Tuesday, October 29, 2019



What I Learned in the Peace Corps in Africa: Trump Is Right

In 1971, Karin McQuillan became a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.  Her account of her time there was published in 2018 but has subsequently been widely circulated so I thought it deserved a place here too.  The piece was originally published as an endorsement of Trump's early 2018 comment that some migrants to the USA come from "shithole countries"

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town.  Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health.  That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment."

In plain English: s--- is everywhere.  People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water.  He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water.  Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause organ failure.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country.  Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism.

Last time I was in Paris, I saw a beautiful African woman in a grand boubou have her child defecate on the sidewalk next to Notre Dame Cathedral.  The French police officer, ten steps from her, turned his head not to see.

I have seen.  I am not turning my head and pretending unpleasant things are not true.

Senegal was not a hellhole.  Very poor people can lead happy, meaningful lives in their own cultures' terms.  But they are not our terms.  The excrement is the least of it.  Our basic ideas of human relations, right and wrong, are incompatible.

As a twenty-one-year-old starting out in the Peace Corps, I loved Senegal.  In fact, I was euphoric.  I quickly made friends and had an adopted family.  I relished the feeling of the brotherhood of man.  People were open, willing to share their lives and, after they knew you, their innermost thoughts.

The longer I lived there, the more I understood: it became blindingly obvious that the Senegalese are not the same as us.  The truths we hold to be self-evident are not evident to the Senegalese.  How could they be?  Their reality is totally different.  You can't understand anything in Senegal using American terms.

Take something as basic as family.  Family was a few hundred people, extending out to second and third cousins.  All the men in one generation were called "father."  Senegalese are Muslim, with up to four wives.  Girls had their clitorises cut off at puberty.  (I witnessed this, at what I thought was going to be a nice coming-of-age ceremony, like a bat mitzvah or confirmation.)  Sex, I was told, did not include kissing.  Love and friendship in marriage were Western ideas.  Fidelity was not a thing.  Married women would have sex for a few cents to have cash for the market.

What I did witness every day was that women were worked half to death.  Wives raised the food and fed their own children, did the heavy labor of walking miles to gather wood for the fire, drew water from the well or public faucet, pounded grain with heavy hand-held pestles, lived in their own huts, and had conjugal visits from their husbands on a rotating basis with their co-wives.  Their husbands lazed in the shade of the trees.

Yet family was crucial to people there in a way Americans cannot comprehend.

The Ten Commandments were not disobeyed – they were unknown.  The value system was the exact opposite.  You were supposed to steal everything you can to give to your own relatives.  There are some Westernized Africans who try to rebel against the system.  They fail.

We hear a lot about the kleptocratic elites of Africa.  The kleptocracy extends through the whole society.  My town had a medical clinic donated by international agencies.  The medicine was stolen by the medical workers and sold to the local store.  If you were sick and didn't have money, drop dead.  That was normal.

So here in the States, when we discovered that my 98-year-old father's Muslim health aide from Nigeria had stolen his clothes and wasn't bathing him, I wasn't surprised.  It was familiar.

In Senegal, corruption ruled, from top to bottom.  Go to the post office, and the clerk would name an outrageous price for a stamp.  After paying the bribe, you still didn't know it if it would be mailed or thrown out.  That was normal.

One of my most vivid memories was from the clinic.  One day, as the wait grew hotter in the 110-degree heat, an old woman two feet from the medical aides – who were chatting in the shade of a mango tree instead of working – collapsed to the ground.  They turned their heads so as not to see her and kept talking.  She lay there in the dirt.  Callousness to the sick was normal.

Americans think it is a universal human instinct to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  It's not.  It seems natural to us because we live in a Bible-based Judeo-Christian culture.

We think the Protestant work ethic is universal.  It's not.  My town was full of young men doing nothing.  They were waiting for a government job.  There was no private enterprise.  Private business was not illegal, just impossible, given the nightmare of a third-world bureaucratic kleptocracy.  It is also incompatible with Senegalese insistence on taking care of relatives.

All the little stores in Senegal were owned by Mauritanians.  If a Senegalese wanted to run a little store, he'd go to another country.  The reason?  Your friends and relatives would ask you for stuff for free, and you would have to say yes.  End of your business.  You are not allowed to be a selfish individual and say no to relatives.  The result: Everyone has nothing.

The more I worked there and visited government officials doing absolutely nothing, the more I realized that no one in Senegal had the idea that a job means work.  A job is something given to you by a relative.  It provides the place where you steal everything to give back to your family.

I couldn't wait to get home.  So why would I want to bring Africa here?  Non-Westerners do not magically become American by arriving on our shores with a visa.

For the rest of my life, I enjoyed the greatest gift of the Peace Corps: I love and treasure America more than ever.  I take seriously my responsibility to defend our culture and our country and pass on the American heritage to the next generation.

African problems are made worse by our aid efforts.  Senegal is full of smart, capable people.  They will eventually solve their own country's problems.  They will do it on their terms, not ours.  The solution is not to bring Africans here.

We are lectured by Democrats that we must privilege third-world immigration by the hundred million with chain migration.  They tell us we must end America as a white, Western, Judeo-Christian, capitalist nation – to prove we are not racist.  I don't need to prove a thing.  Leftists want open borders because they resent whites, resent Western achievements, and hate America.  They want to destroy America as we know it.

As President Trump asked, why would we do that?

We have the right to choose what kind of country to live in.  I was happy to donate a year of my life as a young woman to help the poor Senegalese.  I am not willing to donate my country.

SOURCE 






Transgender women SHOULD be allowed to compete in elite female sports, says taxpayer-funded quango after row over cyclist

Transgender women who were born male should be allowed to compete in female-only sports events without medical checks, according to a group receiving taxpayers' money to run training sessions for national sporting bodies.

Sport England, a quango that oversees grassroots sport, has paid £26,000 to controversial trans lobby group Gendered Intelligence to deliver the sessions to sports associations.

Critics last night accused Sport England of introducing new gender policies through Gendered Intelligence. It is due to clarify its official guidance on trans women later this year.

The controversy comes as male-born trans athletes dominate some women's sport, including Canadian cyclist Rachel McKinnon, who won a second world title in Manchester last weekend.

One training document produced by Gendered Intelligence – and seen by The Mail on Sunday – urges sporting bodies to 'challenge' the idea that trans women who were born male have an 'unfair advantage' when they compete against biological women.

At present, trans women must undergo tests to prove they have been taking hormone-blocking drugs to reduce their testosterone levels before competing in women's sport.

But the document, entitled 'A Social Inclusion Model for Trans People in Sport', asks: 'Why are we worrying about what medical intervention they may or may not have had? They are a woman, within women's parameters.'

Gendered Intelligence has previously been criticised for running trans-awareness school workshops for pupils aged as young as four.

A barrister is being investigated by her chambers over tweets that she posted about celebrating a fight-back against 'gender extremism'.

Allison Bailey declared her support for the LGB Alliance, a new lesbian, gay and bisexual group criticised for excluding the transgender community.

Ms Bailey, of Garden Court Chambers in London, tweeted: 'Gender extremism is about to meet its match.'

The group consists of former members of the LGBT+ charity Stonewall in protest against its transgender stance.

A spokesman for Garden Court said: 'We are investigating concerns raised about Allison Bailey's comments in line with our complaints policy and Bar Standards Board policies.'

Dr Nicola Williams, from the women's rights pressure group Fair Play For Women, said: 'Sport England has not yet finalised its guidance on transgender inclusion but is already sneaking it out.'

Gendered Intelligence, which registered as a charity earlier this year, claims to have delivered trans training sessions to more than 16,000 people.

Its sport seminars, which have been running since April, claim there is an 'irrational fear' of biological males pretending to be trans women to cheat in sport.

It adds that sports need to move from an 'exclusive' model where trans athletes have to provide medical evidence before competing in their chosen gender category to an 'inclusive' model that 'assumes everyone can play unless there is a clear, objective reason for them to be excluded'.

Cathy Devine, a specialist in sport policy for women, said the advice delivered by Gendered Intelligence may be in breach of the law.

She said: 'The Equality Act says that people with the protected characteristic of "gender reassignment" can be excluded from female sport categories for the purposes of fairness and safety.'

A number of athletes have expressed concerns about the inclusion of trans women athletes, arguing it is unfair to other competitors.

British cyclist Victoria Hood said: 'The science is clear and it's obvious to anyone that trans women have an advantage over women.

'All of the governing bodies are terrified of a small, aggressive group of people. For taxpayers to be paying for these training sessions is ludicrous.'

A spokesman for Sport England said: 'Sport England is committed to ensuring that everyone can benefit from the benefits that leading an active life can offer. That's why we have been working with Gendered Intelligence since April to support the sector to be better equipped to include trans people.'

Gendered Intelligence said: 'The training we have delivered will allow more trans and non-binary people to access grassroots sports and fitness.'

SOURCE 





What This Olympic Gold Medalist & Mom Shows Us About Women’s Sports

For any new mom, coming back to work after welcoming a baby is a difficult feat. It was for professional athlete and Olympic sprinter, Allyson Felix. After giving birth to her daughter Camryn in November, getting back into running was an adjustment.

“I am just getting used to what the new normal looks like and getting my routine down and all of that,” she said in an interview.

But not only did Felix get back to work, she broke a world record!

Just eight months after her daughter was born, Felix reentered the world of competitive racing. And merely 10 months later, she beat Usain Bolt’s record for most World Championship titles and most gold medals at the World Championships. After her 4x400 meter relay team beat the competition, Felix was awarded with her twelfth gold medal.

This is an inspirational story for both athletes and mothers alike. It shows us just how much women are capable of – whether it be athletic achievement or bringing new life into the world.

But its important to pause and remember how important women’s athletics are to this moment.

Felix may have beaten Bolt’s record for most gold medals, but if she were forced to compete against him in a race, she would be left in the dust. Bolt won gold at the 2009 World Championships by running the 200-meter dash in 19.19 seconds. Felix won gold at the 2012 Olympics by running the 200-meter dash in 21.88 seconds.

Does this mean Felix doesn’t train as hard as Bolt? Of course not. Men run faster than women. This isn’t because males train harder. It’s because they have more muscle mass, greater bone size, and even more heart and lung capacity.

Men and women are different. If Usain Bolt had to give birth and then nurture a baby while training as Felix did, and he would not perform so well. That’s why men’s and women’s sports are separate – to give every athlete a fair opportunity to compete and win.

Unfortunately, this opportunity is being taken away from high school athletes in Connecticut. Since 2017, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) has allowed biological males who identify as girls to compete in high school women’s athletics – automatically putting female athletes like Selina Soule and Alanna Smith at a disadvantage.

That’s why ADF filed an official Title IX complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. This past August, the Department agreed to investigate this complaint.

Please stand with these young women.

Make it clear that they should not be forced to give up athletic – and even scholarship – opportunities at the expense of a political agenda. They deserve #FairPlay.

SOURCE 



How the world's Leftist media has reacted to the Uluru climbing ban

With hate, predictably. That the climbers might have been motivated by simple adventure-seeking hasn't occurred to them

We also get a glimpse of that unique leftist logic whereby being denied a privilege (the privilege of climbing the rock at any time) counts s white privilege.  Its like arguing with a madman.  Their seething hatred of the ordinary people doing the climbing trumps all else



Media outlets around the world have reacted to the permanent closure of public access to Australia’s most iconic landmark, Uluru.

Rangers at the sandstone monolith closed the climb — a decade’s old tradition of visitors both local and from around the world — at 4pm Friday, after the ban was unanimously voted on in 2017.

A new sign was set up at the base of the rock, notifying visitors that the climb was now permanently closed, almost 34 years to the day since the Anangu people — the traditional owners of the land — were handed back the title to Uluru.

From today, climbing will be punishable by a $6,300 fine.

The decision to ban the climb has divided Australians and those around the world for months in the lead-up to its closure.

And a final scramble of visitors yesterday hoping to be among the last to climb the rock — after months of thousands trekking to the Red Centre — has been described by a writer for The New York Times as “a reminder that a segment of the population remains resistant to some of the decisions indigenous people make when ownership of land is returned to them.”

“They have absolutely no shame,” one reader wrote on Twitter about the flock of climbers. “This is what white privilege looks like in Australia.”

“The lengthy queue of people waiting for one last crack at violating indigenous rights before the white government finally puts an end to it is pretty depressing,” wrote another commenter on the publication’s website.

While the ban is “a once-unimaginable act of deference to a marginalised population,” writes the piece’s author Jamie Tarabay, it is “a partly symbolic gesture that does nothing to address the myriad social problems endured by indigenous Australians.”

“Many of the Anangu themselves live in a trash-strewn community near the rock that is closed to visitors, a jarring contrast to the exclusive resorts that surround the monolith, where tourists seated at white tablecloths drink sparkling wines and eat canapes as the setting sun turns Uluru a vivid red.”

There a certain parts of Uluru so sacred that the Anangu people don’t want it photographed or even touched, writes Tarabay, yet tourists are welcomed to “tool around its base on camels or Segways, or take art lessons in its shadow.”

The climbers were like “a little ant trail,” tweeted one reader of The Washington Postwho published an article titled, “The last climb up Australia’s majestic Uluru”.

The Outback monolith is sacred to indigenous people, who have long implored visitors not to ascend the rock and have now imposed a ban on climbing it.

The Guardian echoed the sentiment of Central Land Council member Sammy Wilson in a cartoon posted overnight — written in the Pitjantjatjara language of the Anangu people — with the message
English. Uluru is a very important place, it's not Disneyland.

“As a result of Aboriginal people asking white people not to do something, hordes of tourists are hurrying in their thousands to do the exact opposite before time runs out,” the cartoon read.

Readers of the BBC’s coverage on the climbing ban have also reflected the world’s shock at Australian’s attitude toward climbing Uluru.

BBC News (World)

“I am truly embarrassed for these humans,” tweeted one reader, while another said, “It’s 2019, and the cultural white patriarchy still struggle with their greed. I am embarrassed for some of these interviewees — dripping in their own self entitlement and disrespect for the true landowners and spirit.”

It’s now time, Phil Mercer wrote in a piece for the publication, for the Anangu people to “rest and heal.”

“The Anangu believe that in the beginning, the world was unformed and featureless. Ancestral beings emerged from this void and travelled across the land, creating all living species and forms,” Mercer wrote.

“Uluru is the physical evidence of the feats performed by ancestral beings during this creation time.”

Independent media organisation NPR was one of the many to report on the closure. One reader tweeted, “If this was America, we would just add a gift shop on the top of it and continue to discriminate against the natives. Hopefully Australia treats its Natives better than we do here in America.”

“For the rock’s Aboriginal owners, whose tenure here goes back tens of thousands of years, this a momentous decision, one they have dreamed of and worked toward for decades,” wrote Kennedy Warne for National Geographic.

“Imagine the euphoria felt by the Aboriginal owners when the park board voted unanimously to end climbing.”

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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