Month: September 2026

By on

I found this new interesting outrage in Instapundit. There is anger about the instructions that teachers are giving in a Virginia school distract. The instructions encourage caution and care when teaching 9-11 as there might be different feelings about it from different children. See below:

What I find revealing is that these are the same type of instructions they want given to protect white children from learning about the deeds of their antebellum ancestors. They want to protect white children from feeling badly about people who are long dead and who they never met while telling Muslim children there religion is responsible for the 9-11 attack.

I am not sure why, in one case, children need protecting from learning the truth and, in another, they need to hear the terrible truth?

Wait, I shouldn’t say I am not sure why. I am pretty sure why.

By on

I struggle with Muslim Fundamentalism. In my very limited contact with Muslims here in California, they seem like fine people. They don’t bother me and I don’t bother them. I am assuming they are just regular Muslims and not fundamentalists. I am fine with them coming to the USA.

But the fundamentalist Muslims are a different story altogether. They share the same problem I have with Christian Fundamentalism. Neither group care much for me since I am gay. The recent attack of an Islamic Fundamentalist on Berlin’s Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival reminds me of the danger of fundamentalist religion. It can kill Gays.

I don’t like being a target.

The behavior I see from Muslim fundamentalists is alarming. They do terrible things to their fellow citizens in the West — Salman Rushdie, Charlie Hebbo, Bataclan, Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, and Theo Van Gogh. They are no better when they control governments – ISIS kills gays, Iran executes gays, and Iran executes rape victims who fight back. My worry here is that it is dangerous to disagree with Islamic Fundamentalists. Why would I want to import people who hate me?

This is where things get difficult. I also understand that most Muslims who immigrate to the West want a better life and are not coming to kill me. So what to do?

There seems to be only two schools of thought on how to handle the Muslim immigrant — we shouldn’t discriminate and so let everyone, fundamentalist Muslim or regular Muslim, in or keep all Muslims out.

Neither school seems to be in congruence with Western values. People should agree to maintain Western values in order to gain entry to the West so letting everyone isn’t going to work well at least with the native populations who still hold sway in elections. Nor does keeping every Muslim out — particularly if the person wants to take advantage of Western Values we hold.

A better vetting system should be the answer but then that would require more money. So, like so many of our problems, we are stuck between two extremes — neither of them very attractive.

Another difficult problem. Deep sigh.

By on 1 Comment

It is telling that in all this kerfuffle over AI potentially killing the human race because we are so destructive and irredeemable that the answer is to kill AI. This seems a little like killing the messenger over a unwanted message.

Think about — all these people saying humans are so bad that a totally rational entity, developed by human beings, using only the information that human beings feed it, is going to look at this information and decide — our creators have got to go.

Furthermore, instead of this being a wake up call about our behavior, the experts are saying it is a whole lot safer if we get rid of AI instead of, oh, I don’t know, changing our behavior. We are talking about destroying a life changing tool which could make our lives immeasurably better because we don’t want to stop polluting the earth and killing one another.

Something is terribly wrong here and it isn’t AI.

By on

Judy Sandler, in Huffington Post, made an interesting observation about her reticence to discuss her son’s mental health with others. He is struggling with it but how do you talk about it without causing more, possibly well-meaning but, nonetheless, unwanted follow up questions or invading your child’s privacy.

This leads to a bigger question for me — why is mental health such a forbidden topic of discussion? How is silence helping anyone dealing with mental health? It is a problem that a lot of people experience — either personally or through loved ones. Instead of talking about it, we him and haw, give vague answers that say nothing and undermines any understanding that other people might have about mental health struggles.

There is this hidden shame. My kid is a mess and it is a really difficult time for us. My kid is a failure.

People, by and large, are interested in your life and aren’t nosing around for gossip. It is genuine concern. But it is mental health. We don’t talk about mental health problems. There is this weird connection with good mental health and the goodness of the person. If I tell someone my son is having mental health issues, I have somehow failed as a parent. Alcoholics, schizophrenics, drug addicts, depressed people are all somehow bad people who should be hidden away until they come to their senses.

This silence about people who are suffering with their mental health is damaging. It discourages people from seeking help. It also puts the onus of diagnosing mental health with the person breaking down or their families.

If we, as a country, were serious about mental health — everyone would get a yearly mental health check in to see how people are doing.

But no we would rather wait until a mother kills her children. Or a young man shoots up his schools. Or a depressed person kills themselves. Or drug addicts camp out on our streets. So many of our problems have a mental health connection. An annual mental health check ups would be far cheaper than cleaning up the mess broken people make.

It also might take some of the shame out of seeing mental health professionals. If everyone is doing it we might diminish the silence regarding mental health issues and, more importantly, we might be able to pro-actively address the problems people are dealing with before they breakdown.

By on

Here is my story in the most neutral way I can think to present it. There is a chance I am wrong about my thinking but the facts are correct.

Bob and I go to trivia night at a local winery. We have been doing this for a couple of years. It has become like a Cheers bar for us. We know a lot of the other players in the contest and it is all good fun. At least that is what I thought.

There are some rules. One of which is your team should be no larger than six. We rarely have a problem with that but we have encouraged friends if they are available to come to join us as the more the merrier. This means sometimes it is just Bob and I and, on very rare occasions we slip past the 6 threshold. Most of the time this is no big deal because it is all good fun and the grand prize is two bottles of wine so the stakes are very low — mostly just bragging rights. There is a bit of trash talking between the winners and the losers but, as I said, all in good fun.

Last Thursday, we had 7 players. The sixth and seventh persons came it late at that — the quiz had been going on a good 15 minutes before they even arrived. But yes there were 7 players at our table.

We continued to play but we warned twice that we had 7 players. I explained that one of the people who joined us was basically drinking wine and chatting while the others played. He wasn’t supplying any answers. What were we supposed to do — tell him to go into a corner and drink his wine alone? Isn’t this supposed to be just fun and games?

I am trying to see the other person’s point on this but I am having a difficult time. It isn’t as if we were bringing in scholars from all over the state of California in order to win two fucking bottles of wine. It seemed so petty. First counting the number of people at each table and then reporting the numbers to the Quiz Master so she would have to act on their observation.

Anyway, it bothered me so much that I brought up throwing the quiz in order to avoid any dispute later. Thankfully, we lost.

Now as I type this I am thinking about whether this was a form of gamesmanship. They brought up our breaking the rules in order to distract us from focusing on the quiz. Mother Fuckers, just you wait until next Thursday. I will show you gamesmanship.

Do you see the problem here?

By on

Lindsay Clancy killed her children during a postpartum psychosis breakdown. She then tried to kill herself by jumping out a window which only paralyzed her from the waist down. This is horrible. A nightmare really.

For some reason, people are arguing about it. Some say she should be found non-guilty by reason of insanity; others saying she deserves prison or worse. The vehemence is puzzling. Clancy was in a troubling state prior to killing her children. She also did strangle them. What does justice look like here? Should she suffer in a prison for the rest of her life or should she be free to suffer a free woman in her own home.

The guilty crowd bother me because they are focused on punishing Clancy which seems pointless. Her children are dead. She is paralyzed. Her marriage is over. Everybody in the world knows she is a child killer. Her life is ruined. I guess putting her in prison would make her life just a little bit more miserable. So there is that but all and all any further punishment seems like a waste of time.

The not guilty crowd are focused on the madness of a mother who should have been helped before breaking down and killing her children. Sympathy for a woman suffering under such duress is understandable but it doesn’t change the woman’s actions. Murderers get stiff penalties for their actions. So why not Clancy?

The argument that this could be any woman in postpartum depression is a bit of an overreach. Very few women actually murder their children while in postpartum depression. Clancy is an aberration. So, while postpartum depression affects many woman, it rarely results in the mother killing her children.

On the other hand, not guilty by reason of insanity is, understandably, a difficult sentence to accept. The killer still did the killing. The victims are still dead. She should have to pay for what she did. And, if not Clancy herself someone should? But who? Clancy’s husband? Mental Health Professionals?

The problem is the need to pin the crime on someone. If this person had only done what they were supposed to do, these horrible killings wouldn’t have happened. Some rational behavior on someone’s part would have saved those children. If only that were true.

This need for justice to put the world back into rational order is impossible here. I believe Clancy was a deeply troubled woman who broke down and killed her children. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make sense of her actions or bring justice for her children.

I can live with her going to prison or remaining a free woman. Either way, we left with a difficult problem. Dangerous crazy people. How do we stop them before they act and we are doing absolutely nothing to help the insane or protect their innocent victims. Nothing except waiting for it to happen.

By on

Gloria Steinem died. I found this Daily Beast headline announcing her death a bit mystifying. I had no idea who died and what they were famous for. But I hardly think rallying demonstrators against Donald Trump was really Steinem’s claim to fame. Feminist Icon prominent in the early Women’s Lib movement might have been a better description of Steinem. And, really, why even mention Donald Trump at all. He wasn’t essential to her work in the least. This seems like a bit of misdirected Trump Derangement Syndrome.