Back! And stuffed to the gills.

[silveradept]

It was a nice sequence of days to take off. Bookended by some troubles, like losing a glove on the way out and not noticing it until I was at my destination, and coming back, only to realize that I had locked my keys in my car. Luckily, a spare wasn’t too far away, so while the glove is probably gone, the keys were recovered. And then I spent the next six hours catching up on everyone. So now we’re done with that. Paper due tomorrow, plus I need to get some group work into high gear.

Taking thoughts to novel expressions, we have the global warming mug and the lost civil liberties mug, both of which pull a disappearing act when filled with a hot beverage. Also, the I Read Banned Books bracelet. Beyond that, something that should probably be in existence - Nerd Cliff Notes.

The kids are acting older these days. While most parents, I suspect, would not want to force on their kids the route of cutting off their penis and renouncing life, they are a bit concerned that the not-quite teenagers are beginning to act like the teenagers.

I know I’ve linked this before, but it still sums up things the best way I can think of - namely, high school is hell. At that particular point in our lives, it really is a popularity contest, kind of like LiveJournal can be.

I suspect the following article was printed/published simply because people are reacting to the word “Taser”. That said, epileptics having seizures are often treated like they're criminals. In other criminal behavior, vandals who smashed up a church are receiving "love baskets" from the congregants filled with goods. It’s definitely putting “turn the other cheek” into action, but I don’t think the judge will be so forgiving for them.

In other things that have religious overtones, the leader of the Christian Coalition quits - because he can't get them to think about helping the poor and the environment in addition to their anti-gay rhetoric. Sounds like an ostrich problem to me. J.C. himself said that the poor were supposed to be taken care of.

Another good reason to take profiling arguments with a grain of salt - 64-year old female bomber attacks Israeli troops. The person fitting the profile almost always changes to something else, often right about the time you think you have a handle on it. Regarding Iraq, Michael Moore tells us our only option is to get out and start the reparations. P! tells us this is why they hate us, George. Maybe W is getting to realize this, and has been strangely silent on the matter for a bit while he rethinks and decides he’s going to help bring about the will of the people by recalling the troops? We’ll see in the upcoming months.

Which reminds me. It’s nearly December already, isn’t it? Another year went by while I wasn’t really looking at it. One of these days I’m actually going to have to notice the time passing by. I’m sure that by letting it slip through my fingers like this, I’m missing out on something big. Anyway, it’s bedtime. I have stuff in the morning.

Comments

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

Because they're 11 years old and shouldn't be having sex at all, much less in the woods?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Here we get into the nebulous use of the word (or should that be 'the use of the nebulous word'?) 'shouldn't'.

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

Well, simply from the perspective of the camp, they would almost certainly be subject to extremely large lawsuits from one or both sets of parents for allowing it to happen.

From a moral and psychological perspective, if you honestly think 11 year olds are ready to have sex with each other, I think we have a much larger conversation about developmental psychology ahead of us.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) The first part: you have a point in that regard, though that's less a 'shouldn't' on the individuals' part but rather a 'couldn't afford to allow to happen' on the organisers' parts.

Perhaps. I don't know about 'readiness', but as long as they're aware of the consequences of their actions I tend to take the view that what two consenting people do with their bodies is their own business.

This probably cues the 'developmental psychology' part: if you make a claim amounting to humans of that age being intellectually inferior to older humans, I request that you back it up with physical evidence, rather than with psychological studies which could be subject to bias (note: psychological studies which used proper procedures to eliminate bias in the subject selection or testing process would count as interesting). Possibly an unreasonable request, but I'll try to mitigate that by stating that it's less to be viewed as an absolute request to be taken literally and more as a guideline for the sort of impartiality--or rather, objectivity--that I'll probably expect from your evidence to view it as significant.

*listens curiously*