War on Sex

The Utah State Senate passed a bill that would effectively limit sex education to abstinence only teaching. Also making it possible for districts to completely drop sex education from their curriculum and if they choose not to, the class is an opt-in for parents. Meaning that the parents have to ask the school to teach sex education.

"To replace the parent in the school setting, among people who we have no idea what their morals are, we have no ideas what their values are, yet we turn our children over to them to instruct them in the most sensitive sexual activities in their lives, I think is wrongheaded," said Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden.

OK. Senator Stuart Reid when was the last time you actually saw what was taught in sex ed classes. It's been a little over a decade for me but there was nothing sensitive about what was taught. A person's anatomy and how to keep oneself from becoming pregnant or infected with STD's is not a moral question. It is about information. What you have just voted to pass into law is telling parents throughout the state that you don't care what their wishes are for their children, you are deciding for them that their kids will only be taught that sex is bad and if they have it they will die (obvious exaggeration added to break down the subject to the senator's level of thinking). You sir are wrongheaded.

Kony 2012, the film says it all

Equality

One of my favorite MASH episodes is L.I.P.'s. It's in the second season and consists of Hawkeye accomplishing two missions. First, he hooks up with the girl he wants and second, he helps a soldier marry an L.I.P. or Local Indigenous Person. The part that sets this one as a favorite starts at 22 minutes. When Hawkeye rejects the girl because of some unsavory ideas. Go ahead and watch, I'll wait.



Pretty awesome, huh?

The real point of this opening is one of the main reasons I like to watch MASH. Hawkeye sees everyone pretty much as equals (except women which he learns in later episodes). There is no reason that Kim in the above episode should not be allowed to marry an American or why Klinger shouldn't be allowed to walk around in dresses or the gay guy in another episode be allowed to continue to fight after he is outed to his unit and they beat the shit out of him.

Didn't We?

Portugal, A Shining Example?

As a continuation of my post Other Options, I offer  you this.

The NYTimes offers up an example of what could be in store for Greece who is currently playing obedient child to the IMF, it gives us Portugal. According to the article, Portugal has done everything it has been asked, chopping social welfare and raising taxes. Yet, its debt ration keeps getting worse due to the fact that its economy continues to shrink partly caused by the austerity cuts imposed by the IMF to help pay back its debtors.

Without growth, reducing debt levels becomes nearly impossible. It is akin to trying to pay down a large credit card balance after taking a pay cut. You can slash expenses, but with lower earnings it is hard to set aside money to pay off debt.

This kind of goes without saying, but yea. If all your measures are focused on cutting the debt and not worried about bringing back some growth and occupying the millions out of work, there won't be any money to actually pay those debts down.

The Times this time shows a precedent, and though it is not offered as an alternative, that is historical and shows how things are most likely to be played out. These situations have been confronted before. There have been countries that simply could not pay back their debt. There were those who tried the austerity cuts and those who wouldn't. The example is there to follow, if we will.

If Portugal and other European debtors find it increasingly difficult to pay off their creditors because of slow or no growth, some experts predict they, too, might eventually need to negotiate debt write-downs. That was how things played out in Latin America in the 1980s, once it became clear that the I.M.F.’s relentless austerity push was impeding the growth that countries needed to pay down debt.

Of course, the IMF would never bring these ideas or happening up its too busy worrying about its own self interest. The austerity cuts are not meant to help the country in debt, rather they are meant to get as much money out as possible before they are cut off.

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Educational Disparity

Let's take a trip in the way back machine.

Way back as in mid 2000s. There was a huge push for an education voucher system. This system would allow parents to take a voucher from the state and use it to pay for private schools. Essentially allowing the state to use public funds to pay for private education.

I quickly pointed out that this "idea" was not a good one, nor was it new. Rather, the education system in Chile, where I had resided for some years had used a voucher system for a long time. Almost all schools in Chile are privately ran. The "public" free schools are the ones that people who are barely able to eat on a day to day basis attend. The voucher system effectively means that if you have money or come from money, you get to go to an awesome school that will get you the chance to go to university and then acquire a job that will pay you enough so that you can send your kids to school.

Other Options...

OK. Here's the road map.

Article here, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/world/europe/greek-workers-strike-against-new-round-of-austerity.html?_r=1&hp

The other option.

Article here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_(1999%E2%80%932002)

Then this happens.

There are alternative options. These are not new situations. It is best to learn from the past.

In solidarity with the Greeks.

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