Jun 23 2013

PTSD and Ethics

[an excerpt from The Blasphemy Tour, written as Jass Richards]

 

“We hope you’re enjoying Texas?” the show’s host said, after he introduced Dylan and Rev as his first guests of the day.

“Well, we’re a little puzzled by all the American flags. Outside on people’s houses and their lawns—we’ve even been seeing them sticking up in the middle of the forest, at people’s cabins presumably. What an eyesore.”

She didn’t notice the intake of breath.

“Well,” the host replied, “many people fly the flag because they have a son or daughter serving overseas.”

Rev hadn’t thought about that. She did now. Then said, “And why would they want to advertise such stupidity?” Continue reading

Jun 22 2013

Every Man, Woman, and Child

There’s an interesting phrase.  Man, woman, and child: those are my options, are they?  Identifying oneself by one’s sex is a prerequisite for adulthood: if I don’t want to identify myself by my sex, as either a man or a woman, I’m left with identifying myself as a child.  How interesting.

Actually, it explains a lot. Continue reading

Jun 11 2013

Air Bands and Power Point

I still remember the feeling I had when I saw my first air band performance. It was a sick kind of feeling.

I hadn’t known what an air band was. The announcement came over the p.a. at my school-for-the-day, and I dutifully shepherded the class to the gym. Then I watched, incredulous, as group after group of high school students came on stage and pretended to play their favourite songs. I mumbled a query to the teacher standing next to me. Apparently this air band stuff was quite big. Students spent weeks practising. They really wanted to get it right. ‘It’ being the appearance, the pretence. Continue reading

Jun 11 2013

Short Men

I recently watched, with horrified amusement, a tv program about short men who choose to undergo excruciatingly painful surgical procedures (which basically involve breaking their legs and then keeping the bones slightly apart while they mend) in order to become a few inches taller.

Asked why they would choose to undergo such a drastic, and excruciatingly painful, procedure, they said things like ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like to go through life as a short person?  To sit in a chair and only your toes reach the floor, you can’t put your feet flat on the floor?  To not be able to reach stuff on the upper shelves in grocery stores?  To be unable to drive trucks because you can’t reach the pedals properly?  To have people always looking down at you?  Do you know what that’s like?’

Well, yes, actually I do.  I’m a woman. 

Oh, but that’s different, I suppose.  Why?  Because we’re supposed to go through life inconvenienced?  Feeling subordinate?

Ah.  That’s the real problem.  These poor guys can’t take their rightful place over women.  (As one man, 5’6” before the surgery, explained, “I’ll be a better father and husband and son.”  Yup.  Sure you will.)

Jun 02 2013

The Futility of Teaching Business Ethics or Why Our World Will End

There are four reasons why teaching ethics to business students is an exercise in futility.

1. The profit motive trumps everything. As long as this is the case, there’s no point in teaching students the intricacies of determining right and wrong. Whether something is morally acceptable or not is simply irrelevant to them. It might come into play when two options yield the same profit, but how often does that happen? And even so, other concerns are likely to be tie-breakers. Continue reading

Jun 02 2013

The Gender of Business

Business is male.  Make no mistake.  Everything about it smacks of the male mentality.

First, the obsession with competition.  You have to be #1, you have to outcompete your competition.  So hierarchy, rank, is everything.  As is an adversarial attitude.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Business could be a huge network of co-operative ventures, each seeking to better the whole.  But no, we have to be better than, stronger than, faster than – 

Continue reading

May 27 2013

Why isn’t being a soldier more like being a mother?

Motherhood is unfair to women in a way fatherhood most definitely is not. Not only are there the physical risks (pregnancy and childbirth puts a woman at risk for nausea, fatigue, backaches, headaches, skin rashes, changes in her sense of smell and taste, chemical imbalances, high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia, embolism, changes in vision, stroke, circulatory collapse, cardiopulmonary arrest, convulsions, and coma), there’s the permanent damage to one’s career: if she stays at home, the loss of at least six years’ experience and/or seniority; if she doesn’t, the loss of a significant portion of her income, that required to pay for full-time childcare. (And even if she can swing holding a full-time job and paying for full-time childcare, she probably won’t get promoted because she typically uses all ‘her’ sick days, she’s reluctant to stay past 5:00 or to come in before 9:00 or on weekends, and she occasionally has to leave in the middle of the day, perhaps even in the middle of an important meeting. In short, she can’t be counted on. Such a lack of commitment.) Continue reading

May 24 2013

Political Science – A Costly Misnomer

Science is the pursuit of knowledge according to the scientific method: hypotheses must be testable, and results must be verifiable by replication.  Obviously, the more quantifiable something is, the more accurate and precise its measurement can be, and the more accurate and precise something is, the more testable and verifiable it is – it’s hard to test and then verify an uncertain or vague something-or-other.  So the definition of science really comes down to quantification.  Well, that and matter – only material things can be quantified.

Political science is the study of government organization and political systems.  These things are not quantifiable.  It would seem, then, that political science should have been named political art. 

So?  Well, one, Continue reading

May 19 2013

Why aren’t more men insulted by the low standards we set for them?

If he changes a diaper, he’s father of the year.

If he cooks something, anything, he’s a chef.

If he marries, but otherwise continues to live pretty much as he has to that point, he’s suddenly respectable.

If he continues to pay a child’s ball game into adulthood, he gets paid a six figure salary.

If he gets a B.A., he’s an expert in his field.

If he writes a book full of incoherence and grammatical mistakes, he gets (edited and then) published.

 

We don’t expect men to pick up after themselves.

We don’t expect them to be sensitive to other people’s emotions, or even be aware of  their own.

We don’t expect them to be aware of, let alone appreciative of, natural beauty.

We don’t expect them to be interested in children.

We don’t expect them to be in control of their sexual impulses or their aggressive impulses.

 

Additions welcome.

May 12 2013

Take Her Seriously

I used to think that the problem with rape was that women weren’t being explicit – they weren’t actually saying no, partly because men weren’t actually asking.  Perhaps because there’s (still?) something shameful about sex that makes people reluctant to come right out and talk about it.  Or maybe that would destroy the romance.  Whatever.

I still think Continue reading