I’ve got 10 to 12 people aboard), we sort of noticed over the years the people who were proactive – who would  look around and see if anything bad was going to happen.   Look at all the lines, is anything crossed?  How do all the shackles look?  How does this look?  How does that look? Where’s the wind coming from?  While being a member of a team, they’re looking at everything.  And, over the years, I’ve become adept at figuring out early on the people who are sort of lazy and just want to be on a boat as opposed to the people who really commit to the team by being aware and supporting each other, which is an important thing: Looking for problems before they happen.  It’s easier to avoid than to repair.
 
You make yourself indispensable by the positive attitude, by being a flexible team player but also looking around, coming up with ideas, and trying to make things better for everybody.  You need to know how and when to have the right conversations.  So, for example, you go to your boss, your manager, your supervisor and you say, “In 3 to 6 to 9 months what would you like to see me doing?” or “What do you imagine for me?” or “What could I work toward?” or you have a friendly conversation (not a threatening, demanding one) where you say, “What do you see?  What could I do for you that would be better?”  So you’re open to what a lot of people take as criticism without being sensitive.  Use it as information to run with.
 
Bottom line, if you seem hell-bent on just getting a promotion, getting power, you’re missing the bigger picture.  You’ve got to focus in on every aspect of your being at work and relationships, because basically going to work is a relationship experience.  You need to know how to get along with people.  And the best way to get along with people is to be solicitous, non-competitive and supportive.  Ask them for advice and their opinions so they feel important to you.  It’s a give-and-take on a very positive level — it is not a family.  It is NOT a family.  Family has certain expectations and people get awfully emotional about that.  But be very aware of showing respect, asking for their input, and offering them help instead of being competitive.

There are lots of practical things to consider. If you come up with something brilliant for the company that they can use, that’s great.  But for the most part it’s attitude, positive people skills, and support. A lot of people get into trouble at work when it all starts to get competitive.  To the contrary, the best thing to do with someone who seems already to be in that mode, is from time to time, say to them, “You know, I was thinking about ‘such and such’.  What’s your opinion on that?”  They stop being competitive when they feel somewhat valued because being competitive is insecurity.  So if you feed the insecurity by fighting, it’ll go south.  If you feed their insecurity by instead bolstering their sense they are important to somebody, that’s going to work really well.

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Tragedy in Norway

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I was in Hawaii after the Transpac 2011 ocean race, doing my program from there, trying to recover, when I heard about what happened in Norway, where this piece-of-crap decided he was going to make a statement by starting a revolution similar to the Crusades to stop Muslim integration and destruction of Europe by Islam.  So to do this, he blew up a government building and killed scores and scores of kids, which of course, makes everybody incredibly sympathetic to his cause.  Now Norway is a liberal country like Holland and Denmark — incredibly liberal. 

Yesterday morning I read that Norway’s maximum penalty for any crime you can commit (no matter how heinous) is 21 years in prison.  So for killing between 80 and 100 people (the number keeps changing), if he’s found guilty, he could spend 21 years in prison which is equivalent to a penalty of 82 days — 82 days — per child’s death.  I have nothing more to say.

You Don’t Need Preschool for Your Kids

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You know how negative I am about anything having to do with preschool, daycare, or any of that.  We’re raising children here.  If you don’t want your kids around, I guess you could use preschool and daycare for that.  If you don’t want to program your life around your kids, you’ll use preschool and daycare to help you.  If you know you are a really crappy parent, you can use them too.  If you are in dire straits and don’t have another option right now (temporarily), I guess you’ll use them.  There are many reasons to use preschool and daycare, but many of them can’t and shouldn’t be supported.

A recent article I read (entitled “Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School“) reported new research showed that trying to “teach” kids at younger and younger ages backfires.  Anxious parents are so eager that their child “gets ahead” that they’ve even taken to reading books to babies still in the womb.  Teachers are pressured to make kindergartens and nursery schools more like school, and even the “No Child Left Behind Act” urged more direct instruction in federally funded preschools.

But direct instruction actually limits a young child’s ability to learn.  Teaching allows kids to learn specific things, but they need more opportunities for exploration and play so they can “discover” on their own.  They need a Mommy and a Daddy to give them a stable, supportive home and lots of love.

Head Start has always been a failure.  I knew it was a failure back in the 1960s.  And now, one study shows that 75% of mothers hand their iPhones over to their kids, thinking that will make them smarter.  App makers are marketing directly to parents who are looking to help their children as young as 4 months old get a head start on learning.  If you type in “toddler” and “educational” into the App Store, you’ll find more than 800 apps specifically marketed to children under the age of 3.  One town in Maine is spending $200,000 on iPads for its entire incoming kindergarten class.  So the question is, do iPads or smartphones or toddler-marketed apps really make young kids smarter?

The bottom line?  NO.  In fact, the American Association of Pediatrics says children under the age of 2 should not be seeing anything on a screen of any kind, whether it’s an iPhone or a television set.

Parents are too often looking for that edge to make their children the smartest.  The most important thing you can do as a parent is interact with your child.  You do not need an iPad or fancy software or a preschool or a daycare to make your child learn.  They do it every day, all day, in many different ways.  Let kids just be kids.

Quote of the Week

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On Hawaii:  The loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean
               – “Mark Twain” (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
                  1835-1910
                  American humorist, writer and lecturer

We Are Cooking!

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Yesterday was leisurely with a little wind, that is… UNTIL we found ourselves in the middle of “squall central.”  Unpredicted high winds and seas continuously occurring from about ten pm last night.  We are cooking, cooking, cooking!

Since seven thirty this morning, I have been driving for an hour then off for an hour.  I am a salt stick.  Hahahaha!  It is three pm and I’m going to take a break.

Last night we had a spinnaker issue.  All the guys got on deck and made it good.

We are very optimistic.

[Transpac tracking is live (no longer 6 hours delayed), so you can watch them as they race to the finish at: http://live.adventuretracking.com/transpac2011]