PJTV – Bill Whittle – The Narrative – Political Correctness

January 1, 2014 — xanthippa

What exactly is Political Correctness?

What is Critical Theory?

Why do feminists attack European/Christian/Jewish misogyny, but no other form?

Why is the American brief history of Slavery the only form condemned by modern inteligentsia?

I have written a little about this, and the one and Only CodeSlinger has not only widely commented on the topic, but also guest-posted ‘What is Cultural Marxism’.

If you prefer the answers in a video format, here is a very accessible summary (saying much of what CodeSlinger’s post several years ago explained) by PJ Media’s Bill Whittle:

Reference:  Serenity (a most excellent movie from the Firefly universe – I’ve seen it many times and highly recommend everything Firefly related!!!)

Posted in corruption, economy, education, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Why Are Bad Words Bad?

November 28, 2013 — xanthippa

This is actually quite interesting:

Posted in philosophy, society. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Aspergers, reading faces and cultural differences regarding ‘smiling’

November 20, 2013 — xanthippa

One of the questions get asked most often when I reveal I am an Aspie is when/how did I get diagnosed with Aspergers’, as I am of a generation when this was not a commonly known about thing.  As a matter of fact, growing up on the other side of the Iron Curtain, I am pretty sure this was not recognized as a physical thing.

Completely irrelevant factoid:  From a very early early age, I used to suffer from crippling migraines.  My mom took me to specialists and they told her that unofficially, these are migraines, but that because ‘migraine headaches’ have been ruled by the Communist Party to be ‘something capitalist rich ladies with nothing better to do make up to be interesting’, so they are no longer permitted to diagnose or treat this condition.  So,  I highly doubt ‘Aspergers’ Syndrome’ was something that anyone was willing to even mention…

To answer that question, I explain that my older was always an atypical learner.  For example, when he was 4 years old and I was pregnant with his brother, as per the advice of the parenting books and with my obstetrician’s permission, I brought him to one of the pre-natal ‘well-baby’ checkups.  When the obstetrician walked in, he pointed to the big poster on the exam-room’s wall and asked my son:

“Do you know what this is?”

My 4-year-old looked him seriously in the eyes and replied:

“That is the female reproductive system.  Would you like me to explain it to you?”

As a matter of fact, when he was just about 18 months old, we took him to the Science and Tech museum – he loved trains.  He would go into the room displaying train engines and, whether anyone was listening or not, would point to parts of the steam engine and explain, in detail, how the machines worked (using half-baby, half scientific language).  He was mobbed by a large group of camera-wielding Japanese tourists, who were convinced he was part of the museum exhibit…

Yes, he is a genius:  after all, he IS your humble blogger’s son!!!

(Explanation: from selecting a mate to timing the pregnancy to choosing rearing techniques, I had optimized primarily for intelligence, so the proven fact that my sons have both scored in the ‘genius’ range ought not be a surprise.  The fact that they are not emotionally damaged beyond repair is just a lucky bonus!!!)

What I am trying to establish is that he was both a smart kid and an atypical learner.  So, it took until grade 2 that he hit the metaphorical wall – until then, he could use his intelligence to hide the depth of his difficulties.  But, by grade 2, his cognitive skills were so high, and his ability to express them in writing so low, because here, in Canada (unlike where I grew up where it’s half-and-half written and oral testing), marks are awarded ONLY for written testing and that just kills young Aspies’ spirit.   He turned out to be above the 99.98% range of his peers in cognition, but below the 40% range of his peers in ability to express it in writing…  So, the gulf between what he knew and what he could produce in school was so huge that he began to fall into a deep depression.

Thus, when he was in grade 2, we sought help.  Luckily, there was a very well respected psychologist who had office hours once a week at my son’s school and we sought her help.  Frightened by his depression at such a young age, we got the ‘deluxe’ package of evaluation.  (This was not an indulgence, we just did not want to take any risks with 50% of our retirement plan.)

So, he went for many hours of tests.

And, so did we – the family.

Each one of us, parents, went for a 3-hour evaluation and then we had an ‘all 4 family members interacting’ evaluation session.

I don’t know what went on in the other sessions, but when it came to my evaluation, they gave me a series of totally messed-up tests.  Like – 150 ‘facial expressions’ where I had to say what the person in question was ‘feeling’!  Like – who CARES what they were feeling – that’s involuntary and thus irrational and thus, obviously, irrelevant.  I’m only interested in what people are thinking because I respect other people enough to presume them to reign in their in their irrationality and show me the respect of acting logically and rationally!!!

Isn’t that obvious?!?!?!?

After all, I do this for them – and I have been told that reciprocity is the cornerstone of civilization!  So, why would they not reciprocate and do this for me?

RIGHT?!?!?

Ok, ok, I did not do so well on that test.  To my credit, I did get 7 right…

But, having studied Konrad Lorenz’s books at great length during my teens, I did much better on the body-language one:  I got almost 25% on that one!!!

Aside:  I have worked on this really, really hard for many years since that fateful day, taking internet classes, and am now at a little over 40% on the facial expressions one!  And, I totally get like 45% on the body-language one!  I don’t mean to be boastful, but… I’m close to 50% on the ‘real-woman/she-man’ ones!!!

Needless to say, the psychologist identified (much less pejorative than ‘diagnosed’) both me and my hubby as Aspies….though, my hubby is way closer to neurotypical than I am – so I always take his lead when it comes to all that ‘human interaction’ nonsense.  After all, men are so much better at this touchy-feely-relationship stuff!  Sometimes I feel so sorry for those poor, poor, emotional creatures…  But, I digress…

It may seem like I am changing topics here, but, please, do bear with me…  Are you familiar with the atheist argument that once all the theists come to an agreement about what is the precise definition of ‘deity’, come talk to us, but, until then, please work to get a functional definition before you try to get us to ‘believe’ in this?

Well – here is the ‘facial equivalent’ thereof for us, Aspies!!!  (Yes, the link is coming – just a little more ranting….)

I recall that when Ivan Lendl first came to play tennis in North America, reporters kept asking him why he does not smile – and he replied that nobody had given him a reason to smile – and this was touted as weird in the press and all….but as he became more integrated into North American society, he learned to smile whenever there was an audience.

Keep this in mind, please – especially with respect to the atheist argument about getting an agreed-upon definition of ‘god’ before asking us to believe in one…

SOOO much was explained to me when I came upon THIS blog entry:

‘In Russia, it is not common to smile at strangers. When you smile at a stranger in Russia, you may get the question “Have we met?” in return, because Russians normally smile only to people they know. Also, this is not common to smile when dealing with more serious issues. You wouldn’t see many smiling faces in business meetings, because business is serious, and by smiling, you show that you either don’t take it seriously or you distrust your partners’ words. Russian shop assistants are trained to smile, because smiling while serving people is unnatural for Russians. “I’m taking you seriously, you are important to me, so I don’t smile” is the natural Russian approach to a smile. ‘

It is a short post and chock-full of useful data, so I recommend reading it.

But, what it demonstrates is that facial expressions are culture-dependant and NOT in any way universal.

So, I urge you, neurotypicals:  Please, first come to an agreement what do particular facial expressions express AMONGST YOURSELVES and only THEN come and demand that we, Aspies, try to decode that crazy mumbo-jumbo!!!

Posted in Aspergers, society. Tags: , , . 3 Comments »

Aspergers, Signs and What ‘Things Actually Mean’

November 5, 2013 — xanthippa

It is a source of deep frustration for me that so often, signs are interpreted wrongly by the neurotypicals – who read meanings into them that simply are not there!  And, they get indignant when others, with better knowledge of either grammar or logic (or both), act in accordance with what the sign actually says instead of what they erroneously infer it says.

Let me give you an example:  outside of one of the parking lots at my son’s high school, there is a sign:

STAFF ONLY

PLEASE

In one way, this sign is pretty clear:  it is a request that only staff members enter the area.

It is not a statement of a rule, nor an order, because it includes the word ‘PLEASE’ – this clearly indicates that this is a request, something that is being asked of me…and therefore within my power to either grant or reject.

Right?!?!?

Yet, when I drove into the parking lot not with the intent to park there, but simply to drop my son off at the door closest to his locker, two different school employees told him off for my perceived transgression.

Outrageous!!!

The sign never stated that non-staff members are forbidden from even entering, not just parking in the area.

Of course, I am presuming that there ought to be a comma after ‘only’ and before ‘please’.  As is, the sign is a sentence fragment which indicates that the staff is in the process of pleasing some exclusive element, but does not define whom the staff are in the process of pleasing, why, or how one can get on the list of those to be pleased by the staff….much less imply any rules about the area in question!

Now, if one were to interpret the sign as meaning ‘only staff members are allowed in the area’, why are students permitted to walk there?  And, for that matter, if only staff are permitted there, why would the staff members presume that their vehicles are allowed there as well?  It certainly does not state that vehicles owned by staff members are permitted to be driven/parked there.

Really, think about it:  it says ‘staff’ – not ‘staff and their vehicles and students who are walking but not getting out of vehicles”.

I am not being silly here – this is something of a serious issue for us, Aspies.

We take a sign – or an instruction – at its literal meaning.

We do not see any ‘implied’ other meaning – yet, we are the ones who get yelled at or laughed at if we truly follow what the sign actually says.  That only ads insult to injury…

Let me give you another example, from a math test:

“Write the 3 forms of a quadratic relation that you have learned in this course this far…”

It seems obvious that if you have learned any or all of these 3 forms of quadratic relations before you started this class, they are not eligible to be put down for the answer here.   In other words, if you are good at math and already knew them, the only accurate and correct answer is to leave this blank or say ‘none’!

The corollary is that if you are still ignorant of these forms because you are bad at Math and have learned nothing in this class, your answer of leaving this blank or saying ‘nothing’ is also 100% correct:  the question does not ask what was taught, or what material was covered, but what you had actually learned.  If you had learned nothing, then your answer of ‘nothing’ would indeed be factually correct and deserving of full marks!

Yet, if you, as a student, try to point this out to a teacher, you will not be commended for your accurate interpretation of the question.  You will be singled out, put down and even perhaps punished for some trumped up ‘disrespect’ charge…

To an Aspie, this is very, very confusing.

I know – I’ve been there…

Posted in Aspergers, education, language. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

Fighting for Freedom of Speech

October 23, 2013 — xanthippa

A young man I know well is taking a Civics class in High School.  For his ‘Civics’ project on how to improve our society, he had chosen to seek to raise awareness of the importance of Freedom of Speech.  He chose to do this in two ways:

1.  Following the example of FIRE, he considered setting up a ‘Free Speech Wall’ at his school.  He asked for and received a meeting with his Principal where he proposed the idea.  Due to School Board constraints (High School kids are still minors), this was deemed not possible.

However, his Principal was very supportive of his overall goal and they did agree that a ‘Freedom of Speech Page’ in the school’s newsletter would be a good idea:  all students would be encouraged to write why Freedom of Speech is important to them.  Since this high school has students from very diverse backgrounds, it might help to be inclusive for students who have come to Canada recently from more oppressive countries to be encouraged to share their stories of what life without freedom of speech was like and why we, in Canada, must protect this most core of our civil liberties.

He is still negotiating with the teacher in charge of the school newsletter, but he has volunteered to do the work on it and is hopeful that this will become a reality.

2.  Drafting and collecting signatures on a petition to ask our legislators to strengthen the legal protections on Freedom of Speech.  He had sent me the petition and the accompanying letter:  I have taken the names out of it and turned it into a template that each and every one of us can use, collect signatures on the petition and present our own MPs with the demand to strengthen or Free Speech protections!

The accompanying letter:

Petition to strengthen freedom of speech in our laws

To: ___________________________

Member of Parliament of Canada

Dear _________________________:

In the most recent Throne Speech, our Government stressed its committment to the protection of our core rights and fundamental freedoms. The most fundamental of these is the Freedom of Speech, without which no other right or freedom can be defended. There have been many attacks on freedom of speech as of recent, and despite it being the most crucial human right, many people see it as an optional bonus, despite how important it is.


Our Canadian laws are not in line with other democratic countries, like Australia and the United States of America, and make it very easy for unscrupulous people to abuse our laws to chill legitimate political debate. This type abuse was happening under ‘Section 13’ of the Human Rights Code, and you, our lawmakers, have listened to us, the citizens, and repealed that section. Thank you for that!

However, our other laws are now being similarly abused and I would like you, and all our lawmakers, to take steps to pass legislation to strengthen our freedom of speech!

Sincerely yours,

The petition:

This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the freedom unpon all our civil liberties depend, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks by those wishing to silence political discourse, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have better protections under the law for our most fundamental freedom.

SIGNATURE                                             NAME (Please Print)                       City, Postal Code

1. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

2. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

3. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

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15. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the most fundamental of all of our civil liberties, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks from all directions, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have equal protections under the law for our mos fundamental freedom.

SIGNATURE NAME (Please Print) City, Postal Code

16. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

17. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

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28. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

29. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

30. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the most fundamental of all of our civil liberties, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks from all directions, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have equal protections under the law for our mos fundamental freedom.

SIGNATURE NAME (Please Print) City, Postal Code

31. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

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40. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

41. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

42. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

43. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

44. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

45. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the most fundamental of all of our civil liberties, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks from all directions, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have equal protections under the law for our mos fundamental freedom.

SIGNATURE NAME (Please Print) City, Postal Code

46. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

47. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

48. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________

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If you would like to receive these files as an attachment to an email, where the formatting is properly done up, please, drop me a line in the comments and I will be happy to send it to you.

Posted in education, freedoms, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

The Day Free Speech Died In Canada – October 2, 2013

October 4, 2013 — xanthippa

An excellent post about this most sad day…

It has quotes, links and goes through the logical steps of where this ruling will lead.

‘The verdict by the jury in the “Warman vs Fournier et al” has effectively killed good, old-fashioned, political discourse and debate in cyberspace, in Canada. Even minor insults and common hyperbole of innocent nature and made-up words not in the dictionary, can now be construed as defamation.

 
The law lesson learned from the verdict is that defamation court actions are designed to stifle online discourse and healthy political debates that used to commonly take place around kitchen tables and then graduated to cyberspace are now less likely to happen in the blogosphere, since all owners of blogs, forums, chat rooms etc. must now become ruthless, editorial police to avoid the risk of libel suits.
 
The law definition of libel states: “Any communication that is likely to lower that person in the estimation of reasonable people and in particular to cause that person to be regarded with feelings of hatred, contempt, ridicule, fear or dislike.”
 

Each and every Canadian ought to now be motivated to action in a gallant effort to redeem free speech in Canada. Most likely, our elected representatives are not yet aware of the significant impact that the verdict in the Warman vs Fournier et al is having on our fragile and ever diminishing right of free speech in Canada.’

Read the full post here.

 

UPDATE:  Another insightful analysis can be read here.

Posted in freedoms, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

A Message From OpenMedia.ca:

September 26, 2013 — xanthippa

This could be it.

For the first time, the Presidents and Prime Ministers of 12 powerful countries — including Canada’s Stephen Harper — will meet behind closed doors to seal an extreme Internet censorship plan called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)1

We know from leaked drafts2 that the TPP will make the Internet more expensive, censored, and policed. Experts say “kids could be sent to jail for downloading” and whole families could be kicked off the Internet.3

World leaders plan to “conclude the TPP discussions” in just a few days.4 Will Stephen Harper feel the pressure from industry lobbyists – or will he feel the pressure from you? Send decision-makers a powerful message before it’s too late.

Canadian MPs, citizens, and public interest groups are locked out of the negotiations entirely. Despite blocking Canadian parliamentarians from seeing the agreement, U.S. Congressmen are allowed to see exactly what’s on the table.5

We’re asking Canada’s officials to please:

Say no to Internet censorship.

  • Protect the right of everyone to access the Internet in their daily lives.
  • Do not force ISPs to act as “Internet Police” monitoring our Internet use, censoring content, and removing whole websites.6
  • Preserve the democratic rights of sovereign countries to draft their own copyright laws.

U.S. lobbyists don’t have the best interests of Canadians at heart. If we don’t speak up now these secretive, unfair, and unbalanced negotiations will lead to a terrible deal for Canada.

Our public outcry has stopped TPP officials from finalizing the agreement but now powerful interests are pressuring political leaders to ram through their Internet censorship plan.

Thousands of people and over 30 major organizations from across the Trans-Pacific region are working together to keep the Internet open. High ranking politicians from several countries are beginning to ask questions7.

We know that when citizens speak out, decision-makers take notice. We cannot allow U.S. lobbyists to define Canada’s digital future. Click here to send a simple message to Canada’s negotiators: Please say no to Internet Censorship.

Together, we won’t let them take away our digital rights.

For our future,

Steve and Jason on behalf of your vigilant OpenMedia team

PS: The Internet won’t stay open on its own; speak out now to call on TPP negotiators to preserve our digital future. Your support is critical in the fight to defend the possibilities of the open Internet.

 

Footnotes

[1] “Obama to Attend APEC, ASEAN Summits on October Asia Trip”. Source: Bloomberg.com

[2] Leaked draft of TPP Intellectual Property Chapter. Source: Knowledge Ecology International

[3] What’s actually in the TPP? Source: Public Knowledge

[4] US Envoy: TPPA talks to conclude next month. Source: FMT Malaysia

[5] “Trans-Pacific Partnership: Canadian MP’s Have No Access To Drafts US Pols Can See, NDP Says” Source: The Huffington Post

[6] “TPP Creates Legal Incentives for ISPs to Police the Internet. What is at risk? Your rights.” Electronic Frontier Foundation

[7] “International Criticism Escalates Against TPP as Negotiations Go Further Underground” Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Posted in politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

What can neurotypicals do to communicate better with Aspies/Auties?

June 11, 2013 — xanthippa

Recently, I received this question from Angel:

‘Hi Xan,

A friend of mine is writing a newspaper on Aspergers. She asked me what neurotypicals could do to communicate better with those on the autistic spectrum. What are your thoughts?’

After some thinking, this is what I answered:

Hmmmm – this is a difficult question because it presumes that all Aspies have identical communications problems – and we don’t, so that’s important to keep in mind. Still, there are patterns that we can work from.

1. Say what you mean – don’t ‘send signals’. We’ll likely not pick up on those signals and, if they are part of the message, we’ll miss it.

2. Be honest – we’ll take ‘little white lies’ at face value and believe that is your true opinion.

3. Don’t freak out when we’re honest.

4. If you have to ask questions like ‘Do you know what I mean?’, then we probably don’t.

5. When we ask for clarification, please, please, don’t just repeat the same sentence as before, as if that would somehow explain things – use different words, clarify and explain!

6. Don’t tell us how you feel, tell us what you think – we rely on intelligent people using their thoughts to override their feelings. Especially if the conversation is about issues and real-world stuff, if someone starts their sentence with ‘I feel that …’ – boom, we’ve tuned out.

7. Same thing with ‘beliefs’ – if you cannot support it with facts, then it’s just a prejudice and we’ll resent you imposing your prejudices on us. So, unless we are specifically discussing ‘beliefs’, sentences starting with ‘I believe that…’ are not only meaningless, they are annoying.

8. Don’t give us a choice unless you expect us to make a choice freely. If it’s a thinly veiled threat – we’ll simply see it as a choice you gave us and be bewildered if you get angry that we’ve actually made a choice, when you clearly offered us a choice.

I hope this is a good start!

Anybody else with some constructive advice?

Posted in Aspergers, education. Tags: , , , . 8 Comments »

Wired: Google blimps will carry wireless signal across Africa

May 28, 2013 — xanthippa

This sounds quite exciting!

‘Search giant Google is intending to build huge wireless networks across Africa and Asia, using high-altitude balloons and blimps.

The company is intending to finance, build and help operate networks from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia, with the aim of connecting around a billion people to the web.’

 

Posted in technology. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

How to Make Friends with Wild Ravens

May 24, 2013 — xanthippa

 

Posted in society. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »
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