Monday, May 14, 2018



Child psychologist slams woman's claim parents need to ask babies for consent before changing their diaper

Words fail me

A child psychologist has hit out at claims made by a 'sexuality expert' that parents should begin asking children for consent before changing their nappies to foster a 'culture of consent'.

Child psychologist Andrew Fuller told The Daily Telegraph that changing nappies was 'not abusive', but simply a regular part of parenting.

'Families work best when kids trust their parents to do things in their best interest, it's not about consent it's about trust,' he said.

His comments came after Body Safety Australia chief Deanne Carson called for parents to not change nappies without asking for their child's consent first.

My Fuller said the advice was 'impractical' and could not be applied to daily parenting life in a viable way.

'If we don't get consent to change their nappy, do we just allow them to develop a rash or sit there feeling uncomfortable?' he said.

Child behaviour expert Nathalie Brown also spoke with The Daily Telegraph and said babies don't understand the whole concept let alone being able to give consent.

'Babies don’t know what permission is and so trying to teach such a young child about consent in this situation is wrong,' she said.

'If parents didn’t change their child’s nappy every time they cried or were upset then we’d have a country full of kids with soiled nappies.

The ABC also came under fire for airing the segment in which Miss Carson made the comments.

Sky News commentator Rowan Dean slammed the segment, which was aired on Tuesday, labelling it as 'lefty lunacy'.

In the video, Deanne Carson talks about how to establish a 'culture of consent' in homes, starting at birth.

Ms Carson provided an example of how parents can begin to implement the culture when changing nappies.  

She said: '"I'm going to change your nappy now, is that okay?" Of course the baby is not going to respond "yes mum, that's awesome. I'd love to have my nappy changed.

'But if you leave a space, and wait for body language and wait to make eye contact, then you're letting that child know that their response matters.'

Mr Dean appeared to be lost for words after viewing the segment, saying: 'Consent for changing nappies. I'm not sure that would - I think that might get a bit - anyway, I won't go there.'

According to her Twitter platform, Ms Carson is a 'sexuality educator, speaker and author' at Body Safety Australia.

The official website states the social enterprise works to protect children from sexual abuse with whole community solutions.

'We work to ensure that communities work together to create a safer world (online and offline).

'In empowering children with their rights' while educating families and professionals, the burden of responsibility is placed squarely on adults to protect children.'

In a statement provided to Daily Mail Australia, Ms Carson said there are restrictions on when it is appropriate to care for and protect children.

'One in twelve girls are sexually abused before the age of six. Most of those by a family member or someone trusted by the family, she said.

'If the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has taught us anything, it's that it's never too early to tell children that we care for them, respect them and will protect them.'

Social media users on Twitter and Facebook have since questioned Ms Carson's comments made on Tuesday, with some passionately disagreeing with her stance.

Kirralie Smith, who ran as a Senate candidate with the right-wing Australian Liberty Alliance in 2016 and joined Liberal defector Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives party last year, was among those who were outraged.  She wrote on Facebook: 'This goes way beyond lunacy! This is neglect and child abuse!!!!

'Many children never want you to change their nappy. Asking them for consent is a serious indication of severe mental problems. Nappies must be changed to prevent serious skin damage and pain for the child. 'What is worse is the fact the ABC actually spent our tax dollars on this moronic opinion.'   

Another dismayed commentator took to social media to citing: 'The left winged in Australia are seriously impaired to be imposing this BS FFS'. 

On Thursday morning, Ms Carson posted a note to her Facebook page 'Deanne Carson: relationship and sexuality education' explaining further context behind her statements.

Her words included: 'Sadly, some people have chosen to ridicule me (oh no! Pink hair! Must be a lesbian!) and the notion of giving infants bodily autonomy (poo in nappies har har amiright?!)

'Troll me all you want, add to your blog inches, but remember that when you do, you are negating the voices of these brave survivors of sexual abuse.'

SOURCE






Jewish genius abounds but why? The film Australia may never air

It’s the weekend, so here’s a little quiz: what do the following items — the Barbie doll, the condom, the biro, the hydrogen bomb and psycho­­analysis — have in ­common?

Jews.

They were all invented by Jews, as was the cure for polio and the treatment for syphilis, and if that doesn’t have you sitting back in gratitude, how about we give a ­little thanks for Bob Dylan and ­Leonard Cohen?

Maybe not also to Karl Marx — what a seriously bad set of ideas he had — but what about Albert Einstein, Marc Chagall, Marcel Proust and Viktor Frankl? They are Jews and, according to a new and somewhat controversial documentary, so too are 22 per cent of Nobel prize winners, 40 per cent of chess grandmasters, and a staggering 53 per cent of the recipients of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

Statistically, it’s ridiculous: Jews comprise just 0.2 per cent of the population.

How do they do it? To put it another way: Why the Jews?

That’s the name of the new documentary, produced not here of course, because who’d have the guts, but by a Canadian filmmaker, John Curtin, whose distributor is already worried about whether Australians will ever get to see it because, as everyone surely knows, debates about race, they’re tricky in this country.

They’re tricky everywhere. You can’t say this and you can’t say that, when really you should be allowed to say anything.

Curtin, whose previous documentaries include one about Muslim converts in the US prison system and at least three about Britain’s royal family, had a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. ­Judaism follows matrilineal descent, meaning Curtin is not Jewish, but because his father was a Holocaust survivor, he’s always been curious about Jewish achievement, historically and more recently in Israel, where Jews are applying for patents at the rate of 300 per citizen, and where Jewish inventors can lay claim to such gems as the Intel processor and the cherry tomato.

It’s loaded language, but what are they, the Chosen People? Some kind of master race?

See what I mean? You just can’t say things like that.

Curtin says Jewish genius “remains a giant elephant in the room that everyone kind of notices, but no one really wants to talk about it”. He was wary, in making his documentary, of feeding stereotypes — the “crafty” or “clever” Jew, for example — but as Jews know better than anyone, fear is no good reason not to do something.

“I think Jews talk (about it) between themselves, but they don’t really talk to other people about it. That made me curious,” Curtin says via Facebook Messenger (creator: Mark Zuckerberg).

“I realised it was a touchy subject for many of them, but I don’t think anyone who watches the film will feel anxiety about it. My brother-in-law — who is Jewish, from Toronto — he was sceptical, worried about it, but when he watched it, he was touched.”

Curtin concedes that “getting the budget together (for a documentary) is always a challenge” but a lot of broadcasters were particularly leery about this project, because “it’s a brave idea, I guess”. But he got it done, in two formats: the TV version, called What’s With the Jews?, premiered on Canada’s documentary channel in March, and the theatre version, Why the Jews?, premiered in New York in April.

So, what does explain Jewish accomplishment?

“Almost everyone I spoke to mentioned the cultural aspects of Judaism,” says Curtin, “but Jewish accomplishment is so ridiculously disproportionate, it can’t be explained by culture alone. We have to talk about elevated IQ. You can’t have 11,000 per cent of over-representation in Nobel prizes without some elevated IQ.

“But it’s a complex phenomenon: Jews as a group have elevated IQ but how did they get it?”

German-born psychologist Ruth Westheimer tells Curtin in the film that the Jewish religion places heavy emphasis on reading and learning. Also, having been orphaned at age 10 — Westheimer’s family died in the concentration camps — she grew up feeling “she had an obligation to make something out of myself”.

In an interview before his death, the former Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres seems to agree, saying: “Jews have had more history than geography.” Education and skill could not be taken from them as they got shoved around the globe. Historically, Jews have struggled to hold on to property, and therefore didn’t go into agriculture as much as into, say, medicine, which is where the Nobel prizes are.

So, when will we in Australia get to see it?

The film’s distributor, Jan Rofekamp, tells Inquirer that he hadn’t yet found a local host, adding: “Knowing the ABC and SBS very well, I doubt they will have the guts to buy this film.”

To be fair, he may well be jumping at shadows. SBS spokeswoman Katie Morgan says: “It hasn’t been offered to SBS. No one has seen it, so it is hard to speculate as to whether it’s something we would be interested in.” (The ABC said only: “No comment.”)

Curtin is more optimistic, saying: “I don’t know why Jan is so pessimistic. Film Festivals can be a bit conservative, but other films I’ve made have sold in Australia, so hopefully we’ll get a deal.”

He’s studying audience reaction, and says most Jews come away from the film feeling a little pleased with “the family group they’re from, which is how I think of the Jewish people, not as a race, but as a family”.

He’s also noticed that many don’t want to be seen to be boasting because, as the US lawyer Alan Dershowitz — you may know him from the OJ Simpson trial — puts it in the film: “Jewish accomplishment is the other side of the coin of why so many people have historically hated the Jews.”

That’s why it’s best to keep a sweet, dry Jewish sense of humour about it: Curtin also includes a clip from Fiddler on the Roof, in which the protagonist, Tevye, makes this plea: “Dear G-d, I know, I know, we are Your chosen people, but once in a while, couldn’t You choose someone else?”

SOURCE







Michelle Obama Goes Low: Slams The Way Female Trump Voters ‘Think'

Who cares what that dumb old bovine thinks?

On Saturday, Michelle Obama gave a speech at the United State of Women Summit in Los Angeles. The divisive speech continued to divide women based on their political views. Michelle shamed female Trump supporters for not voting for the “most qualified” candidate because she was a female.

“In light of this last election, I’m concerned about us as women and how we think. What is going on in our heads where we let that happen, you know?”

“When the most qualified person running was a woman, and look what we did instead, I mean that says something about where we are,” she stated. “That’s what we have to explore, because if we as women are still suspicious of one another, if we still have this crazy, crazy bar for each other that we don’t have for men … if we’re not comfortable with the notion that a woman could be our president compared to … what, then we have to have those conversations with ourselves as women.”

The Daily Caller savagely points out:

It is, of course, entirely possible that women are capable of independent thought, and are not influenced by the general “sexism” of their Patriarchal community, and in comparing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump decided that they would rather vote for Donald Trump based on any number of factors including, but not limited to, that he was not Hillary Clinton.

It’s also deeply ironic that Obama, at a conference meant to “unite” women, used her speech to criticize other women rather than making even a vain attempt at finding common ground. Feminism!

Maybe Michelle is right. Hillary was the most qualified candidate. The most qualified because she has the most experience controlling the swamp of Washington D.C. The most qualified because she was connected to every media outlet and pundit. Not to mention, Hillary Clinton rigged the DNC and had the entire DOJ weaponized.

Just weeks ago, Hillary Clinton insulted women for being coerced by their husbands, bosses, and sons to vote for Donald Trump.

The Democrats just can’t get away from insulting women and blaming them for Hillary’s loss.

So much for the Democratic Party fighting for women.

 SOURCE





Australian governent's plan to dock welfare for debtors savaged by advocates

Getting money you are not entitled to seems to be OK with the Left

The Coalition’s plan to dock people’s welfare if they repeatedly fail to pay fines has been denounced as a “brutal” measure that will drive those on the lowest incomes into homelessness.

Tuesday’s federal budget delivered a string of hits for welfare recipients, as the Coalition continued its push to glean savings from its social security spending.

There was no increase to the poverty-level Newstart payment, despite the pleas of community groups, and the already overstretched Department of Human Services was targeted with 1,200 job cuts.

The Coalition’s controversial debt recovery program has been extended, and new migrants will have to wait four years, instead of the current two, before accessing Newstart.

Advocates say the most punitive measure is a plan to dock the welfare of people who are repeatedly unable to pay fines. The commonwealth would be able to make compulsory deductions from the welfare of “serial fine defaulters who have outstanding state and territory court-imposed fines”. The government would also be able to suspend or cancel welfare for anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant for a serious criminal offence.

The National Social Security Rights Network has warned the measure will compound the plight of Australia’s most disadvantaged. The network’s executive director, Leanne Ho, said it risked pushing welfare recipients into homelessness or, in some cases, prison.

It also flew in the face of programs designed to ensure the inability to pay a fine didn’t snowball into more serious problems for the lowest paid.

“The same kind of people who generally end up with an amount of fines they just can’t deal with are going to end up homeless or, in a lot of these cases, possibly in prison,” Ho told Guardian Australia.

“It’s probably one of the most urgent measures we want to discuss with the department. The reality of people’s lives when they’re in that position is that things snowball out of control, one fine leads to another, and the capacity for people to deal with those [diminishes].”

The chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie, described the measure as “particularly brutal”.  “People on low incomes are just going to be sent into homelessness,” said Goldie.

“It’s completely out of touch with the reality of people on very low incomes and the capacity for people to pay these kind of fines and debt.” Goldie said anyone who believed last night’s budget was “victimless” was clearly out of touch. “There are clear victims from this budget. It is not a budget for people on a low income, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee essential services,” Goldie said.

It is unclear how much the government is looking to save through the fine recovery measure. It requires negotiation with the states and territories before it can be implemented.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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