Friday, January 18, 2019



American Academy of Pediatrics Says No More Spanking or Harsh Verbal Discipline

Many of the major medical journals have come to resemble the global warming literature, with its low level of scholarship and determination to push an ideological agenda.  It is quite depressing.  Anyway, the latest heap of crap is below.  I follow the official pronunciamento with the abstract of the only study they refer to in support of their claims. So I will confine my comments to that study.

The study is a typical Leftist bit of over-simplification that totally ignores individual differences.  All men are equal so everybody must have the same disciplinary regime, apparently.  The idea that what works for one kid may not work for another cannot be entertained. My father never laid a hand on me and I never laid a hand on my son but that doesn't persuade me into thinking that you can bring up all kids that way.  Some kids really "try it on" and need some sort of physical discipline to enforce guidelines. I remember a dear little boy who was a real horror in his very permissive home but who was always an angel at my place because I once twisted his ear.

Just talking to defiant kids they despise. They think you are weak.   Without discipline they will almost certainly go into some sort of crime later on in life.  The little boy I mentioned above had a very rough teenagerhood but he eventually learned to follow the rules and is now doing very well. Luckily he was quite bright.

So the averages may be as reported below but what was behind the averages is far more important.  Clearly, some kids received discipline but still came out OK but we are told nothing about them.

Moreover, it was only the father’s high-frequency spanking at age 5 that was associated with less desirable outcomes.  What about lower frequency spanking?  That was apparently OK.  So, if you read the details in the article, spanking seems to be no problem.  It is only "high frequency" spanking that should be deplored.  What a laugh!  As is so often the case in science, the authors concluded what they wanted to conclude -- rather than what their results show.  I saw that frequently in my research career.



The largest professional organization for US pediatricians is taking a strict stance against parents, caregivers, and other adults using spanking, hitting, or slapping to discipline children. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released an updated policy statement on corporal punishment—the first major revise since 1998—based on accumulating evidence that physical punishments don’t work in the long-term and could even cause unintended harms. The policy also recommends against verbal discipline that causes shame or humiliation.

Robert Sege, MD, PhD, the policy’s coauthor and a pediatrician at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, recently spoke with JAMA about the AAP’s position on corporal punishment and how physicians can help parents discipline more safely and effectively. The following is an edited version of that conversation.

JAMA:What’s the AAP’s new policy on corporal punishment?

Dr Sege:First, parents should not use corporal punishment, including hitting and spanking, either in anger or as punishment. And, also, they shouldn’t use verbal punishment that causes shame or humiliation.

JAMA:What’s different about this policy statement?

Dr Sege:The 1998 statement discouraged parents from spanking their children and suggested that pediatricians help parents not to spank their children, but it was a little wishy-washy. What’s happened in the 20 years since then is that the data has really been overwhelming about how corporal punishment is ineffective and how it’s potentially risky. Parenting is a very personal thing and, of course, parents make their own decisions about how they want to raise their children. Our feeling at the American Academy of Pediatrics is that the role of doctors is to give parents the best evidence-informed guidance that we possibly can with which to make their decisions. And all of what we know says parents should never hit their children.

JAMA:What do recent studies tell us about the effectiveness of spanking and other physical discipline?

Dr Sege:A meta-analysis of a large number of studies showed that corporal punishment doesn’t work. It doesn’t cause children to change their own behavior, certainly not in the medium- or long-term. There were small studies that had mediocre study quality that showed that there’s a temporary change in a child’s behavior. But, of course, what parents want is to change the children’s behavior over the longer-term.

JAMA:What do we know about the consequences of corporal punishment on children?

Dr Sege:There are 3 main kinds of consequences. The first is that it increases their aggressive behavior and causes them more problems in school and with their parents. In the largest study of its kind—a longitudinal study that followed children over several years—children who were spanked had more problematic and aggressive behavior [later]. Corporal punishment often led to a vicious cycle, where the children became more oppositional as they experienced corporal punishment, causing their behavior to get worse. [The association between spanking and higher levels of aggression and rule-breaking remained after child and family characteristics were controlled for, including earlier behavior problems and mother’s parenting stress.]

SOURCE

Spanking and Child Development Across the First Decade of Life

Michael J. MacKenzie et al.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of maternal and paternal spanking of children at 3 and 5 years of age and the associations between spanking and children’s externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary through age 9.

METHODS: The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study of children in 20 medium to large US cities, was used. Parental reports of spanking were assessed at age 3 and 5, along with child externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary at age 9 (N = 1933). The data set also included an extensive set of child and family controls (including earlier measures of the child outcomes).

RESULTS: Overall, 57% of mothers and 40% of fathers engaged in spanking when children were age 3, and 52% of mothers and 33% of fathers engaged in spanking at age 5. Maternal spanking at age 5, even at low levels, was associated with higher levels of child externalizing behavior at age 9, even after an array of risks and earlier child behavior were controlled for. Father’s high-frequency spanking at age 5 was associated with lower child receptive vocabulary scores at age 9.

CONCLUSIONS: Spanking remains a typical rearing experience for American children. These results demonstrate negative effects of spanking on child behavioral and cognitive development in a longitudinal sample from birth through 9 years of age.

SOURCE






Procter & Gamble's Toxic Sanctimony

It's a truly amazing destruction of a brand by its own management. It will go down in marketing history. Two minutes that ruined a company. One would expect that the management are a green new generation but the key executives are in fact all no spring chickens.  I guess they just want to be hailed as virtuous in their old age.  Their ego is destroying their company

One of the world's most successful brands committed ideological hara-kiri this week. Recognized around the world as a symbol of manly civility for more than a century, Gillette will now be remembered as the company that did itself in by sacrificing a massive consumer base at the altar of progressivism.

To which I say: R.I.P.-C. (Rest In Political Correctness).

In case you hadn't seen or heard, parent company Procter & Gamble launched a Gillette ad campaign blanket-demonizing men as ogres and bullies. Guilt-ridden actors gaze ruefully at their reflections in the mirror — not because they've neglected their hygiene, but simply because they're men. Various scenarios of boys being boors and males being monsters flash across the screen before woke interlocutors show how "real" men behave in nonaggressive, conciliatory and apologetic ways.

At home and at work, in the boardroom, on the playground, and even while barbecuing in the backyard, Gillette sees nothing but testosterone-driven trouble. Message: Y chromosomes are toxic. The "best a man can get" can no longer be attained without first renouncing oppressive manliness.

Self-improvement must begin with self-flagellation.

A Gillette company statement explained that after "taking a hard look at our past" and "reflecting on the types of men and behaviors we want to celebrate," officials decided to "actively challenge the stereotypes and expectations of what it means to be a man everywhere you see Gillette."

But Proctor & Gamble, which bought Gillette in 2005 for $57 billion, doesn't spell out which part exactly of the 118-year-old company's past it now rejects. Was it founder King Gillette, the relentless entrepreneur who appealed to "red-blooded" young American soldiers? Was it the decades of multimillion-dollar promotional campaigns catering to physically superior athletes?

Or perhaps the mau-mauing marketers have adopted the radical feminist position that shaving itself is sexist. Is the ultimate goal to undermine the very raison d'etre of the $15 billion shave care industry?

I ask only half in jest. How else to explain this latest suicidal episode of collective consumer-shaming? Gillette's two-minute, man-bashing missive may have racked up 7 million views on YouTube, but the "dislikes" outnumber "likes" by 4 to 1.

And the reviews are brutal:

"How to destroy your company in 1 minute 48 seconds."

"Companies attempting to make profit should stick to that."

"The single male is the most attacked maligned ridiculed and forgotten person in today's society."

"You can buy High Quality Razors that are NOT Gillette at the 99 Cents Store with NO lecturing on how to be a Man."

"I'll buy P&G products again when I see them release an equivalent ad targeting negative female traits: toxic femininity/paternity fraud/fake accusations... doubt that's going to happen any time soon!"

"So now Gillette thinks that it is the arbiter of what all men should think, say, and watch. Screw Gillette, bought their products for almost 50 years, I will never buy another Gillette product. NEVER!!!"

"Thank you Gillette, I purchased your razors and chopped off my testicles with it. No more toxic masculinity!"

Ouch.

You may remember that P&G, which I un-fondly refer to Protest & Grumble, has dipped its sanctimonious toe into social justice waters before. In 2017, the company tackled identity politics with a video called "The Talk." The preachy ad stoked fear and hatred of police and perpetuated racial stereotypes of officers lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on innocent black children and teenagers — alienating law enforcement families across the country and insulting every minority cop to boot.

The backlash against that ad apparently didn't faze Protest & Grumble's activist zealots. Once again, industry marketers are proving they're not satisfied with selling useful products people want and need. No, they're hell-bent on exploiting successful businesses to cram odious politics down consumers' throats.

Like many Silicon Valley giants (hello, Facebook and Twitter) and SJW-hijacked sports enterprises (hello, NFL and ESPN), Gillette is now openly discriminating against its consumers-turned-critics to curry political favor with the #MeToo movement. Savvy social media observers caught the company throttling negative comments and dislikes on its YouTube video. They can manipulate likes and de-platform dissenters. But they won't be able to disguise the bloodletting effect of toxic sanctimony on their bottom line.

Falling on your virtue-signaling blade may win you awards and headlines, but ultimately, it's a fatal proposition.

SOURCE






Christian Baker Jack Phillips’ New Legal Battle with Colorado Is a Matter of Fairness

Most of us understand the importance of fairness early in life. Whether it’s an umpire’s call in Little League or a teacher’s grading in elementary school, we all intuitively know that fairness is a big deal.

But fairness perhaps is no more important than when our rights are in the hands of courts or other government tribunals. It’s there that we expect not only actual fairness but the appearance of fairness.

That seems reasonable enough. Now imagine that your freedom was on the line. You spent decades building your career, and the government threatens to take it away because of how you practice your faith.

You’re confident in your arguments, but your case is placed before a court that the highest court in the land just said was hostile to your beliefs. You wouldn’t feel very good about your chances, would you? The assurance of fairness would be missing. The legitimacy of the whole process is called into question.

“No worries,” the court tells you, “we have some new judges since we punished you a few years ago.”

That’s supposed to make you feel better, but you dig a little deeper and find that the current judges opposed your appeal in the earlier case. “Well, that’s not a good sign,” you think, but you try to stay optimistic.

Then you learn that the old and new judges alike were selected by the same person. And his selection pool included many judges with ties to an advocacy group that firmly opposed you in your first case. Not feeling too hopeful at this point, huh?

If all this weren’t bad enough, you finally learn that one of the current judges called you a “hater.” Would you believe that you have a fair shot at justice? Not a chance.

But that’s exactly what is happening to Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop. It’s not what you’d consider a picture of justice in action.

The state of Colorado, through the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, an administrative agency that operates as part prosecutor and part jury, punished Phillips a few years ago.

His crime? He could not in good conscience design a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage. He offered to sell the same-sex couple anything else in his shop or to create a different cake for them, but that wasn’t enough for the state of Colorado.

For six years, Phillips defended himself. And just when he began to wonder if all was lost, the Supreme Court intervened this past June and condemned the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for acting with “impermissible hostility” toward his faith.

That hostility consisted in large part of the commission’s unequal treatment of Phillips. While it allowed other bakeries and cake shops like his to refuse to make cakes with religious messages opposing same-sex marriage, it punished Phillips for declining to create a cake celebrating same-sex marriage.

There’s nothing fair about that.

But the hostility didn’t stop with the discriminatory treatment. It extended to commissioners who made hostile statements about Phillips. One referred to his plea for religious freedom as a “despicable piece of rhetoric.” And another took to Twitter to declare: “Freedom OF religion does NOT mean freedom FOR YOUR religion.”

With this sentiment running rampant on the commission, is it any wonder that less than a month after the Supreme Court denounced the state’s hostility, it was targeting Phillips again?

This time, his supposed crime is declining to create a custom cake with a blue and pink design that the attorney who requested it said would reflect and celebrate a gender transition. But Phillips doesn’t believe that people can choose or change their sex.

So the message of that design was not something he could express through his cake art. But Masterpiece Cakeshop told the attorney that Phillips would be glad to create a different cake if the attorney was interested in that.

Even so, the commission has launched another administrative prosecution against Phillips. Oh, but this time he’ll get a fair process, the state says, because the commissioners who made the hostile comments are gone.

The problem is, the state’s unequal treatment continues. It still allows other cake shops to decline to create cakes that express messages they consider objectionable, but insists on punishing Phillips when he does the same thing. The same unfair treatment that the Supreme Court just condemned is present in this new case.

Colorado’s claim that new commissioners are involved doesn’t begin to tell the half of it. All the current commissioners, except one, represented the state in defending the first order punishing Phillips. So even though they might not have been the ones who initially forced him to give up his wedding business, they are the ones who fought to keep that punishment in place.

Also of note, the same person—former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper—put the past and current commissioners in their positions. And one of the governor’s favorite groups to draw commissioners from is One Colorado—an outspoken critic of Phillips during his first case.

One of the commissioners presiding over the new case publicly serves with the National LGBTQ Task Force, another group that openly opposed Phillips the first time around.

Any hope for salvaging a semblance of fairness fades to black when a Twitter rant shows that another current commissioner referred to Phillips as a “hater.”

Fairness for Phillips, under these circumstances, is a mirage—a hopeless fantasy.

Anyone who suggests otherwise should honestly ask themselves a simple question: “Would you feel confident in the neutrality of those decision-makers if they held your fate in their hands?”

To ask the question is to answer it.

So no matter what you think about Phillips, his religious beliefs, or his desire to live them out in the public square, I hope we all can agree that he is entitled to something we’ve all sought since our earliest years—fairness. He can’t get that before this commission, a biased government agency that has targeted him for years.

Because of that, Phillips filed a lawsuit against Colorado in federal court through his attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, seeking to stop the state’s renewed efforts to punish him. The federal court saw enough of the problems to deny the state’s request to dismiss the suit.

State officials’ ongoing “disparate treatment” of Phillips reveals their “hostility towards Phillips, which is sufficient to establish they are pursuing the discrimination charges against Phillips in bad faith, motivated by Phillips’… religion … ,” the court wrote in its order Jan. 4.

Jack Phillips serves all customers, and he is even happy to serve the attorney who lodged the complaint against him. But he doesn’t create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events in conflict with his deeply held beliefs.

Because he can’t get a fair shake before the state commission, he deserves to pursue—and ultimately win—his case in federal court. That will finally free him to live his life according to his beliefs, free from government coercion, just as the First Amendment promises.

SOURCE






Part-Aboriginal journalist says Australia Day reminds her that her sisters and mother are 'more likely to get raped' than are white Australians

She is perfectly right.  They are more likely to get raped BY OTHER ABORIGINES.  The incidence of crimes against women in Aboriginal communities is colossal.  Most domestic violence in Australia traces to Aboriginal communities

The woman is just a Leftist grievance-monger.  She has so little Aboriginal ancestry that no-one would take her for one.  She has no Aboriginal features at all




The network's new entertainment reporter weighed in on the debate surrounding the divisive public holiday while appearing on the Today show on Thursday, starting a fiery conversation by saying Australia is 'the best country in the world, no doubt'. 

'But I can't separate the 26th of January from the fact that my brothers are more likely to go to jail than school, or that my little sisters and my mum are more likely to be beaten and raped than anyone else's sisters or mum,' she said.

'And that started from that day. For me it's a difficult day and I don't want to celebrate it. Any other day of the year I will tie an Australian flag around my neck and run through the streets with anyone else.'

Ms Boney's comments were challenged by Today sports presenter Tony Jones, who asked: 'But why should any other day be different to the January 26?'

'Because that's the day that it changed for us. That's sort of the beginning of what some people would say is the end. That's the turning point,' Ms Boney replied.

'I don't want to tell anyone what they should be doing. [But] my view is move it to the day of federation - chuck on another public holiday, or just celebrate it on another day. But I think a day that suits more people is probably going to be more uniting.' 

Today co-host Georgie Gardner then pointed to Indigenous communities living without electricity and running water, in 'horrific third world conditions'.

Mr Jones responded: 'I don't doubt that whatsoever. But I'm sorry, we do see white Australians in similar situations - we do see kids going to school with lunch - without a school uniform.' 

Ms Boney, 31, interjected and argued that 'statistics tell us our lives are harder.'  

'That's not me making it up or saying feel sorry for me, because I don't want anyone to feel sorry to me. What I'm talking to are the statistics,' she said.

'That's what I said to you about my brother's being more likely to go to jail - our lives being harder. For it to be a ''us and them'' thing, I think that's why we are talking about it changing.'

Deborah Knight applauded the panel for having a 'grown up conversation' about the issue, before Ms Gardner thanked Ms Boney for her insight.

The discussion sparked a fierce debate among viewers, with many suggesting changing the date wouldn't improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.

'Seriously stupid by you today,' former Liberal MP Dennis Jensen wrote to Ms Boney in a since deleted tweet. 'Seriously, neither schools nor gaols existed prior settlement. And as for violence and rape only starting with settlement... speak to anthropologists about Indigenous violence pre-settlement, it was endemic.' 

Another viewer said: 'I don't see that changing the date will have any affect on aboriginal men going to jail or aboriginal women being raped. 'These are terrible acts and I wish things were different but they are not connected to January 26.'

Another asked: 'How will changing the date help her brothers and sisters?'

Others praised Ms Boney and suggested Australia was 'comfortably racist'. 'Brooke Boney smashing it as usual on a hard to talk about topic. Best thing to happen to the Today show,' one noted.

'Brooke just made more sense than anyone else I’ve heard talk about this issue. Maybe I could be persuaded to change my view,' another said.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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