Don’t believe in education

Don’t believe in long-term parenting

Swing low

Who Listening Now?

The post Antebellum's Subjugation Messages appeared first on Digest This.

“Until the late nineteenth century the question of woman’s ability to profit from or even survive higher education was controversial. Vassar College opened in 1865 was often described by its first president as an experiment.… as late as 1871 an MD at Harvard Medical School published a book on the dangers of higher education for girls, he doubted the achievement was worth the cost from their psyche and procreative powers.”

From: Carl N Degler, In Search of Human Nature, Oxford University Press 1991

The post Can You Imagine? appeared first on Digest This.

Response: Driving is worth the wait! I remember. It’s a great right of passage.

Government and civilization go hand in hand. The storehouses in biblical Egypt were a government project.

Shrinking  government has its downsides. Waiting longer for services is one of them.

Competition for power between levels of government is normal. No level of government is more or less efficient or corrupt then the others.

Levels of government: local, state, regional, national, international

The post Longer Lines for Government Services appeared first on Digest This.

So why my tears on Mother’s Day? Tears on Mother’s Day because I miss the way mom was to me in infancy, childhood, adolescence, college, and towards my marriage, children and grandchildren. I’m sure mom misses lots too.

Tears on Mother’s Day because I remember my wonderful grandma Annette Needleman, Auntie Rose Skurka, mother-in-law Mary Ferguson Shugart, and my mom’s sister-in-law Natalie Langner. What a blessing for me to be nurtured by such loyal, loving, smart, practical and faithful citizens of humanity.

We capitalize Mother’s Day, but we don’t capitalize sacred mother? What happened to female divinity? There’s evidence of mother God worship going on for tens of thousands of years. People stomped Earth mother worship out of existence comparatively recently.

Infinite divinity extends infinitely beyond our mammal genders. Now is a practical time to give up on male only club divinity. Women make up half the human family. Gender alliances need re-balancing in families, neighborhoods, nations, and globally. So let’s open every job group to all, for example let everybody share in human mothering. God knows we need as many nurturing mothers we can find.

The post Tears on Mother’s Day appeared first on Digest This.

So, what do you think of the new chancellor coming in July 1?  A woman!  Seems long overdue in terms of gender, but maybe no one saw a qualified one before now — I’m not sure about that!

Allen (UNC 1962) responds:

God bless the new chancellor.

Our new state government shows signs of under-appreciating the value of this great university, which is practical analysis. Temporarily empowered anti-intellectual forces take the university to be a cultural enemy, while undervaluing the historic contribution UNC made and makes to North  Carolina’s reputation and success story.

How did the role of women in civilization come to be so rigidly defined? My guess is that for most of the past quarter of a million years, members of both genders did everything because communities were small and scarcity was common. Survival ruled. To suppress talent was an impractical option.

The division of labor associated with the rise of civilization probably fostered more rigid gender role restrictions. And the then ongoing epidemic of mother and infant birthing deaths, which ended recently, may have fixated emphasis on female reproductive responsibility.

The opportunity for women to be anybody is brand new. The emergence of self-definitive womanhood is one of the most critical new resources for civilized progress, far more important than oil and gas reserves or new technology. Self-definitive womanhood is going to play a leading role in “saving” civilization in the 21st Century.

The post Interchange With Fellow Alum Regarding New UNC Female Chancellor appeared first on Digest This.

Previously we wrote that civilization resembles a placenta, because it protects and nurtures life. The placenta is a temporary organ that transfers oxygen and nutrients from mother to child, removes wastes including carbon dioxide, and shields the fetus from the mother’s immune system. The placenta is rich in blood vessels and provides a reservoir of blood for the fetus, delivering blood to it in emergencies.

Civilization is an approximately 10,000-year-old social placenta sustaining us by transferring nutrients to 7 billion people. Healthy civilization includes toilets and green technology, which control and remove environmental wastes including carbon dioxide. Successful civilization protects us from natural calamities and societal collapse. Civilization truly is a two-way conduit between humanity and nature.

A reader responded to the previous post: “This analogy does not hold. The placenta is merely a conduit. Civilization not only sustains but also shapes humanity. The placenta plays no role in shaping a child.”

Recently researchers in Britain and the United States demonstrated that the placenta actually does play an active role in human development. In Scientific American, Claudia Kalb reports that “The placenta does more than nourish offspring in the womb – it actively shapes brain development, … actively protects the fetus and shapes neurological development. … It is the placenta – not the mother – that provides the hormone serotonin to the fetus’s forebrain early in development. … Placental abnormalities could directly influence the risk of developing depression, anxiety and even autism.” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fetal-armor

The nearly 4,000 placental mammals currently in existence include dogs, cats, elephants, whales, primates, cattle, horses, rats, sheep and humans. Genetic research suggests that the evolution of the human placenta can be traced back to the earliest multicellular organisms. We bear our young live after nourishing them for varying periods of time in their mother’s uterus. We are Mammalia.

The connection between humanity and the nutritional abundance of our sacred planet is as indispensable as the placental connection between a mother and her child.

Defend Civilization

The placenta has been described as the only disposable organ ever made. Civilization is also disposable. Numerous pathologies can affect the placenta, and numerous pathologies, including terrorism, racism, poverty and war, affect civilization.

A Declaration of Interdependence makes sense for 21st-century humanity. Just as the placenta secretes Neurokonin B to protect the fetus from attack by the mother’s immune system, humanity needs to expand and enrich the conduits of cooperation, protecting civilization from ourselves. If the connection between humanity and civilization fails, our descendants will have no more chance of survival than a fetus disconnected from its placenta.

The post In Praise of the Placenta appeared first on Digest This.

More effective national leadership and better weapons systems are less likely to assure the future of our nation than is the resurrection of chores. Chores are a voluntary cost-free resource for upgrading America.

Chores Matter

Chores are one of the most important chapters in the encyclopedia of parenting. Vital training is absent when a child’s day doesn’t include some consistent responsibility to share a tiny portion of the community’s work load. Childhood is an extended period during which life skills, including morals, manners and social responsibility, are developed and instilled.  Chores provide an education in self-maintenance.

Human history includes 200,000 years of chores. Our ancestors shared family responsibilities with children as soon as possible. Children are adults in training, and doing chores helps them learn to be better parents.

So why, in spite of the critical role chores played in human history, are they underappreciated today? Because managing chores is a chore. Today’s parents know less about managing chores, because few of them learned much about chore management from their parents. Our chore-management skills are being forgotten.

Chores are about respect, especially for the immediate neighborhood called family. Families are citizenship’s incubator; the groundwork of citizenship begins in the home. Too often schools are blamed for failing to instill good citizenship. While educators do share responsibility, the habits of good citizenship need to be established long before a child’s first school day.

Twelve Guidelines

Chores are not disappearing because parents are less committed to their parental responsibilities. Twenty-first-century humanity cares as much about children as people ever have. Rather, chores are disappearing because society is forgetting the essential benefits civilization derives from them.

From The Center for Effective Parenting: “Chores are beneficial for children – even very young ones. Being responsible for doing chores teaches children many important skills, such as cooperation and responsibility. Chores also teach children about fairness and commitment. The skills and values learned by doing chores will benefit children throughout their lives.”

If you’re interested in learning more about children and chores, visit

http://www.parenting-ed.org/handout3/General%20Parenting%20Information/chores.htm

The post In Defense of Chores appeared first on Digest This.

Women in Saudi Arabia will be given the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, which are the only public polls in the country, the BBC reports. The BBC’s world-affairs correspondent, Emily Buchanan, says it is an extraordinary development for Saudi Arabian women, who are not allowed to drive or to leave the country unaccompanied.

King Abdullah, speaking at the opening of the new term of the Shura Council, announced that the changes will occur after the municipal polls on Thursday.

“More than 5,000 men will compete in municipal elections on Thursday – the second-ever in the kingdom – to fill half the seats in local councils. The other half are appointed by the government,” according to the BBC. “The next municipal elections are due in four years’ time.”

Don’t Feel Smug

Before feeling self-righteous about this momentous development, visit this women’s rights timeline site: http://www.legacy98.org/timeline.html

Reread the Declaration of Sentiments, signed by 68 women and 32 men in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Sentiments

Visit the informative Women’s Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls, where many are deeply touched by the courage and intent of those who signed the Declaration. http://www.nps.gov/wori/index.htm

Remember that the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution wasn’t adopted until 1920, 72 years after the Declaration at Seneca Falls was signed. The United States will celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote in 2020.

A Foundational Relationship

The two-gender reproductive strategy emerged in a blossoming of life forms approximately 140 million years ago. Our human conversation about gender is barely informed unless it takes into account that more than a million life forms have thrived and are thriving as two genders. The partnership of human genders is not a whimsical and superficial alliance subject to the shifting tides of cultural history. The female and male genders are the foundational relationship sustaining our kind and should be honored as such.

Biologically, human males are females are mostly identical. The majority of chromosomes they inherit are identical. Rapidly developing science is informing our search for a better understanding of their similarities and differences. For example, technologically empowered brain mapping suggests the genders sometimes process the same language in different parts of the brain. Yet the subject of gender goes far beyond the biological sciences.

Defined at Birth

The legal requirement that gender is declared near the time of birth, when medical staffs must define a newborn child as male or female, has tremendous implications in a person’s life. The decision, based on obvious differences, does not take into account complex biological chemistry, which may be ambiguous.

It’s a tragedy that from the moment of their birth, tens of millions of individuals are relegated to a life of active persecution and second-class citizenship. The culture and laws underlying the persecution of gender ambiguities ignore new science demonstrating the extent to which such ambiguities are present throughout nature.

The legal declaration required to be made at birth is momentous when being defined as male or female impacts a person’s rights, potential to acquire resources, and overall life opportunity in the human community. It’s tragic that the female gender suffers from a higher incidence of poverty worldwide, primarily because of historic exclusion from education and practical vocations to advance women’s circumstances.

Gaining Ground

There may be no tribe or nation that hasn’t moved closer to accepting the principal that females are entitled to the same rights and privileges as men. Widespread recognition that both genders are entitled to equality before the law is one of civilization’s recent revolutionary advances.

The alliance of male and female predates humanity and needs to become stronger and wiser than ever for our human life form to survive and prosper.

The post An Essential Alliance appeared first on Digest This.

A thousand generations of passionate parenting hasn’t led to perfect people. Our natural limitations are inhibiting progress. Parents who feel guilty about the imperfect results of their parenting should remember that every child is born with a pre-installed script of his or her own. Human perfection is an error message. Perfect love is possible, but there is no such thing as perfect parenting.

Vital Ingredients

We are Mammalia. Providing extended after-birth care for children is part of the generic definition of our class. Healthy civilization functions like a placenta for human babies, maintaining a reliable supply of vital ingredients for children.

The failure of educational bureaucracy to achieve results resembles the failure of military bureaucracy to win wars. While we regret the failures, we continue to support the service. We don’t disparage those who serve. We don’t gut their cause.

Education Is Defense Spending

Nations suffer when their next generation is neglected. Initially helpless to affect their own destiny, children mature into the parents and leaders of tomorrow. Widespread confusion about the significance of human parenting is threatening civilization in our time.

The post Parenting Is Our First Line of Defense appeared first on Digest This.