Wednesday, January 29, 2014



Yet More Sexual Insanity

One can argue that the past century has been one grand social experiment to see what life would be like if we kicked God and transcendent moral values out of the West. Well, the results are in, and it is not looking very good. When we ditch the one certain source of objective morality and absolute truth, mankind is simply left to its own devices.

We end up making things up as we go along, and everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Anything goes, and this is especially true in the area of sexuality. All boundaries are cast aside, and every kinky and bizarre thing imaginable is engaged in and sanctioned.

Everywhere we see the brave new world of unbridled sexuality. And despite what the sexual libertines say, we all suffer as a result – especially children. When we manage to foolishly convince ourselves that absolutely anything goes when it comes to sexuality, then there will always be plenty of losers.

So let me offer another handful of cases, beginning with this shocker from Italy: “Italy’s highest court has overturned the conviction of a 60-year-old man for having sex with an 11-year-old girl, because the verdict failed to take into account their ‘amorous relationship’.

“Pietro Lamberti, a social services worker in Catanzaro in southern Italy, was convicted in February 2011 and sentenced to five years in prison for sexual acts with a minor. The verdict was later upheld by an appeals court. But Italy’s supreme court ruled that the verdict did not sufficiently consider ‘the “consensus”, the existence of an amorous relationship, the absence of physical force, the girl’s feelings of love’.”

So in Italy the judges have no problem with paedophilia. Great. Of course we are doing our best to turn young children into sexual dynamos, so I guess this should come as no real surprise. Consider what they are doing to little children in New Zealand:

“A new graphic sex education program aimed at five-to-12 year-olds has been launched in New Zealand, drawing sharp criticism from parents who are shocked at the material covered. The Every Body Education program provides both in-school and out-of-school programs for children aged between 5 and 12-years-old.”

Basically nothing is left to the imagination here it seems. And never mind that no 5-year-old that I know even remotely has sex on the brain. These sexperts think we must fill our kids’ heads with all things sexual. But some parents at least are fighting back:

“One mother Carla Smith, who attended a Health Curriculum Community Evening at her child’s school in November, was disturbed the program was even being considered by her children’s school. Smith said she believes that a ‘one size fits all approach’ is ‘inappropriate’ in the school setting.

“Discussion around sexuality ‘should be introduced at home by parents at an age they determine appropriate for their individual children,’ she told 3News. ‘I just think you’re placing seeds in their head which they may not know what to do with. Who knows where those seeds are going to go in the future, and in what directions they’re going to turn?’ Smith said.”

And elsewhere we see the bitter fruit of all this. With so many Western men addicted to porn, the worldwide trafficking of children into sexual slavery is on the rise. A recent report from Cambodia makes for sickening reading, but we must be aware of what is happening. It begins:

“When a poor family in Cambodia fell afoul of loan sharks, the mother asked her youngest daughter to take a job. But not just any job. The girl, Kieu, was taken to a hospital and examined by a doctor, who issued her a ‘certificate of virginity.’ She was then delivered to a hotel, where a man raped her for two days.

“Kieu was 12 years old. ‘I did not know what the job was,’ says Kieu, now 14 and living in a safehouse. She says she returned home from the experience ‘very heartbroken.’ But her ordeal was not over. After the sale of her virginity, her mother had Kieu taken to a brothel where, she says, ‘they held me like I was in prison.’

“She was kept there for three days, raped by three to six men a day. When she returned home, her mother sent her away for stints in two other brothels, including one 400 kilometers away on the Thai border. When she learned her mother was planning to sell her again, this time for a six-month stretch, she realized she needed to flee her home.”

Just how many Westerners are fuelling all this? Other forms of sexual insanity can be found in Europe. They are also, in their own way, so very destructive of children. I have written often before about the sexual madness in Sweden. A recent article begins this way about their creepy social engineering:

“On a sunny afternoon in September, a 5-year-old girl played in a sandbox. The box contained more mud than sand, and as she whacked at it with a plastic shovel, globs of dirt stained her pink dress. But at the Nicolaigarden preschool in Stockholm, no teacher chastised her, and certainly no one told her that girls aren’t supposed to play like that. In fact, at Nicolaigarden, they try not to use the word girls at all.

“Or boys either. One of the most popular toys at the school, for both sexes, is a set of dolls designed to teach about emotions. Each wears a different expression–one smiles broadly, another frowns–but that is almost all they wear. Except for the homely knit hats that top their Nordically blond heads, the dolls are completely naked, which makes it easy to see that they have no distinguishable gender.

“And that just might be a metaphor for what this school, and perhaps Sweden as a whole, is trying to achieve. This is a country in the midst of a dramatic new experiment in gender equality–call it gender neutrality.”

This manic push for total and complete androgyny of course has to simply ignore the basic facts of biology. But radical social engineers do not let such facts stand in the way of pushing their ideological agendas. These coercive utopians will seek to implement their agendas no matter what.

And in the US more evidence of the damage we are doing to children, the family, and society. Consider this amazing news report: “A man who provided sperm to a lesbian couple in response to an online ad is the father of a child born to one of the women and must pay child support, a Kansas judge ruled Wednesday.”

Yes you read that right. The story continues: “Topeka resident William Marotta had argued that he had waived his parental rights and didn’t intend to be a father. Shawnee County District Judge Mary Mattivi rejected that claim, saying the parties didn’t involve a licensed physician in the artificial insemination process and thus Marotta didn’t qualify as a sperm donor, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

“’In this case, quite simply, the parties failed to perform to statutory requirement of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician at some point in the artificial insemination process, and the parties’ self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental right and responsibilities to the child,’ Mattivi wrote.”

What can I say? Welcome to the brave new world of sexual insanity. And it is getting more and more insane each passing day. A decade ago Al Mohler wrote a piece addressing such sexual suicide, referring to all this as “polymorphous perversity”. His thoughts are well worth adding here in conclusion:

“‎The subversion of marriage and the family has extended to law and morality, to authority and to custom. The very habits of human life–the customs and traditions on which civilization is grounded–are now being reversed, marginalized, and discarded in an effort to eliminate all norms by normalizing the abnormal. For those whose agenda is to undermine Judeo-Christian morality and to disconnect Western civilization from biblical norms, there is no better strategy than to subvert marriage, family, and sexuality, and unleash on society an age and culture of polymorphous perversity.”

SOURCE





Cleared in 20 minutes: Businessman who defended his property from fuel burglars and fighting against them with a fence post

A landscape gardener who attacked two thieves he caught trying to steal from his business was cleared of grievous bodily harm in just 20 minutes today.

Andrew Woodhouse, 44, was accused of using excessive force when he broke the arms and legs of one and rugby tackled the other, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

But today the jury decided he had every right to defend his property from criminals Kevin Green and Timothy Cross, who ended up with £75 fines.

The father-of-five had faced a possible life jail sentence - but was found not guilty of two grievous bodily harm charges for the citizen's arrest of two raiders.

After being cleared at Cardiff Crown Court, a relieved Mr Woodhouse said: 'The verdicts show we have a criminal justice that works.  'When people act to defend themselves and their property it will not be considered unlawful.  'The last 10 months have been very harrowing for me, my family and the people I employ.'

Mr Woodhouse has been battling a spate of crime at his company - and sprang into action when his alarm rang after midnight as two thieves were stealing diesel.

Mr Woodhouse grabbed a fence post one was carrying as a weapon - and used it to fight back against them.

He left one with two broken legs and grappled with the other until police arrived.

But he was shocked to be charged with using excessive force in his citizen's arrest - and hauled to court four times before being cleared by a 12-strong jury of the public.

Mr Woodhouse was today celebrating his acquittal after a jury heard the case against him and ruled he was no criminal.

He also runs a machinery and tyre depot two miles from his home near Abergavenny, South Wales, which have been plagued by criminals.

'I have striven to to build businesses to provide a living for me and my family and to provide employment to others,' he said.

'On the evening in question I went to bed hoping to enjoy a good night's sleep. But I was disturbed by a call indicating intruders had entered my business premises.

'I acted to retrieve property stolen from my business and to detain the two people and in the course of the struggle it was unfortunate one of them got injured.  'It was never my intention to to injure anyone that night.

'But it might serve as a reminder to other burglars and thieves that there are sometimes unintended consequences to entering property in the dead of night.

'When in the past I have suffered thefts and burglaries I have called the police. On this occasion I did not have the chance to call them.  'I am pleased I managed to apprehend the thieves asnd pleased they were brought to justice.

'Over the last 10 months I have been fortified by the enormous support from family, friends and others who were aware of my case.   'Their support helped me no end and allowed me to gather the strength to stay strong and focus on defending myself.

'I would like to extend my thanks to all those who have assisted me in very difficult circumstances.'

Mr Woodhouse said he has repeatedly been a victim of crime at his gardening company costing him £30,000 over the past five years.

He proclaimed he was fully justified in keeping hold of the two burglars until police arrived.

Kevin Green, 53, and Timothy Cross, 32, tried to escape into a neighbouring field with jerry cans full of stolen fuel.

But Woodhouse chased Green - and caught him near their getaway car. He then attacked Green leaving him with two broken legs and a broken arm.

The court heard he then chased Cross before rugby-tackling him. He lay on top of the raider until police arrived.

Prosecutor James Wilson described it an 'unreasonable and unlawful assault.'  He said: 'It was not reasonable self-defence. Mr Woodhouse lost his temper and went over the top.  'He is a hard-working businessman but he has let his frustration get the better of him. He lost it.'

Mr Woodhouse said he was 'gutted and sickened' to learn the extent of Green's injuries.

The court heard officers found Green lying injured under a blanket - and Cross claiming the businessmen had gone 'over the top'.

Mr Woodhouse employs six staff including two of his sons at the family business, which was set up 20 years ago.

The court heard how he didn't feel like officers had given him enough assistance when he had been the victim of crime.

Green and Cross were charged with theft and later given £75 fines by magistrates.

Mr Woodhouse's eldest son, marine Josh, 24, said afterwards: 'This prosecution should never have been brought.

'My father was doing what every right-minded person would do- protecting his family and his property.

'The stress it's caused him and the whole family has been unbelievable.'

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said later: 'Andrew Woodhouse was charged with grievous bodily harm with intent after careful consideration of all the available evidence.

'Our decision to charge Mr Woodhouse was taken in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which requires us to be satisfied that that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and that it is in the public interest to bring charges.

'In light of the evidence, including the injuries suffered by one of the intruders, it was the prosecution case that Mr Woodhouse's actions during the incident went beyond what the law allows for in terms of self-defence.

'We therefore decided that it was appropriate to bring the matter to court so that a jury could determine the issue.

'Ultimately, all evidence relating to criminal cases is tested during the trial process, with the jury being the final arbiters of guilt or innocence.  'We respect the jury's decision on this matter.'

SOURCE





Keep your wife happy... spend more time at work: Husbands should do longer hours at the office, study says

The key to a happy marriage is spending less, not more time with each other, it seems.

For if he wants to improve his wife’s quality of life, a husband should spend longer hours at the office, researchers claim.

The more overtime he does, the healthier she becomes, with wives benefiting most when husbands work more than 50 hours a week.

However the study, published in the journal Social Forces, found that men are doomed to the short straw either way.

For when wives work long hours, house-husbands’ health suffers – because the weight of domestic chores means they do not get enough time to exercise.

The US study set out to discover the effect on family life of greater labour market equality between the sexes since the 1970s.

Researchers studied the relationships of nearly 4,000 middle-aged men and women between 1979 and 2004. Healthiest were women whose husbands worked more than 50 hours per week, while the lowest scores were for men whose wives worked between 41 and 49 hours.

‘The greater income brought in by men’s longer hours may be protective of women’s health,’ the study said.

‘In contrast, men whose wives work moderately long hours are particularly less likely to spend as much time on vigorous exercise or sports, such as running, swimming, or bicycling.’

The authors, from the Universities of Texas and Indiana, said wives whose husbands work long hours may have enough money to pay cleaners, giving them the time to get fit – but women’s wages may not be high enough to afford house-husbands the same luxury.

Campaign group Mothers At Home Matter said: ‘This underlines the true value of the work which women have traditionally done. It remains a huge and all-consuming job.’

David Cameron has come under pressure to bring in transferable tax allowances that would mean a full-time mother could give her income tax-free allowance to a working father.

A limited version for some married couples is due to begin next year, but will be worth only £3.85 a week at most.

Analysis has shown the majority of married couples with children who will be helped will benefit by only £1.30 a week.

A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed that the traditional family, with stay-at-home mothers and fathers who work, is now more likely to be existing below the poverty line than any other type.

In all 10.5 per cent of women now work more than 45 hours a week, up from 9.5 per cent in 2009 - an extra 186,000 people.

For men, the figure has risen from 19 per cent to 19.6 per cent.

The typical male working week is now 36.8 hours compared with 26.8 for women.

SOURCE






Australia:  Censorship by Poetry Editor of Leftist "Little Magazine"

It is a cliche, the way conservatives and so-called progressives are said to regard each other. On the starboard side of political opinion the general view is that the left is simply misguided, many members of its various tribes perhaps capable of better things and deeper thoughts if only someone with time and patience would make an effort to explain it all.

And on the left, where perceptions tend to be rather more simple? Well they just think we’re evil.

Then again, there are also those on the left who might normally be dismissed at a glance but, due to some act of arrogance or idiocy, draw your attention by virtue of sheer, antic inanity. That whine of unctuous self-righteousness, their grasp of higher moralities which they alone may interpret and adjudicate, the tendency to believe that “shut up” amounts to an argument – well, you know the type. Normally, you wouldn’t worry too much about these sorts, as sooner or later most will nod along with some or other epistle in The Age until they are deeply and silently asleep. The 11,381st lecture about the perils of climate change or the joys of gay marriage can have that effect, even on the most ardent.

When such a featherhead is in a position of influence, able to advance or retard reputations and careers at the stroke of a pen, a closer look is warranted, unpleasant though it may be to pore over spite and pettiness in the fetid quarters of their native environment. In this instance the individual is Peter Minter, poetry editor and academic, whose pulpit for proclaiming on the moral worth of lesser mortals is that little-read and much-subsidised quarterly Overland, “the most radical of Australia’s long-standing literary journals.”

As singer, songwriter, poet and sometime-Quadrant contributor Joe Dolce noted on our website over the weekend, Minter informed him in writing and on the record that his verse would no longer be published in Overland, which just by the way of background was blessed with $399,000 in Australia Council grants between 2010 and 2013. The reason: his association with Quadrant. Dolce, who admits to voting Labor last September, was taken aback by Minter’s zeal in appointing himself Australian poetry’s blacklister-in-chief and, as the policy of exclusion sank in, by the thought that the policy might be at odds with the Australia Council’s goals, standards and procedures. He would seem to be right about that, going by the organisation’s mission statement in regard to literary journals:

“The Literature Panel aims are to encourage the writing and reading of Australian literature, to open up opportunities for our writers to earn from their creative work, and to keep the avenues of debate, discussion, analysis and criticism open.”

Nowhere does the Australia Council state or hint that it is acceptable to bar writers who do not happen to hate and detest the same people as the magazine’s editors. Legal minds might also have opinions on whether or not such a threat constitutes a secondary boycott.

Students of the left and its conceits will need no prompting to guess at Minter’s defence of his edict. Writing on the Facebook page of  theatre critic, “best-selling author” and friend Alison Croggon, herself  a recipient of $40,000 in 2013 from the Australia Council’s Literature Board, chaired by Twitter buddy and fellow traveller on the writers’ festival circuit Sophie Cunningham,  Minter in his prolix style laid out a case that might be summed up thus: Quadrant and Nazis, same thing really.

But don’t take our word for it. In his contributions to an entertaining, if increasingly unhinged, debate, Minter stands revealed in his own words. Note the snide jabs at Quadrant’s poetry editor Les Murray in this talk-to-the-hand response to Dolce:

Peter Minter – ” Joe, let me end with a very simple (perhaps brutal) analogy. I hope this goes to the heart of the debate raised about whether poems should be judged on merit, or whether they should be judged also on their political context. Let’s imagine we are in Germany in the 1930s. We are writing what we think are good poems, free of any overt political substance, and we decide to send them to the “Nazi Literary Weekly” for publication, because the poetry editor loves poetry and everyone thinks he is going to win the Nobel Prize and so they all suck up to him in order to gain the satisfaction of feeling that they are being ordained by the holy poet. The Big Poet publishes the poems and everyone feels nice. Nevertheless, and this is the crux, history will shine its irrevocable truth upon the poets who submitted their poems to the “Nazi Literary Weekly” and they will be forever stained by the association.

Have you heard of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger? Heidegger’s philosophy is certainly wonderful and extremely influential and should be considered “on its merits” in the same way people argue that poetry should simply be judged “on its merits”. And yet, Heidegger joined the Nazi party and his reputation, and the reputation of his philosophy, is forever stained by the association.

So you can say whatever you like about how wonderful it is to be published by Les Murray (those of us who know also know that this is not what it seems!!) the fact remains that those who choose to publish in Quadrant will be forever stained by the association (or by being published in Overland, depending on your perspective). You need to get over the adrenaline rush of seeing your name in print, and start thinking about where you want to see your name in print, and what it means.

This is not about limiting freedom of expression. We are in a free society and anyone can start any kind of magazine they like and publish what they want. What this is about is editorial responsibility and making ethical decisions about how and where you chose to publish.

No more correspondence will be entered into. Bye! “

There is undoubtedly compelling evidence of original thought in Minter’s  academic work, but the dog-eared equivalence he preaches between Hitler’s followers and Quadrant’s contributors suggests one would need to wade through it with a keen eye to be sure. By contrast, only an open ear is needed to absorb the pointed inquiries made by then-Opposition spokesman on the arts, Senator Eric Abetz, at an Estimates hearing about funding allocations .

As Abetz observed, it is either a remarkable coincidence that left-wing literary journals keep scoring bags of Australia Council cash while, year by year, Quadrant sees its stipend shrink. Or maybe, as the Senator intimated, the fix is in.

After this latest episode, perhaps someone in Tony Abbott’s government might like to weigh in on a taxpayer-supported literary magazine brazenly refusing to publish the work of those it identifies, to quote Minter’s pontification, as those “who choose to publish in Quadrant [and are] forever stained by the association.”

After that, who knows? Perhaps a full, sweeping review of arts funding, who doles it out and how, and why do some seem more blessed by the Australia Council’s largesse than others.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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