Posts by Deborah
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An intriguing piece about the Vonnegut family, which I came across through Arts and Letters Daily.
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Ther have been some reports of children saying they prefer smacking, because it's over and done with, and they can just get on with things.
"Don't throw me into the briar patch, Brer Fox", anyone?
In our house, we prefer the sitting chair. Children who have misbehaved are required to sit still on a chair, without talking, in the middle of the family room for varying periods of time (the worst sinner ever got 10 minutes) and reflect on the error of their ways. Any talking or getting out of the chair results in the clock being reset to the original time. Occasionally, the girls get an early release for good behaviour. It also has the handy side effect of making everyone calm down. And, it's over and done with quickly.
BTW, anyone else notice that the Catholic Church has come out today saying that it's okay to hit children in a press release speciously titled, "Children are Precious gifts"? It seems that the rights of the family override the rights of children. That's probably the same sort of family where violence against women used to be tacitly condoned too. Let's reinforce the top down authoritarian approach to being a Christian!
Back to a much more entertaining topic, my brothers and I drove my mother crazy riding round and round and round the house on our bikes. And we scared her half to death riding our skateboards down the drive, and down the steep street towards one of the busier roads in town. Fantastic fun.
What about old fashioned blocks? We had a big box of them, and we spend hours building towns and houses and castles, and setting them all up like dominoes so we could push the first one and listen to the clack-clack-clack as they tumbled down (we called them 'machine-guns'). Not so cool as Raleigh 20s and the like, but wonderful fun. My girls have a big box of them too, and they spend hours and hours building castles, and stables for their herd of "My Little Ponies", and creating designs with the different colours and shapes. I have yet to introduce them to the joys of machines guns - this winter, perhaps.
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You can probably get an Arts Grant to assemble that anti-terrorism kit, Che.
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When it comes to owning a gun for protection, it's a bit like utilitarianism.
If somebody owns a gun, they feel safer.
But if everybody has a gun, then overall we are less safe.
So everybody acting in their own self-interest does not make us all better off.Even though I'm not fond of utilitiarianism as an ethical theory, alas, that's not utilitarianism. It's more like egoism - everyone should act in their own best interests. Utilitarianism works on the idea of achieving the greatest good (whatever that might be) for the greatest number.
But a very nice point, whatever the label we stick on it.
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There's an interesting obituary of Kurt Vonnegut in The Economist.
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That's so sweet of you, Che. Clearly there are still some innocents left.
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I'm not sure what the appropriate age is for my kids to become aware of the uses of anal beads, but as a kid it was certainly educational.
Riiiiight.......
You know what, I really don't want my 8-years-old-but-reading-age-around-12plus-years daughter happening upon those books.
But I'm with Emma on this one. It's up to me to be aware of what she's reading, censor it as needed (for her emotional age), and be ready to talk about anything that she gets to before I veto it.
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Snob.
I'm going to take that as a compliment.
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Dud4Jaundice
Very droll, but not really the level we aspire to here....
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THEATRE!