Sex Ed

Heh! Got to you to stop browsing didn’t I? I had Sexual Harassment Training today from the county. I know how to do it real good now! Okay, bad jokes. I went today to put in my time for the next two years before I get called into the next round of county CYA. Normally my stratergery is to sit down, shut up, and stay out of trouble in official county classes. Some years ago, the anti-discrimination class was taught by a guy who didn’t like classroom debate. One fella who had had enough of the usual “white people suck” shtick told this guy so and was told he had “no future” in the county organization by a former administrator. The anti-discrimination instructor ain’t there no mo either.

However, today piqued my interest in an unintended way. A graphic (that would a chart, Gary!!! Jeeez.) depicted the cultural and workplace changes that have occurred in the past 50 years. On the y-axis was simply the word “Sex.” The x-axis was a time scale from 1950 to 2005. There were two curves. Curve 1, decreasing with time, was named “Workplace.” It decreased from 1950 and “No Regulation” to 2005 and “No Tolerance.” Curve 2 was named “Media.” It increased from 1950 (“I Love Lucy”) to 2005 (“Desperate Housewives”). The sheer irony of that change would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic. This isn’t a cultural paradox, this is an outright contradiction. No doubt one of those public service announcements (NBC’s “The More You Know,” CBS’ “CBS Cares!” and whatever goofball title ABC has for those) will have some preachy, moralizing actor telling us that sexual harassment is wrong, “And now for another provocative, ground breaking episode of Desperate Housewives.” Our liberal cultural leaders will be the first to hang me for making a misunderstood comment at work but will fight to the last drop of my or your blood (not theirs) to allow pornographic images on broadcast television using a First Amendment argument. No I haven’t watched DW on Sunday nights of all times, nor do I intend to. It’s worthless crap and my time is more valuable than that.

At first I was willing to just chuckle over the irony of that graphic until I saw the courseware say this about culture:

“We have changed in favor of tolerating sexual conduct in the society at large
(influenced by the law’s increasing recognition of freedom of expression)”

Freedom of expression?!?!? Are they kidding me? Displaying explicit sexual scenes on broadcast television has nothing to do with First Amendment rights my friends. First of all there’s nothing being expressed in those scenes except titillation. I was dumbfounded to channel surf onto a network cop show and see two of the actors (woman and man) in the middle of a sexual act that could have in no way been mistaken for anything else but intercourse from his slow methodic movements and her facial expressions. Their cell phones kept ringing off the hook eventually committing the culturally unpardonable sin of coitus interruptus was the point of the scene in a weak cinematic demonstration of how-their-dedicated-commitment-to-their-work-invaded-their-personal-lives to make us all identify, sympathize and care about them right? Cinematically, it was a grossly sophomoric display (probably written by high skrool interns) and absolutely shocking to find on prime time for Chrissake! No cultural or societal redeeming value at all in that scene.

Freedom of Expression?!?! Give me a break! Anyone who believes that claim is a fool and here’s why: The male (the natural target of TV advertisers) sexual trigger is visual images. The female sexual trigger is the sharing and caring that go with building and maintaining relationships. This I’m learning from “Everyman’s Battle,” a great book for those confused by today’s cultural contradictions on sex. How much easier and cheaper to entice males to tune into a show with teasers of a 10-second explicit bedroom scene focused on a beautiful blonde hardbody making faces like she’s about to supernova versus an in-depth character relationship development stretching over the entire hour, maybe even a “…to be Continued” letdown at the end of the episode? What scenario do you think advertisers think their commercials will get the most exposure to their target audience?

If these lawyers teaching this class think that’s Freedom of Expression, then they’re not as smart as I thought they were. This is gross manipulation by debased commercial entities appealing to the basest nature of the male of the specie and nothing more. The “Law” per Paul of Tarsus was given to men because their hearts were hardened to God and intended to bring wrath to wrongdoers and not to encourage nor protect wrongdoing. Call me square, but that opening scene of that cop show was just wrong. I knew why they put it in right as it was happening and I was offended by it. It was not and is not defendable by the First Amendment. Our Constitution has more class than that. Try to sue anyone on that however. The ACLU will be the first to kick your … well.. ya’know.

Minutemen?

Michael Moore can't still believe that tripe he spewed forth about Hussein's loyalists being "Minutemen" after reading this can he? How can anyone with a brain still leap to this monster's defense and claim that Bush should be on trial instead?

To Family or Not To Family

Fascinating debate this morning on Hogue in the Morning! Seems there’s a fambly in Arkansas with 16 kids!!! Yikes! Ma married her husband at 17, had her first at 21, was preggers another 13 times (two sets of twins), and is 39 right now, meaning their youngest can be no more than four if they popped out a kid a year. And now thinking they want another kid. Wow.

“Is that healthy?” was the question. How many is too many? With a 17-year old son having multiple “hormonal episodes” lately, I’m tending to think ZERO is the right number of kids at the moment (“My hair, my hair” he laments!). But would he and we be having an easier go of it with more siblings? Probably. Brothers and sisters tend to police each other both consciously as well as subconsciously. Large family units are forced to think with consideration to those around them. The other extreme from 16 kids is the only child. I’ve had my encounters with “onlys” and they’ve generally not been all that great.

Hogue started this debate after eavesdropping on a coffee shop conversation among three ladies clucking away about this sixteen kid household. They made the usual comments about not good for society, not good for the environment, not good for the kids, blah, blah, blah. As one of Hogue’s callers (Tom) said, “Who are you to decide how many kids I should have?” The culture today generally thinks two kids should be enough – a.k.a. replacements. That triggered a memory of a Star Trek (the original and only as far as I’m concerned) episode where Zaal, a reptile god of some sort, controlled a tribal society discovered by the intrepid Capt Kirk and crew. Zaal and only Zaal decided when the tribe should make “replacements.” The tribe’s purpose in life was to feed Zaal, thereby indicating Zaal was a machine of some sort rather than a transcendental god. Ole James Tiberius decided these “were a people” and fragged Zaal’s behind with some well placed ship phasers. Damn straight! “Zaal” (a.k.a. culture) has no right to dictate your family size or mine. Mine is only three as the last one damn near killed the fetching Mrs. Guano (not her real name). We took that as a sign from God (not Zaal) saying “That’s enough for you.” “Thank You Sir, we won’t ask for another!”

Should three have been enough for this Arkansas family? Apparently not. The argument can and is made, that these parents are selfish; seeking the localized fame a huge family can draw. That’s simply asinine. I’m here to tell you after witnessing the miraculous and at the same time, terrifying event of Bat Jr’s (not his real name) birth, a woman who goes through 14 pregnancies is not selfish. Parents of 16 kids cannot be selfish or self centered people. If they had been such, they would have divorced after the second or fourth one – definitely still in the single digits – and then used the poor little rugrats as leverage in the ensuing court battle. Parents of large families like this have no other option except to have a servant’s heart and deny the self more often than not. That is why our culture today cannot understand such a family unit, because “service” itself is an alien ideal.

When did the large family become bad? Hogue posited that the Women’s Liberation Movement may have been that moment by declaring that women must seek fulfillment outside the family. Quite the social upheaval that delivered to us new societal norms like daycare facilities, office affairs sometimes degrading into workplace sexual harassment, penis-envy, and other trading card psychobabble. Perhaps that’s the case, but I think women’s lib was more symptomatic then causal to the meltdown of the nuclear family. I believe that started happening when more became less in America. By more became less (not a bad idea for Michael Moore actually), I mean the more “stuff” we got, the less fulfilled we felt. It appears that started happening back in the sixties. The sixties delivered mucho technological advancement in addition to MLK, Vietnam, and sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.

(Uh-oh, is this becoming a Luddite discussion?!?!)

Mucho technological advancement begat mucho personal comfort which begat more and more self-centered thought, which begat the “Me” generation of the seventies (remember the Billy Joel anthem to that effect? Or John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever?), and the eventual malaise (brought to you by STD epidemics and Jimmy Carter), which begat the self-absorption in careers in the eighties through the nineties (implying most people completely misunderstood what it meant to be a “shining city on a hill”) since relationships were so damn dangerous, style vs. substance (Miami Vice anyone?), sexual freedom (Bubba and Monica) to all manners of self-absorption today that can happen at blindingly fast download speeds across our computer screens. The more and more comfortable and convenient our lives have become the less worthwhile they seem. The less worthwhile we feel, the angrier we get when reminded of our wretchedness, hence the more frantic the quest for comfort. To speak disparagingly of homosexual marriage is a hate crime. Did you know that? To watch sitcom characters (e.g. Friends) build stronger personal relationships using porn is funny. To hear our President speak about the Century of Liberty is evil because of the self sacrifice that implies.

More is less.

We humans want comfort but stagnate in it. We surround ourselves with a towering wall of bling that has no end in sight (“He who dies with the most toys wins”), until it all comes crashing down since its foundation was weak to begin with. Self-centered behavior has brought little in the way of enlightenment. Rather it has wrought much misery apparently as Gen-X and Gen-Next vocalizes its displeasure with Gen-Me. (Weekly Standard subscription required). Seems America may be poised to rebel against “Self.” Thank God and not a moment too soon. I’ve tended to find I’m happier with less rather than more. God gifted me with “lots” as opposed to “more” such that I can spread my share of His blessings across the world. That we do, through organizations such as this as an active part of the Christian family. Multi-kid families are symptomatic with denial of self and a servant based world-view. God bless that Arkansas family.

Why there was no Looting in Texas

I can't think of any 1,000 words to improve on this!!!