Mis-use of taxpayer money

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I was intrigued by an article in the Washington Post, which reported that most US Catholic parishes had applied for taxpayer money, namely the small business stimulation package handouts to help them through the virus epidemic.  13,000 Catholic parishes have received our money out of a total of about 17,000.   In the first round 6,000 actually received money; 3,000 did not. In addition, 1,400 Catholic elementary and secondary schools have received paycheck protection money.

I don’t object to help keeping schools open – the children come first, just as long as they are taught critical thinking.  Ahem!

But why should our tax dollars be used to keep Catholic churches open, along with their regional hierarchies?  The history of religion and the church corruption (not to mention sexual adventures) over centuries needs no elaboration on this blog, but since Catholic priests an bishops weekly anathematize non-believers like Epicureans and suggest they are headed to Hell, I believe in their right to get everything wrong, but not to use my money doing it.

Tell you what –  get some valuations on the incredibly valuable art in the Vatican museum, sell some artwork  – and do some good!

Glasses are forbidden

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Tokyo

Thousands of Japanese women have taken to social media to share their experiences of being discouraged from wearing spectacles at work since the practice was exposed in two recent reports. It turns out that a range of firms tell their female employees not to wear glasses, including a domestic airline that cites “safety” issues, retailers who claim bespectacled shop assistants give a “cold impression”, and restaurateurs who think glasses sit uneasily with traditional Japanese dress. (The Week, 15 Nov 2019)

My excellent physical therapist is Japanese, married to an American. Over a period of time she has unburdened herself about the still-rotten lot accorded to women in Japan.  For instance, her mother used to get up at six a.m, prepare breakfast for her husband, then drive him to the station. Returning home she would wake the children, help the youngest get dressed, prepare packed lunches for the three of them, and cook a full breakfast for the three kids, and drive them to school. She would then return, make the beds, do some housework, make breakfast for herself  – and then drive to work.

What has this to do with spectacles?  It illustrates the pervasive and traditional lot of the Japanese woman, expected to do everything and still look dainty and pretty, without spectacles!  Were Epicurus alive today I think he would be an advocate for gender equality, as we should.

 

We need those immigrants!

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The chaos of the last several weeks have put a few things into stark relief. Two of the most obvious: who actually does the work essential for our world to function and how little value the wealthy put on this work.

In industries like meatpacking, the corporations that our wealthy run are forcing a mostly immigrant workforce to choose between their livelihoods and their lives. But workers are showing the world where the power lies. More than 160 wildcat strikes across the United States, the labor outlet Payday Reports details, have flared, mainly unreported,  since the beginning of March

On the May 1 International Workers’ Day, meanwhile, employees of companies like Amazon, Target, and Instacart went on strike to demand better protections from companies that have watched their revenues soar while workers sicken. Meanwhile the idea of a rent strike is catching on.  These movements are getting little media attention. (Chuck Collins for the Institute for Policy Studies and Inequality.org)

My take:   The US Government’s policy is to get rid of immigrants, especially the undocumented ones, keep newcomers out, and abolish Obamacare, which may be imperfect and barely adequate in international terms, but is a literal lifeline to millions.

For a start, there are few Americans who are not descended from immigrants, mostly desperate and poor, and, like the former migrants, simply wanting safety and a living. And the very nature of the American capitalist system requires low wage workers, on whom we all now depend because they are YES! profitable to employ. But their low incomes will preclude them getting adequate care from a hugely expensive and Wild West healthcare system, which, if Obamacare is scrapped, will mainly benefit the well-off and, of course, entitled political donors.

Epicurus, notable for his civilized attitude to slaves, would advocate for a decent deal for immigrants – a living wage and access to affordable health.

Religious freedom

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I have resurrected the following  two year old news item because it has relevance for Epicureanism, the rights of women and the irrationality of outdated religious practice:

“A national conversation is needed in Sweden about “where the limits of religious freedom lie”.  Judging by the stunt in 2018, pulled by the conservative newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, it is teachers at Swedish kindergartens who most need to be part of it.

“The paper got a reporter, posing as the Muslim parent of an incoming kindergartner, to phone 40 preschools and ask staff to please make sure that her little girl wore her headscarf at all times, even if she wanted to take it off. And a shocking two-thirds said they would: several even offered to film the child to prove the stricture was being enforced.

“Sweden’s national preschool curriculum is “very clear that the values guiding school activity must include individual freedom, integrity and gender equality”. How can forcing girls into headscarves or veils comply with this requirement? The Islamic scarf or veil isn’t just another garment: it is arguably a symbol of women’s “submission to men”. If a girl rejects the scarf, for whatever reason, that should be her choice. Our teachers must have the courage “to put a foot down against patriarchal and oppressive behaviour”. We can’t “allow oppression in the name of tolerance”.   ( Galán Avci, Aftonbladet, Stockholm, June 2018)

My comment: how can you expect a little girl of 6 or 7 years old to go against her parents or her teachers and refuse to wear a headscarf?  At that age children are conformists, doing what other children do and what their parents want.  And if the parents want it, what right have teachers to intervene?

What you can do, but at an older age, is to discuss the issues of “patriarchal” practices and let the children choose when they are more mature.  A class discussion about why moslem women have this cultural  habit might get them thinking for themselves. This is  the best way of doing it.  My personal view is that head scarves are outdated.  If a man is turned on by the sight a young woman’s hair alone there is something weird going on in his head.  Epicurus believed in equality, not treating women as second class citizens.

Welcome to a world of neontocracy. A review of “Raising Children”

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We live in a neontocracy, a world that revolves around the needs of children far beyond the basics of food and material comfort. It seems vital to maintain children’s happiness, status, self-esteem and protection, and to provide constant stimulation.

Anthropologist David Lancy of Utah State University (who coined the term neontocracy), writes that modern parenting bucks the historical and ethnographic record. In “Raising Children”, he picks apart the good and bad in this parenting.

Abandoning harsh practices (sending the kids into the forest in hard times, or enslaving them) is surely good, but the new ways can leave many “kidults”, ill-prepared to enter a complicated, adult world and even feed rising levels of mental illness, stress and suicide. 

 A strong emotional and physical attachment to at least one primary caregiver (parent, aunt, adopter and so on) is said to be crucial. Yet for most of history, and across all cultures to varying extents, the emphasis was for the mother not to get too emotionally invested in a newborn or young infant who might die or sap her energy and health, and consequently the well-being of the family or community.

Centuries ago, high infant mortality gave Western societies a more utilitarian view of the cost-benefit of children. Lancy cites a 6th-century Frankish law which decreed that the fine for killing a young woman of childbearing age was 600 sous, compared with just 60 sous for a male baby and a mere 30 for a female one.

Modern practices  such as co-sleeping, on-demand feeding and constant parent-child play – now associated with attachment parenting, should serve both parties well or be abandoned. “We must not let the pendulum swing so far that other family members, or even the very fabric of family life, must suffer to stave off the dubious threat of reactive attachment disorder,” Lancy cautions.

And another problem:  the “everyone’s-a-winner” mentality is doing children, society and the economy no good. Obsessed with children’s happiness, US parents, “tolerate mediocre academic performance and rail against teachers who expose our children’s failings”. In Connecticut, he says, teachers are banned from marking pupils’ work with red ink to avoid damaging their self-esteem. While parenting styles promoting achievement and compliance with social or family rules, like that of the “Tiger mother”, are met with a backlash.  But as Lancy notes there is no evidence that high-achieving children are at particular risk of harm. But this doesn’t mean we need more schooling or formal education. Our forebears thought learning through observation, play and autonomy were critical. In our quest to shield children from harm, we may be undermining their natural inclination to learn adult survival skills, social and practical, and so extending childhood and “failure-to-launch”.  Benign neglect is a better pathway to having a well- adjusted child.

Children and adults can be creative throughout life by learning how to harness kids’ passions through collaborative projects and play – it fosters creativity. 

We need a balance between freedom and structure to encourage creativity.   Play – and the freedoms it unlocks – is  key. For the good of all and for maximum creativity, it is time to unwrap the seedlings from the cotton wool in which we have enwrapped them, plant them in rich soil and make sure they don’t grow up into another generation of overprotected kids.

( An edited and foreshortened version of a review in New Scientist by Shaoni Bhattacharya of.  “Raising Children: Surprising insights from other cultures“ by David Lancy, published by Cambridge University Press, and “Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating creativity through projects, passion, peers, and play”  by Mitchel Resnick, published by: MIT Press).

My take: what I perceive is a mass self-absorption (or selfishness) on the part of the young.  They are apparently not being taught consideration and care for others.  This bodes ill for a world facing the huge disruption of climate change, when working together and thinking of other human beings will be needed to get the human race through that further crisis.