INTERESTING TIMES

Bruises fade and skin heals, but the mind remembers. Physical punishment is still prevalent among US families. This study found the prevalence of physical punishment without "more severe child maltreatment" was 5.9%. Boys get physically punished more than girls, 59.4% to 40.6%. Blacks get beat more than whites. Asians and Pacific Islanders (including native Hawaiians) were the least likely to get whupped by their own parents.

The harsher the physical (or emotional) punishment was, the higher the odds of an axis I or II diagnosis. Axis I diagnoses include major depression, dysthymia, mania, mood disorders, phobias, anxiety disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse or dependence. Axis II diagnoses include several individual personality disorders and cluster A and B disorder diagnoses. The researchers concluded that 2-7% of all mental disease is attributable to childhood abuse.

SOURCE
http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/767353?src=cmemp
( the stats )

America produces remorseless killers in bulk. One hundred years ago, Jack the Ripper riveted the attention of the Western world by doing away with five people. This culture would barely notice such modest exploits--so many have surpassed the quaintly amateurish Ripper that we cannot remember their names, much less their crimes. Squadrons of soulless assassins do not germinate by chance. These avenging Phoenixes arise from the neural wreckage of what once could have been a healthy human being.
--Lewis, Amini and Lannon, A General Theory of Love, p281

This quote out of context may be a little confusing but let me just say that this book explains why we have so many youth who can and do torture and kill other living beings. Without compunction. It has to do with a lack of proper limbic bonding in infancy, and the ensuing lack of development of the communal and familial mammalian brain. Our current cultural climate has everything to do with a multiple generation emphasis on success in the workplace at the expense of family and community, and it has everything to do with horrific parenting practices such as the (supposedly character-building) neglect espoused by Dr Spok.

If nonviolence is a stand, then it would be an attack on violence. But the most visible form of violence is revolutionary and liberational violence. So if you stand for nonviolence, you automatically stand against actual revolution and liberation. Quite distressing! 'No! We are not against revolution or liberation. We are against the other side, the side of the institutions, the side of the oppressors. The violence of the system is much more destructive, much more harmful, although it is well hidden. We call it institutional violence. By calling ourselves nonviolent we are against all violence, but we are first against institutional violence.
--Thich Nhat Hanh

Interesting article on guns this month in Harper's though I don't think you can get the article online if you're not a subscriber. It is written by a fellow (Dan Baum) who got into guns as a fat kid who couldn't run too fast, but he could lay on the ground and shoot a rifle pretty darn good. He grew up to be a liberal, but kept his gun hobby, and recently decided to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. I don't know why, but the laws governing concealed carrying are called "shall-issue" laws.

Baum reports on the concealed permitting class he took in Boulder, CO, and on his experience of the gun-toting culture. I don't think they knew he was a liberal infiltrator who has voted consistently for laws restricting the distribution and use of guns. He gives a pretty good survey of the politics and economics of guns. He also gives some info on who's shooting who, and it seems that armed citizens are shooting a few bad guys, but that shootings overall are on the decrease. I wonder how long that will last. Anyway, institutionally apparently the police are against citizens carrying, but individually Baum found that street cops like the idea of potential backup from citizens.

According to Baum small concealable personal handguns are the one bright spot in the gun market--that and the accessories that allow you to carry concealed. Use of guns by women hasn't increased like they'd hoped it would, and where it has increased slightly is in hunting rifles. Tiny handguns designed for women have not taken off. Apparently there was a huge rush on ammo after Obama was elected, but that fear-driven buying binge has tapered down.

The new frontier for gun advocates, since they've been so successful in gaining "shall-issue" laws in the US, is open carry. Apparently it's already legal to openly carry a firearm in most states, but the goal is to do it enough that people habituate to it, and it is no longer so uncomfortable. Baum tried it and felt like a dick, so he went back to concealing.

Three times now men have been acquitted of rape charges because a jury or judge believed that a woman's pants could not be removed without her assistance. I'm skeptical. Maybe I should get some skinny jeans. I suspect they can be peeled off rapidly and forcibly once the buttocks are cleared, considering that the hips are so far above the top of the jeans. But on the other hand, there are plenty of unfair rape accusations made too, there should be repercussions for wrong accusations. Thank goodness we have the right to a jury of our peers! Too bad so many of our peers have gone stark raving mad.

The circumstances of the Long Emergency will be the opposite of what we currently experience. There will be hunger instead of plenty, cold where there was once warmth, effort where there was once leisure, sickness where there was health, and violence where there was peace. We will have to adjust our attitudes, values, and ideas to accommodate these new circumstances and we may not recognize the people we will soon become or the people we once were. In a world where sheer survival dominates all other concerns, a tragic view of life is apt to reassert itself. This is another way of saying that we will become keenly aware of the limitations of human nature in general and its relation to ubiquitous mortality in particular. Life will get much more real. The dilettantish luxury of relativism will be forgotten in the boneyards of the future. Irony, hipness, cutting edge coolness will seem either quaint or utterly inexplicable to people struggling to produce enough food to get through the winter. In the Long Emergency, nobody will get anything for nothing.

from page 303 of the hardback, author: James Howard Kunstler

The Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan) is tracking the events starting with this post. I got a sense of what is going on from his posts, and you can too if you want, before the corporate news delivers their milquetoast spin. It's not pretty, or safe. The chant you hear repeated in this clip translates to “I will kill, I will kill, those who kill my brother!”. The Green Revolution protestors seem to be organized, and to be obstructing both security forces and the Baseej militia. There are indications that the rebellion strives to remain non-violent. Some police are refusing orders to fire on the protestors. But still the bloodshed is increasing. It appears that Mousavi may have been martyred. The videos reveal that no matter how awful the violence becomes, the people are determined to document their situation and reveal the barbarism to the world. The internet is changing things. Back in 1979 there was no such information transfer. Ashura (the holiday) has a theme of resistants to tyranny to the last drop of blood, and it seems to be a driving force in the timing of this rebellion.


If the link above, to the beginning of the Daily Dish coverage of this event, has failed to work, try this one: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c45669e201287683b7d8970c