Magic Statistics

A wonderful story about this great man of God.

via titusonenine.

Men are tired of being guilty until proven innocent, says Lionel Tiger, Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University.

Male resentment of the self-righteous and automatic public support for women's interests and issues has been increasingly on the boil for some time. Civic celebrations of antipathy to men such as the Violence Against Women Act are finally generating specific and pointed responses by men fatigued, if still baffled, by the knee-jerk assumption that they suffer irredeemably from what I call Male Original Sin.

Men entering university are routinely subjected to rape seminars; men appearing in family court are assumed to have nasty behavioural tendencies; men have fallen significantly behind in reading and writing skills, not to mention university admissions; men’s health problems are deemed worthy of far fewer federal research dollars; men commit suicide up to ten times more frequently than women. Yet, it is women who are presumed to be oppressed.

This isn't simply carping about invidious comparison, or reluctance to support legitimate social responses to the needs of women as workers, parents, citizens and virtuousi of their private lives. It is solely about inequity in law, funding and productive public attention. There is scant acknowledgment that we face a generation of young men increasingly failing in a school system seemingly calibrated to female rhythms.

Dr Tiger believes that these societal presuppositions are part of the reason why men are increasingly withdrawing from domestic life.

Read the whole thing.

More on Dr Tiger's views can be found in this post.

Some Western Christians seem quite upset that store clerks might say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". If that's the extent of persecution we have to worry about, we should count our blessings. Nina Shea, director of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, reminds us that Christians all across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are being persecuted and killed for their faith. Christians in many Muslim countries are legally prohibited from meeting together in church to worship our Lord.

In Saudi Arabia, Christians, a large percentage of the foreign workers making up a quarter of the population, will not be able to find any churches whatsoever to worship in this Christmas — churches are forbidden. Dozens of those who pray together in private houses were arrested and jailed earlier this year. This fanatically intolerant kingdom even forbids Muslims, under threat of death, to wish a Christian "Happy Holidays", much less "Merry Christmas".

China, source of Christmas lights and other decorations, arrests and imprisons ministers, worship leaders, those who print or distribute Bibles, and lawyers who publicly speak up in their defence. North Korea absolutely prohibits Christmas celebrations, or any other expression of freedom of religion or conscience. The list goes on.

Read the whole thing.

To return to the relatively trivial issue of clerks in Western stores saying "Merry Christmas" or whatever, I'm with Cal Thomas.

I do not care if a mall employee wishes me a "Merry Christmas", or not, or if mall managers favor snowpersons over manger scenes, or erect trees they call "holiday" and not "Christmas". It isn't about their observing this event, giving us a "religious rush" and creating a false sense of security that culture is better than it is.

Demanding that commercial establishments acknowledge a Christian holy day that they may not take seriously seems to me to reflect a misunderstanding of the gospel message.

Apparently not, if the police have the time to arrest someone who has committed no crime—unless one counts non-violent intervention to prevent one child from injuring another.

A nursery owner has been charged with common assault after intervening to stop a toddler hitting a baby with a wooden brick.

Olive Rack, 55, who runs Tresco House Day Nursery, in Kettering, will appear in magistrates court this week in a case brought by Northamptonshire police. The toddler's parents have made no complaint and still send their little girl to the nursery.

The charges relate to an incident in July which was reported by two Northamptonshire county council officials who were visiting the nursery to advise on funding.

It is alleged that Mrs Rack assaulted the two-and-a-half year old child when she took her by the arm, sat her on a chair and told her off for striking a 12-month-old baby with a toy brick.

Mrs Rack, it seems, loses no matter what she does. If she had failed to prevent injury to the 12-month-old, the baby's parents might well have grounds for a lawsuit.

This is perhaps most ominous piece of information in the whole story: "A number of recent cases have seen teachers prosecuted or facing the sack because of attempts to discipline children."