Quotulatiousness

October 15, 2010

Elie Mystal on why bullying should not be a crime

Filed under: Law, Randomness — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:02

As someone who was bullied in my time, I found Elie Mystal’s story resonated for me. I had no real problem with bullies until I was about 10 or 11, when I didn’t grow as fast as the other kids. I was also non-athletic, addicted to books, and had a funny accent — I was probably a gift to the budding thugs in higher grades at school.

My experience was nowhere near as bad as Elie’s, however:

It needs to stop. No, not the bullying — which is unavoidable when more than one male competes for whatever status/prestige/sex is on offer — but the tragic overreactions to the bullying, and the accompanying rush to the courthouse steps.

I say this not as an alpha-male with a caviler attitude towards the feelings of others. I say this as a former omega-male who got the crap beat out of me like I stole something from the age of 7 through the point I realized that no girl would ever mate with a guy who couldn’t basically stand up for himself….

I wasn’t always this big or this strong. As a kid, I was a polite, articulate little boy who did well in school. Or “Oreo fa**ot,” as my friends liked to call me. I’ve shared some of my childhood scrapes before — and I still hate Halloween.

My best story (it’s funny now, I think) involves me trying to walk a girl home from school when I was 12. She was walking, I was walking and rolling my bike, and then the bullies spotted us. As they approached, she said, “It’s okay, you can run.” And I did — I hopped on my bike and booked out of there. They were on foot, so I easily put some distance between us. I looked back and flipped the head bully (we’ll call him “Lewis” because his name is Lewis and he’s in jail now so he can’t read this) the finger. But that took my eyes off the road — and the tree branch in front of me. Bad times. I tumbled, they caught up, and then five kids proceeded to twist my flimsy bike around me. They got both wheels around me, and I had to waddle the rest of the way home. I was a latchkey kid, and I couldn’t reach my keys since my arms were effectively pinned to my body and I couldn’t reach my pockets. I had to sit on my stoop for hours (which felt like days), until my parents came home to let me inside (and take me to the bike shop to free me).

H/T to Walter Olson for the link.

October 13, 2010

“I just taught them a new game . . .”

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:28

H/T to Martina for the link.

September 30, 2010

It’s Banned Books week

Filed under: Books, Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:53

Patricia Wrede had some disturbing discoveries when she tried to look up book banning incidents for a panel discussion:

[. . .] I told them about the teacher who almost got fired when a parent objected to her reading Calling on Dragons in her classroom, because “it taught witchcraft!” I mentioned the fellow YA author who was disinvited from a school visit (these are day-long programs where an author talks to several classes worth of kids and usually has lunch with the teachers, and for some YA authors, they contribute a goodly chunk to their income) because a parent noticed a title on her extensive bibliography that “sounded occult” (it was a mystery, with not a whiff of the supernatural anywhere in the text). I pointed out the well-publicized attempts to suppress the Harry Potter books (the series is #1 on the ALA’s top ten most challenged books of the decade for 2000-2009), and a few less-well-publicized attempts to remove from school shelves things like The Wizard of Oz (because Dorothy is too independent and solves her own problems), The Lord of the Rings (because it is “Satanic”), and Grimm’s Fairy Tales (because the stories are “too violent”).

None of this was, I thought, stop-the-presses news — certainly not to anyone who writes fantasy. But the other writers at the table were shocked all over again. One of them happened to be on the program committee for the regional conference, and she went home and put the panel together.

When she asked me to be on the panel, I immediately said yes, and then I went off to the internet to do some research. I wanted some examples that would hit closer to home. I found quite a lot, but as I looked through the web sites, I noticed something interesting. I live in Minnesota. All of the descriptions of book-banning incidents in Minnesota were from the websites of organizations based in distant states: Florida, Texas, Washington D.C., Georgia.

So I poked a little more. There were quite a few local web sites publicizing Banned Books Week, and all of them did indeed have descriptions of surprising book-banning incidents. Incidents that took place in other states, like Texas, Georgia, and California.

September 29, 2010

Cory Doctorow on what George Orwell got wrong

Filed under: Books, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:03

September 22, 2010

NFL still not setting the right example for concussed players

Filed under: Football, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:20

Gregg Easterbrook shows that the NFL’s thoughts about the proper way to address concussions still haven’t changed:

The core problem is that football coaches at the high school, college and professional levels are rewarded for winning games but not penalized for allowing their players to be harmed. A coach who sits a player down out of concern for the player’s health may pay a price, if a game is lost. A coach who sends a concussed player onto the field may never be penalized in any way if that player suffers another concussion. Human beings respond to incentives, and right now the coaches’ incentive is to be irresponsible with players’ health.

Yes, the culture of football macho contributes to the problem: Many players ask to return to action when battling injury, including neurological harm. But coaches are the ones who make the decisions. They’re the adults in charge. And their incentive structure is all wrong.

Coaches receive money and accolades if they mistreat players and win; they are not disciplined, or seemingly even criticized, if players are harmed. Same for the front office in the NFL, the athletic department in college and the athletic director in high school. If the team loses, the fans and boosters are furious. If players suffer harm, there are no consequences whatsoever for the people making the decisions. And at the high school level, legally they are caring for children!

September 8, 2010

Another side effect of Afghan cultural preferences

Filed under: Asia, Middle East — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:25

Rural Afghans (especially Pushtuns) have very unusual views on the role of women (mentioned here last week). Human nature being what it is, there are substitutes:

It’s after midnight. I’m at a wedding party in a remote village in northern Afghanistan.

There is no sign of the bride or groom, or any women, only men. Some of them are armed, some of them are taking drugs.

Almost everyone’s attention is focused on a 15-year-old boy. He’s dancing for the crowd in a long and shiny woman’s dress, his face covered by a red scarf.

He is wearing fake breasts and bells around his ankles. Someone offers him some US dollars and he grabs them with his teeth.

This is an ancient tradition. People call it bachabaze which literally means “playing with boys”.

The most disturbing thing is what happens after the parties. Often the boys are taken to hotels and sexually abused.

The men behind the practice are often wealthy and powerful. Some of them keep several bachas (boys) and use them as status symbols — a display of their riches. The boys, who can be as young as 12, are usually orphans or from very poor families.

July 29, 2010

BC government finds an issue to distract the media

Filed under: Cancon, Health, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:44

Adrian MacNair linked to this Vancouver Sun article, saying “”B.C. halts penis-arousal test for youth sex offenders” Say whaaaaaaatttt?”

A moratorium has been placed on tests done on B.C. youth sex offenders measuring their penis arousal in response to sexual stimuli after the province’s top child advocate launched an immediate investigation Wednesday.

The device in question is called a “penile plethysmograph” — or PPG. In a lab setting, it is attached to male genitals so technicians can measure changes in “penile tumescence” — essentially erections that reflect the state of arousal in subjects shown photographs of adults, children and even babies in varying states of undress while at the same time being read a story that describes coercive or forced sexual activity.

So, until it came to light, the government was showing provocative images and reading pornographic stories to teenage boys to find out if they got erections during the process? Would anyone be surprised to find that teenage boys found this whole exercise sexually arousing? Teenage boys are hard-wired to find all sorts of things sexually arousing!

The point of the test is to reportedly predict whether offenders have gained control of their deviant arousal patterns through treatment or if they have not learned how to suppress deviance and will be a strong risk for re-offending.

Again, we’re talking about teenage boys . . . I’d be more suspicious if they found that one of them was managing not to react to such stimulus!

Okay, yes, I’m unfairly stereotyping, at least to some degree. But this sort of “test” or “experiment” would be flagrantly illegal if it were being done by anyone other than a government-funded health organization, wouldn’t it?

July 26, 2010

McGuinty’s governing style on display again

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:05

New rules on young drivers to come into effect very soon:

Starting on Aug. 1, this coming Sunday, drivers under the age of 22 in Ontario must have a blood alcohol reading of zero, regardless of what level of licence they possess or how many years of driving experience they have. This is a major change to Ontario’s system of licensing drivers. Twenty-one-year-old drivers, who may be fully licenced and mature and experienced, will be breaking the law if they have a beer a few hours before driving to the grocery store.

And our friendly Ontario government has announced this change in the dead of summer, on a Monday before a long weekend, and given the people of Ontario exactly six days to find out they might be about to break the law. Surprise, kids! You’re a drunk driver now!

[. . .]

How many times does the McGuinty government plan on making mistakes like this this summer? First there were the maddening rule changes surrounding the G20 fence, which weren’t announced and apparently didn’t even exist at all. Then there was the eco-fee debacle, where Ontarians were hit with a tax they weren’t told was coming into effect, with predictable public outcry. But those things may pale in comparison to the completely justified outrage if this government starts suspending licences this weekend. If there is reason to think that this measure will save lives, then I’m all for it, but for heaven’s sake, you have to give people more than six days’ notice.

(Calls placed to the Ministry, and to the office of the Minister herself, were met with total confusion this morning. When asked how the rule change was enacted — through legislation that had been quietly passed, through an order-in-council or through a simple administrative amendment — a Ministry spokesperson claimed not to understand the question.)

Every time the Ontario government does something like this you have to assume either they’re afraid to take any advance heat for new laws and regulations or that they want to ambush as many unsuspecting breakers-of-new-unpublicized-rules as they possibly can. Either way, it’s no way to run a government and retain the support of the governed.

July 16, 2010

Another round of anti-drug hysteria?

Filed under: Food, Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:00

In times of economic uncertainty, we seem to get more off-the-wall panics about other things. Things like kids trying to find legal ways to get high. Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent me this link saying “. . .this is not The Onion! But it is hard to tell. I think I’ll try it when I get home.”

It’s not even news. Nutmeg’s (very mild) hallucinogenic qualities have been known for centuries. As they allude to in the video, the required dosage is so high that it’s the equivalent of smoking a rope: there may be a benefit, but it’s not worth the effort.

Stock up on nutmeg for your ordinary cooking needs, as this inevitably will lead to hysteric calls to ban the substance, or to have it only sold in registered outlets with a log kept.

June 23, 2010

Monty’s summer job recommendations

Filed under: Economics, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:11

Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent me a link to Monty’s “Wednesday Financial Briefing”, which includes some job advice for students:

If you’re a high-schooler looking for a summer job, your best bet looks to be sex slavery, murder-for-hire, selling your blood, or Occult Apprentice to a Master of the Dark Arts. (Teens who have already sold their souls for liquor, sex, or illegal drugs need not apply to the Dark Arts Guild. Teens will be required to promise their souls in exchange for a Guild Card.)

Monty also thinks that Barack Obama will have a noteworthy spot in the histories:

I always thought that Jimmy Carter would remain the gold standard for modern Presidential incompetence and futility. But Barack Obama, the comback kid, has already usurped Jimmah’s spot a mere two years into his term. What wonders still await us as the remainder of Bammer’s term plays out? And Bammer is a young man; he has a great shot at being the worst former President as well, a title also held by the lamentable Mr. Carter.

April 20, 2010

Exactly

Filed under: Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 16:54

Cory Doctorow:

The ubiquitous mobile phone in adolescent hands has meant an enormous increase in adolescent freedom to communicate and to form groups to take action. But it’s also meant an unprecedented (and as yet, largely unfelt) increase in the amount of surveillance data available to parents and authority figures, from social graphs of who talks to whom to logs of movement to actual records of calls and texts.

Will we wake up in 20 years and say, “Christ, how could we have spent all that time talking about how kids were sending each other texts without taking note of the fact that we’d given every teen in America his own prisoner tracking cuff and always-on bug?”

My, what a pretty Panopticon we’ve built ourselves . . .

March 11, 2010

News bulletin: school still sucks

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Education, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:01

Things aren’t improving in schools, as this report from James Stephenson makes clear:

I remember the day they installed the cameras in my high school. Everyone was surprised when we walked and saw them hanging ominously from the ceiling.

Everyone except me: I moved to rural Virginia from the wealthier and more heavily populated region of northern Virginia. Cameras have watched me since middle school. So I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed. “What have we done?” asked one of my friends. It felt like the faculty was punishing us for something. A common justification for cameras is that they make students safer, and make them feel more secure. I can tell you from first hand experience that that argument is bullshit. Columbine had cameras, but they didn’t make the 15 people who died there any safer. Cameras don’t make you feel more secure; they make you feel twitchy and paranoid. Some people say that the only people who don’t like school cameras are the people that have something to hide. But having the cameras is a constant reminder that the school does not trust you and that the school is worried your fellow classmates might go on some sort of killing rampage.

Cameras aren’t the worst of the privacy violations. Staff perform random searches of cars and lockers. Most of the kids know about locker searches because they see the administration going though their stuff in the hall. But not everyone knows about the car searches, all the way out in the parking lot where administrators aren’t likely to be observed. (People don’t often bother to lock their cars, either).

In a world where everyone seems to be desperately worried about dangers to kids, the one thing that’s overlooked is the almost complete loss of human rights: being a student in the public school system means you don’t have many rights at all. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that prisoners in jail have more rights — and better-protected rights — than children and teenagers in school.

Petty acts of rebellion–and innocent little covert activities–kept our spirits up. The school’s computer network may have been censored, but the sneakernet is alive and well. Just like in times past, high school students don’t have much money to buy music, movies or games, but all are avidly traded at every American high school. It used to be tapes; now it’s thumbdrives and flash disks. My friends and I once started an underground leaflet campaign that was a lot of fun. I even read about a girl who ran a library of banned books out of her locker. These trivial things are more important than they seem because they make students feel like they have some measure of control over their lives. Schools today are not training students to be good citizens: they are training students to be obedient.

Of course, obedience must be enforced.

March 4, 2010

Teenagers: Mom was right about your need for a good night’s sleep

Filed under: Education, Food, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:02

I know, you stopped listening to your parents around age 12, but every now and again, they do have useful advice for you:

Only 5% of high school seniors get eight hours of sleep a night. Children get an hour less than they did 30 years ago, which subtracts IQ points and adds body weight.

Until age 21, the circuitry of a child’s brain is being completed. Bronson and Merryman report research on grade schoolers showing that “the performance gap caused by an hour’s difference in sleep was bigger than the gap between a normal fourth-grader and a normal sixth-grader.” In high school there is a steep decline in sleep hours, and a striking correlation of sleep and grades.

Tired children have trouble retaining learning “because neurons lose their plasticity, becoming incapable of forming the new synaptic connections necessary to encode a memory. … The more you learned during the day, the more you need to sleep that night.”

The school day starts too early because that is convenient for parents and teachers. Awakened at dawn, teenage brains are still releasing melatonin, which makes them sleepy. This is one reason why young adults are responsible for half the 100,000 annual “fall asleep” automobile crashes. When Edina, Minn., changed its high school start from 7:25 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., math/verbal SAT scores rose substantially.

Furthermore, sleep loss increases the hormone that stimulates hunger and decreases the one that suppresses appetite. Hence the correlation between less sleep and more obesity.

So, even though the temptation is to stay up as late as you possibly can . . . don’t. You’ll actually notice the difference the next day.

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