A kindergarten teacher in Texas asks a six-year-old girl to put her toys away, and she launches into full tantrum mode, screaming and knocking over her chair, then crawling under the teacher's desk and kicking so hard the drawers spill out. Her outbursts marks an epidemic of such incidents of wildness among kindergartners, all documented in a single school district in Fort Worth, Texas. The blow-ups occurred not just among the poorer students but among better-off ones as well. Some explain the spike in violence among the very young as due to economic stress that makes parents work longer, so that children spend hours after school in day care or alone and parents come home with a hair trigger for exasperation. Others point to data showing that even as toddlers, 40 percent of American two-year-olds watch TV for at least three hours a day -- hours they are not interacting with people who can help them learn to get along better. The more TV they watch, the more unruly they are by school age.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under age two not watch TV at all and that older children watch no more than two hours a day. The report on television and toddlers was presented by Laura Certain at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting, Baltimore, April 13, 2003.

Excerpted from Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships (London: Arrow Books, 2007) by Daniel Goleman, Ph.D.

Legal Murder: Euthanizing Premature Babies

"Some weight should be given to the economic considerations as there is a real issue in neonatal units of 'bed blocking'" ... The statement reflects a growing view among child specialists that babies born under 25 weeks should be denied intensive care and allowed to die. Next month the [British] Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health will debate a motion at its annual conference that it is "unethical" to provide intensive care routinely to babies born under 25 weeks.

The complete article in The Sunday Times

If the so-called civilized society regards economic imperatives more highly than love and charity (Mt.22:37-40), soon enough the world might start endorsing euthanasia on infirm and decrepit men and women for "ethical" reasons.


So bid you an earlier farewell to your parents and grandparents?
Will you be ready, when the society deems you unfit to contribute, to have your offspring and loved ones bid you an earlier farewell?

Post-Modern Loves

The interesting - if not pathetic - social implications of Post Modernism.
Note: The following does not represent my personal view or opinion.

"So when my friends and I started having a conversation about the nature of monogamy, I thought I knew something about monogamy. Because, despite the fleeting nature of most of my encounters, and despite my own role in their short duration, I think what I have been seeking in some form from all of these men is permanence.

Sometimes I don’t like them, or am scared of them, and a lot of times I’m just bored by them. But my fear or dislike or boredom never seems to diminish my underlying desire for a guy to stay, or at least to say he is going to stay, for a very long time.

And even when I don’t want him to stay — even when he and I find each other as strangers and remain strangers until we stop doing whatever it is we are doing — I still want to believe that two people can meet and like each other well enough to stay together exclusively, without the introduction of some 1960s rhetoric about free love or other noncommittal slogans.

But noncommittal is what we’re all about."

Marguerite Fields, a junior at Marlboro College in Vermont.

Click here for the complete article, as published by The New York Times

Just So People Know..

A Man's Shelf Life: Best If Used By 35


By Mark Teich for Psychology Today, October 2007

Teich's Resource Persons:

• James F. Crow, geneticist at University of Wisconsin in Madison
• Harry Fisch, urologist and director of the Male Reproductive Center at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and author of The Male Biological Clock
• Ethylin Wang Jabs, professor of pediatric genetics at Johns Hopkins University and leader of a recent study showing the link between aging paternity and certain facial deformities in offspring.
• Dolores Malaspina, chair of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center
• Charles Muller, lab director of the Male Fertility Clinic at the University of Washington in Seattle
• Barbara Willet, of the Best Start childhood resource center in Ontario, Canada

By looking for perfection in your life before you conceive, there's a very real chance you'll have less perfect kids.


Not only does male fertility decrease decade by decade, especially after age 35, but aging sperm can be a significant and sometimes the only cause of severe health and developmental problems in offspring.


Men produce millions of sperm cells every time they ejaculate. After each ejaculation, they must literally replicate those cells, and each replication multiplies the chance for a DNA "copy error".


In humans as well as in other mammals, when there's new genetic change - called 'de novo or sporadic point mutation' - it almost always happens in the male parent. And these de novo mutations increase in frequency with the age of the male parent.


Several studies have shown that the older the man, the more fragmented the DNA in his ejaculated sperm, resulting in greater risk for infertility, miscarriage or birth defects.


Sperm DNA is damaged by even low levels of free radicals.


Sperm is incapable of repairing itself.


When both parents are aging, the risks to offspring multiply.


"If women are under age 35, the father's age may not matter that much, but if the mother is over 35, advanced male age can be a real problem." (Jabs)


If you're going to get a vasectomy, join the Army, or go through cancer therapy, "I'd advise you to freeze your sperm beforehand." (Muller)


Most men can steer a gentler course just by watching their health.


One key is testosterone, necessary for the maturation of sperm. Testosterone naturally starts to decline in the 30s, but also varies based on factors from weight to heart health.


"Whatever hurts your heart, hurts your penis." (Fisch)


If you want to father a child after age 40, get in the best shape of your life.

Stop Violence in the Home

"Gender-based violence is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace" (Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General)


In Indonesia, 16709 cases of domestic violence have been reported in 2006 alone. Considering the culture in this country, where women and children are taught to be reserved, you can perhaps imagine how many more cases were never reported.


PUNDI PEREMPUAN
Yayasan Sosial Indonesia untuk Kemanusiaan
No Rekening: 025-01-00098-00-3
Bank Niaga Cabang Jatinegara - Jakarta Timur


The funds collected will be distributed to more than 20 Women Crisis Centers around Indonesia, including the ones in Sumatra and Nusa Tenggara Timur.


More info:
www.ysik.org
www.komnasperempuan.or.id
komnasperempuan@cbn.net.id


Show some compassion.

Have A Blessed Xmas!

... With Christianity suddenly a true force, the Bishop of Rome ordered, in 137 A.D., that Christ’s birth be honored with a festival. In 325, the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, said Christmas was an “immovable feast” to be observed on December 25 – a day with built-in resonance in the area. By then the holy day was known as Mass of Christ, Christ’s Mass, Christ-mass. Since Christ’s name in Greek is Xristos, many centuries later – circa 1500 – Christmas would be called, by some societies, Xmas. In 20th century America this would come to be seen by many as a denigration, but in fact it was just as respectful as the original Roman term.

From Christmas Around the World
By The Editors of LIFE (2004)
Time Inc. Home Entertainment

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