DADvocate

Cruising through Blog World, I came across this Gallup Poll survey, Republicans Report Much Better Mental Health Than Others.

Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

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But the key finding of the analyses presented here is that being a Republican appears to have an independent relationship on positive mental health above and beyond what can be explained by these types of demographic and lifestyle variables. The exact explanation for this persistent relationship -- as noted -- is unclear.

This flies in the face of some other studies, in particular some reported by DrHelen, more HERE. Of course, it would be typical of someone with poorer mental health to try and tear down someone with better mental health as do the researchers in these studies.

Of course, self-report of excellent mental health doesn't necessarily indicate excellent mental health. But, it may be a good indicator at the least. The vast majority of adults receiving mental health treatment do so voluntarily which means the first step in the real world psychological evaluation is a self-evaluation.

During my ten years in social service/mental health, I found it extremely rare (as in I can't ever remember a case) that someone considered their mental health to be worse than it was. This indicates that Democrats and independents probably do have lower rates of excellent mental health and more "only fair/poor" mental health.

Personally, I concur with the results of the study. Almost every Democrat I know is nuttier than almost every Republican I know. :-) Maybe this is the root of the behavior that lead Glenn Reynolds to write, "So much of "progressive" politics looks like the behavior of spoiled adolescents."

More: Michael Savage wrote a book, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions. I've never read it but maybe there is more truth in it than I thought.

In Butler County, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati, Lakota East High School cancelled a production of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" because of complaints by Gary Hines, president of the local NAACP branch. Hines "reasoning" is that the book was originally titled "Ten Little Niggers." The book was never published in the United States under that title. It is also commonly published as And Then There Were None.

The internationally acclaimed play - Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" - was to be performed by students at Lakota East High School this weekend.

But Gary Hines, president of the local NAACP branch, recently complained to Lakota officials that the play, based on Christie's 1939 mystery novel, was inappropriate for a school production.

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The title of the international bestseller was widely changed after 1939, and school theater productions in America have performed the murder mystery play as either "Ten Little Indians" or "And Then There Were None" for decades since.

Hines claims that a lack of racial diversity among Lakota's students and teachers allowed the play to be chosen despite the history surrounding its original title.

"It's a lack of diversity knowledge on their part. Diversity is not a way of life in Lakota," Hines said.

Seems like "diversity is Hines problem. Not everyone thinks just like him.

As an avid mystery fan, I've read many Agatha Christie novels and short stories myself. The original title of "Ten Little Indians" is news to me. I wonder how far Hines and others like him dig to find an insult.

It also appears that Hines motives might involve monetary gain also.

But Hines, who operates GPH Consultants - a diversity training company - in West Chester Township, said that despite his strong protest, it was Lakota officials' idea to cancel the play in response to his complaints.

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In 2002, Hines accused Lakota schools of widespread, systemic racism and recommended that more than 2,000 Lakota employees be required to enroll in diversity and cultural sensitivity training similar to what was offered by his company. He promised to compile a report months later detailing his accusations against the schools but never produced a document.

Hines, however, has continued to allege racism in the school district.

Most recently in a Nov. 20 e-mail to Powell and other Lakota school board members, he wrote: "Given the history of the district, anything short of involving the NAACP in planning, developing, and executing a systemic approach to diversity is not acceptable and certainly not good enough for the district's students, faculty, and staff."

Powell countered that "Gary Hines has a certain vested interest in district's diversity since he has approached us many times in the past about providing that service."

How convenient that someone owning a brainwashing and indoctrination diversity training company would accuse a school of lacking diversity.

During the nearly twenty years I've lived in the Cincinnati region, I don't remember any race problems in Lakota. Sure it's primarily a white middle class area. But, if you don't like that, find a bunch of non-whites and move there.

The students were not too happy.

Lakota East senior Luke Null, who has rehearsed since September to perform as one of the lead characters, said "pressure from the local NAACP canceled the play."

"I read the play as part of a class in the ninth grade. There are no racial undertones in it at all, and we weren't putting on the play under it's original name from 1939. We were putting on the play under another name," Null said. He and other theater students are now scrambling to find another play to perform some time early in 2008.

"Some of our First Amendment rights were censored. The race card is a pretty strong card," he said.

This incident does seem to qualify for one of those Instapundit "They told me if George Bush was elected......, and they were right." awards. In all the Christie books I've read, I do not recollect any racist content, only proper British storytelling.

A suggestion for the NAACP would be to quit being a deformed hand. A sure fired way to improve their image and the image on those they claim to "represent" is to help others. Can you imagine the reaction of a group of blacks built a park in a poor white area, or just cleaned up a park. After all, in raw numbers there are many more poor whites than blacks.

If you have a legitimate gripe, make it. But this is not one. Mr. Hines' actions do not advance the cause of "colored people." Just the opposite, he creates resentment and hostility with his imbecilic meddling. The national or state NAACP should order Mr. Hines to cease and desist and remove him from office if he fails to do so.

So much of "progressive" politics looks like the behavior of spoiled adolescents.

Instapundit

For the past 30 years or so, I've thought my having kids, loving them, caring for them, providing for them and trying to raise them to be happy, healthy, normal adults was a sign of my normalcy and good mental health. Apparently not according to this story linked to by Instapundit.

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future.

I must admit, I've had thoughts concerning maintaining the genetic line. My two sons are the only genetically related male grandchildren of my father to carry on the family name. My two daughters make up half of the female grandchildren. Only seven grandchildren, one adopted, from 6 children. That's less than the maintenance replacement rate of about 2.1 per couple, especially when you include spouses.

But, the new standard is no children. "I realised then that a baby would pollute the planet - and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do."

I always thought that people driving SUVs and consuming much more than needed were the environmentally unfriendly ones. Like all the people flying private jets to Bali.

Most of my adult life, I've been an environmentalist out of necessity. I've driven smaller cars that get good gas mileage because paying for lots of gas would be hard on my wallet. I've kept heating bills down to save money more so than lower greenhouse gases. In the outdoors, I practice leave no trace that the Boy Scouts teach. But, even this is selfish as I want to be able to return to an equally pristine spot year after year.

I do recycle voluntarily with little advantage, if any, to myself.

However, in my short-sighted selfishness, I missed the boat completely and reproduced. Never mind that my children are brilliant, loving, capable people who will likely contribute more than they take from the world. They are walking, talking, eating, defecating environmental disasters!

Rand Simburg has some thoughts about this.

Well, if you hate humans so much, you know where to start, and it's entirely within your own power to end your own existence. Who would possibly miss you?

Classical Values makes some good points concerning the "religious fervor" of people such at this.

My suspicion is that sterilization would further encourage the messianic activism which possess these people. Not only because it derives from misplaced spirituality, but because they don't have to devote time, energy, or money to raising children.

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Hey kids, announcing you've had yourself sterilized is almost as cool as announcing you're a vegan, and while it might not be quite the same as "coming out," the benefits are similar.

And even if you haven't actually had your tubes done yet, talking about it certainly ought to be a good Thanksgiving dinner conversation starter.

As for myself, I just don't know what to do. Four kids to further pollute the Earth. I could plant some trees or purchase carbon offsets. Maybe I can fly to Bali and relax in the sun figure out what to do about global warming climate change.

Or maybe, I can just go hunting. If I kill enough deer, it should offset the environmental impact my children will have on the world. Deer cause over 1.5 million auto accidents in the U.S. per year. (Of course, if those pesky humans weren't driving cars around, this wouldn't happen.) But what the heck. I'm a selfish cur anyway, hunting and fishing it is.

Originally uploaded by DADvocate

Hillary makes a point, or not, about Oboma's foreign policy experience.

Hillary Rodham Clinton ridiculed Democratic rival Barack Obama on Tuesday for his contention that living abroad as a child helped give him a better understanding of the foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.

"Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face," Clinton said. "I think we need a president with more experience than that, someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to and has confidence in."

Just much more foreign policy experience does Hillary have than Oboma? Not much really? Does watching Bill screw up in Somalia count? Will the world look up to and have confidence in a woman who sat in the waiting room while her husband was serviced by young interns in the Oval Office?

Fortunately for the good of our country, Hillary is looking more hillaryous each day. Keep up the good work, Senator!!

CNN.com ran a big story today on the "rise" of hate crime in 2006. CNN includes a picture of a noose and a reference to the Jena 6.

Although the noose incidents and beatings among students at Jena, Louisiana, high school occurred in the last half of 2006, they were not included in the report.

CNN also doesn't mention the students being beat were white leaving one to easily believe otherwise. More from CNN:

Nevertheless, the Jena incidents, and a rash of subsequent noose incidents around the country, have spawned civil rights protests in Louisiana and last week at Justice Department headquarters here.

Too bad the protesters didn't look at the figures CNN provides based on the FBI report. In fact, I wonder if CNN looked at their figures.

Whites committed 58.6% of hate crimes. Blacks committed 20.6%. Given that whites make up 73.9% of the population and blacks, 12.9% according to the U.S. Census Bureau, blacks commit hate crimes at a rate more then 50% greater than whites. I guess Jesse and Al want even more black youth in jail.

This misleading nature of the story shows even greater when you look at incidents per state per CNN. Louisiana - 22; New York - 522; Massachusetts - 379; Alabama - 1 (that's right - ONE); California - 1297; Mississippi - 0 (Yep, zero, zilch, nada!); Ohio - 300; Connecticut - 131; Maryland - 212; Georgia - 13; New Jersey - 759; Louisiana - 22. (Yes, Louisiana is in there twice, for EMPHASIS!)

No, this isn't a big problem in the Deep South. It's a much bigger problem in our liberal northern and western states. If you look at the chart for offenders, you might notice the absence of Hispanics. How much you want to bet Hispanics are rolled in with the other whites? The U.S. government moves Hispanics into and out of ethnic/racial groups to help skew figures which ever direction they wish. Hispanics are Caucasians but the Feds need to stop switching them around at their whimsy.

Looking at the incidents per year that CNN shows, you will see that 2006 was lower than 5 of the past 10 years for hate crimes. So 2006 wasn't that bad.

In 2005 there were 16,692 homicides. More than double the number of hate crimes in 2006. There were 5.2 million violent crimes in 2005, obviously a much greater problem than nooses on a tree.

Hate crime is a problem but a relatively small problem. Does it make the liberal press feel good to "help" by misrepresenting the very facts they print? Why the focus on the South? Are they stuck in the 1930's? Or, before?

Are Jesse and Al interested in the truth or just power building and money grubbing? What would happen of no one listened to their false claims of racism? Jesse and Al would have to work for a living and we'd have a real chance at racial harmony.

What we don't need is to come another step to a police state based on the mob rule of Jesse and Al.

I caught my daughter and her friend share a moment before a game. In the long run, kids playing sports together will make more progress than Jesse or Al will be throwing people in jail for thought crimes.

A commenter to this post called me "an apologist for racism." The sham of claims of racism in the Jena 6 case continue.

Thousands of demonstrators encircled Justice Department headquarters in the nation's capital Friday to demand the government crack down harder on hate crimes.

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The noose incident at Jena was the beginning of months of racial tension that included the beating of a white student in December, allegedly by six black classmates. Two months ago, 15,000 to 20,000 protesters, including Sharpton and King, descended on Jena -- a town of about 3,000 -- to protest how authorities handled the cases of the six charged in that beating.

"There's Jenas everywhere," Sharpton said Friday. "Which is why you saw thousands of us come to Jena and why you see thousands of us come now.

Sharpton and Jackson aren't free from racism themselves. But, Jackson and Sharpton continue to push the myths of the Jena 6 for their own enrichment. Jackson and Sharpton need racism to exist or they lose their power and, most likely, much of their income. In order to ensure their positions, they must create racism even when none exists.

The problem with hate crimes is that it moves into the realm of thought control and mind reading. The noose incident is hoisted as a tremendous racist act. In order for it to be racist, racism must be the motive. It was not.

Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of "Lonesome Dove.") The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history.

But the truth be damned, Jesse and Al need the money and power.

When I think of nooses, I think of the Wild West, Judge Roy Bean, and Clint Eastwood movies. Although I grew up in the South, nooses don't conjure up images of racial lynchings for me but of unruly crowds outside a jail in a small Western town.

The path of "hate crimes" is dangerous. Hate crime laws move us ever farther down the path of a police state the the left hopes for fears. This brings us to the words of the commenter calling me "an apologist."

Some believe the response to the lefts harping on racism and calling for more hate crime legislation and prosecutions is an eye for eye. We should be out finding blacks, Hispanics (an ethnic group by the way, not a race), and others committing hate crimes against whites. There is no doubt minorities commit crimes against whites that are racially motivated. But prosecuting assault as assault does the job. Wasn't the attack on Justin Bark, a white student, at Jena High School racially motivated? There are many who claim an minority can't be racist.

Continuing down the road of an eye for an eye "soon the whole world is blind." In the words of Martin Luther King, whom Jackson and Sharpton betray,

The reason I can' t follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion. I remember some years ago, my brother and I were driving from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee. And for some reason the drivers that night were very discourteous or they were forgetting to dim their lights...And finally A.D. looked over at me and he said, 'I'm tired of this now, and the next car that comes by here and refuses to dim the lights, I'm going to refuse to dim mine.' I said, 'Wait a minute, don't do that . Somebody has to have some sense on this highway.' And I'm saying the same thing for us here in Birmingham. We are moving up a mighty highway toward the city of Freedom. There will be meandering points. There will be curves and difficult moments, and we will be tempted to retaliate with the same kind of force that the opposition will use. But I'm going to say to you, 'Wait a minute, Birmingham. Somebody's got to have some sense in Birmingham.'

Yes, somebody's got to have some sense. We need to be fighting the constant, increasing encroachment of the government into every aspect of our lives down to what we think. Jackson and Sharpton don't care about freedom and equality. They care about money and power. They are happily flushing your freedom down the commode to enhance themselves.

We need to stop the insanity before we're all blind or in jail. Crimes need to be prosecuted for what is done, not what is thought. And that is why I'm not going to going to get my bowels in an uproar every time someone uses a racially a disparaging term whether my race is the object or not.

From The Washington Times:

A Casa Furniture and Bedding store in Alexandria has been advertising easy credit with a twist: “no gringo papers” necessary.

A sign outside the store at the intersection of North Beauregard and King streets reads, “Credito sin papeles de gringo.” In English, that could be translated to say “Credit without gringo papers.”

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The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word gringo as “a disparaging term for a foreigner in Latin America, especially an American or English person.”

But the word “gringo” in the store's sign is not intended to offend anyone, Miss Granados said.

The story I've always heard is that the term "gringo" the song "Green Grows the Grass" and how Mexicans interpreted "green grows." Actually, I think the sign's kind of funny. I'd probably be offended if a bunch of Hispanics were hostilely yelling "gringo" at me. But then it wouldn't be the word so much as the action.

Let's keep our sense of humor, folks.

Joe Nuxhall was the youngest person to play major baseball. He was less than 16 years old when he first played with the Cincinnati Reds in 1944 and pitched 2/3's of an inning. He eventually returned to the Reds in 1952 and played major league baseball until 1966. He twice made the All-Star team.

However, Nuxhall earned his way into the fans of the Cincinnati Reds more as an announcer than a player. For 31 years, he covered the Reds teamed with Hall of Fame announcer Marty Brennaman. Nuxhall's warm personality and knowledge quickly made him a fan favorite.

I first heard "Nuxie," as many called him, in 1990 when I first moved to Maysville, KY and began listening to some of the Reds games on WLW radio. At first I was surprised how much Nuxhall sounded like my Uncle Dan. As it turned out, there was good reason for that.

Joe Nuxhall grew up in Hamilton, OH where my father and his two brothers, one being Uncle Dan, grew up. They had known Nuxhall as kids. Dan maintained a relationship with Nuxhall throughout his life. At my father's visitation, my sisters had dug up a page, published in the mid-1950's, from the Hamilton newspaper. The page showed past "paperboys" and where they were then. My father and Nuxhall were on the same page.

Like many in the Cincinnati area, I have an affection for Joe Nuxhall. Plus, it's like a little bit of my own past has died. Now Nuxhall's famous closing words to every Reds broadcast have a more permanent meaning, "This in the Ol' Left-Hander rounding third and heading for home."

More HERE.

Watching a bit of "Blazing Saddles," a classic comedy, on AMC, I felt the impact of rampant, runaway political correctness. The dialog in the scene where Bart (Cleavon Little) stands at the podium holding his gun to his own head after first riding in to town goes:

Bart: Hold it! Next man makes a move, the nigger gets it!
Olson Johnson: Hold it, men. He's not bluffing.
Dr. Sam Johnson: Listen to him, men, he's just crazy enough to do it!
Bart: [lower register] Drop it! Or I swear I'll blow this nigger's head all over this town!

But in the AMC version tonight it went:

Bart: Hold it! Next man makes a move, the ------- gets it!
Olson Johnson: Hold it, men. He's not bluffing.
Dr. Sam Johnson: Listen to him, men, he's just crazy enough to do it!
Bart: [lower register] Drop it! Or I swear I'll blow this ------ head all over this town!

Just a moment of silence where the "N" word was deleted.

Crude as it may be, much of the humor of the scene rests on the use of the "N" word. Besides, Cleavon Little was a black man. Isn't it OK for a black person so use the "N" word? It's used plenty in rap songs and current movies.

As I said the other day, we are coming closer to being the old Soviet Union everyday. Mostly in the name of fairness, equality and political correctness. What's next, re-writing Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe?

After dropping my son off at school this morning, I waited at the traffic light to pull out from the school's drive. When the light turned green I began pulling out to turn left. I noticed a red car coming from my right that did not appear to be slowing.

The lady in the car appeared clueless that the light was red. I honked my horn for a good 3-4 seconds to try to give her a clue. The usual speed limit on the highway in front of the school is 45 mph. During the school morning and afternoon, it is 25 mph. This lady was going closer to 45 than 25.

Being a small town with only one public high school, everyone knows there is a traffic light in front of the high school. With the flashing lights and increased traffic with lots of school buses, speeding through the school zone and running the red light is blatant carelessness.

After she passed I pulled out behind her. The bumper sticker on the back of her car read, "I Care About Kids." Obviously an empty sentiment.

Sometimes I wonder about the hidden dangers, if any, of alternative fuels and energy sources. Windmill generators first caught my curiosity. Windmills seem to be a extremely clean, safe energy source. In some form, people have been using them for hundreds of years.

Windmills take the energy from moving air and transform it to electricity. But, what happens if too much energy is taken from the wind? Is this possible? Logic would say that the windmills would cause some slowing of the wind. If too many windmills are built, sapping the energy from moving air masses, would climatic changes occur? I'm curious. How many windmills would it take to have a detrimental effect on the climate? Should this be a concern?

We're already seeing in biofuels increased cost of food due to crops being diverted from food to biofuels. Some biofuels show promise. Brazil does quite well using sugar cane to make both sugar and ethanol. Algaes are beginning to show some promise as a source of bio-diesel.

Another seemingly endless and clean energy source is hydrogen which is drawn from water. With a shortage of fresh water in many parts of the world already, is using water for fuel wise? Can salt water be used to extract hydrogen?

Photo-electric cells also appear to be clean and efficient. Capturing the sun's energy and converting it to electricity, the cells take up a fair amount of space. But solar energy holds much promise if we can harness it efficiently. The amount of solor energy that falls on a square meter of the Earth is pretty amazing. But right now we don't capture that energy very efficiently.

It'll be exciting to see what energy sources become staples in the future. I just hope we give them more forethought than we did in the past.

Listening to the radio today, I heard Blake's quote. It reminded me of many similar sayings "Looking at the world through rose colored glasses," to "When there is no illusion the "what is" is most sacred." The obvious message here is to see things objectively as they are.

With so many of us having agendas, this, apparently, not as easy as it seems. Most feminist oriented women I know interpret everything around them in terms of feminist philosophy. Viewing a traditional marriage, such a feminist may see many negative things despite however the married couple feels and lives in their relationship.

Once I heard a female cultural sensitivity trainer (or something like that) nearly go into a rage on the radio because someone had locked their car doors while she stood on the sidewalk waiting to cross the street. She took it as the person in the car locked the doors because a black person was standing close by. It sounded more like the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic to me.

Look at the differing reactions to the Duke lacrosse team rape accusations versus the Jena 6. The response by many to these is based solely on race. The facts, "what is," matters little if at all.

Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" speaks to the issue of seeing reality as opposed to what you think is reality. For me, the primary message of Plato's story is always be willing to discover or admit that what you think is so, may not be. This includes having a little humility about one's beliefs. But this does not mean you take them lightly either but rather an openness to explore intellectually.

Indeed, there are certain beliefs worth fighting and dying for as did Leonidas and the 300 at Thermopylae. In the The History Channel show about Thermopylae, one history professor describes the battle as the most important battle in history for the preservation of democracy.

In today's world it seems so many people have agendas and "perspectives" that "what is" not only gets lost but doesn't even matter. At best it is tiresome to be constantly bombarded with the agendas. At worst, the agenda driven actions pose a grave danger to our freedoms.

In the early 1970's, a friend of mine visited the USSR. Upon his return he described how conversations with Russians were hard to follow because the conversation changed instantly whenever a stranger walked by. One never knew who might betray them. With political correctness, I see this becoming a more and more common in the US.

The latest is State Rep. Carla Blanchard Dartez, of Morgan City, LA calling the mother of the NAACP's local president "Buckwheat." The NAACP is now supporting Dartez's opponent. I don't know if Dartez is actually racist or not. She has demonstrated, clearly, she has too poor judgement to be holding a legislative office. But let's let it go at that.

OK, I can't quite let it go at that. There are a couple of other details.

Before qualifying in September, Carla Dartez was given a summons for improper lane usage after hitting a pedestrian with her vehicle. She failed a field sobriety test but passed a later Breathalyzer test.

Earlier this month, Lenny Dartez was indicted on charges of allegedly harboring illegal aliens through his construction business.

I wonder why her husband was harboring illegal aliens. (At least the correct term for illegal aliens is used without double quote.) Could it be because he could pay sub-standard wages and make more profit?

But I digress.

Let's take this and lots of other things for what they are not what we wish them to be. In this case, a somewhat ignorant politician and her corrupt husband. But, is this a reflection of all Democrats and liberals? Probably not. Maybe Robert Byrd. Most Democrats would have made a reference to Aunt Jemima. :-)

It sure would be nice if the Democrats, "progressives," Republicans, conservatives, etc. could focus on what is and work to improve it rather than color everything to fit their agenda and to increase their power. But, then again, that may be too much to ask.

My son took this picture of the Vietnam Memorial last year. I visited there nearly twenty years ago and found the names of the two people I know who died in Vietnam. I couldn't keep the tears from my eyes.

Recent movies portraying Iraq are flopping

"Rendition," a drama starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal about the CIA's policy of outsourcing interrogation of terror suspects, has taken just under 10 million dollars at the box office, a disastrous return.

Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis's latest film "In the Valley of Elah," about a father investigating the death of his son in Iraq, earned favorable reviews but less than seven million dollars following its release in September.

Even the action-packed "The Kingdom," starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner, fell well below its 70 million budget with around 47 million dollars in ticket sales.

I attribute this to the phenomena that many left wing Hollowwood types believe that once they become rich and famous because of their looks, and sometimes acting ability, their intelligence and insight grows geometrically. These Hollowwood types also believe that the public will gladly pay good money to watch their indoctrination films. They were wrong.

Do an Internet search for domestic violence and you'll find a wealth of sites that make this claim "men abuse women in about 95% of the reported cases of domestic violence" Some even suggest a source as does PBS, "According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 95 percent of the victims of domestic violence are women." Searching the Bureau of Justice Statistics, I couldn't find the 95% figure anywhere. It may be there but well hidden.

Of course "reported" may be the operative word here. How many men do you know would report it to the police if his wife hit him? Or what about a man reporting psychological abuse, i.e. being nagged incessantly?

These claims have been debunked many times again and again.

A commenter to my last post said, "I don't really see this all as a vast conspiracy against men." I do. Women's "rights" groups misrepresent statistics, perpetrate propaganda and justify women murdering men in order to gain a legal advantage over men and to brainwash as many as possible into believing that in any conflict the man is at fault. Almost no one seems to question the 95% figure outside of the men's right movement.

Don't kid yourself. There are women who take every opportunity to demonize men. Even though they are so ignorant that they don't know that flooding can greatly increase the risk of the spread of disease.

Expanding the domestic violence definition to include child abuse, women don't look so good.

In 2003, 48.3 percent of child victims were male; 51.7 percent of victims were female. 83.9 percent of victims were abused by a parent. 40.8% of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.8 percent were maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent were abused by both parents.

Children are about twice as likely to be abused by their mother as their father. Yet, somehow, these same women are always victims in adult circumstances.

The real myths here are the ones being spread by the radical feminist and are used by every female who wishes to put the screws to her significant other.

Dr. Helen posted the other day on Tennessee's approach to domestic violence.

So I received this card in the mail announcing the new domestic violence reporting requirements for the Tennessee Department of Health. I decided to check out their website and found it to be lacking in the recent research on the role women play in domestic violence. I also noticed that the reporting form had the word "female" listed first under "patient" and under perpetrator in the first column listed:

o Husband
o Ex-husband
o Boyfriend
o Ex-boyfriend

Notice how the victim is always female and the perpetrator is always male? Dr. Helen provides links to several studies showing that it just isn't true. But in this Tennessee training manual for EMS workers all references are to male perpetrators and female victims except in references to gay/lesbian relationships.

If you visit Kentucky's Dept. of Health site and start clicking links regarding domestic violence, you come to pages like this one that completely label man as the abusers. Or, very ironically, this one at the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association titled "MYTHS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE". Of course, they push the myth that only females are victims and males are abusers on this page. The Kentucky Domestic Violence Association should change its name to the All Men Are Assumed Guilty Association.

Amazingly, Kentucky had ONE link regarding "DV against men." It leads to a web site for Oregon Counseling, a non-profit agency. Its page on domestic violence against men makes excellent points.

In 100 domestic violence situations approximately 40 cases involve violence by women against men. An estimated 400,000 women per year are abused or treated violently in the United States by their spouse or intimate partner. This means that roughly 300,000 to 400,000 men are treated violently by their wife or girl friend.

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First of all, the incidence of domestic violence reported men appears to be so low that it is hard to get reliable estimates.

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Although the counseling and psychological community have responded to domestic abuse and violence against women, there has been very little investment in resources to address and understand the issues of domestic abuse and violence against men.

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For example, it is assumed than a man with a bruise or black eye was in a fight with another man or was injured on the job or playing contact sports. Even when men do report domestic abuse and violence, most people are so astonished men usually end up feeling like nobody believes them.

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It is a widely held assumption that women are always the victims and men are always the perpetrators. (Writer's note: Duh!)

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Men stay in abusive and violent relationships for many different reasons. The following is a brief list of the primary reasons.

* Protecting Their Children. Abused men are afraid to leave their children alone with an abusive woman. They are afraid that if they leave they will never be allowed to see their children again. The man is afraid the woman will tell his children he is a bad person or that he doesn't love them.

* Assuming Blame (Guilt Prone). Many abused men believe it is their fault or feel they deserve the treatment they receive. They assume blame for events that other people would not. They feel responsible and have an unrealistic belief that they can and should do something that will make things better.

* Dependency (or Fear of Independence). The abused man is mentally, emotionally or financially dependent on the abusive woman. The idea of leaving the relationship creates significant feelings of depression or anxiety. They are "addicted" to each other.

At least someone in Oregon is paying attention.

For now, men, you can be most assured that the government will ignore your "innocent until proven guilty" right and bow down to the massive female advocacy groups and assume your guilty. You're left with the logical impossibility of proving a negative to try and establish your innocence.

Yesterday I worked from home and listened to my favorite radio talk show host, Mike McConnell. Yesterday McConnell started off with with the discussing a column in the Chicago Tribune that pornography does not contribute to sexual assaults as many would have you believe. Although pornography is easily available via Internet, etc and "One Nielsen survey found that one out of every four users say they visited adult sites in the last month."

This is part of a broad decrease in criminal mayhem. Since 1993, violent crime in America has dropped by 58 percent. But the progress in this one realm has been especially dramatic. Rape is down 72 percent and other sexual assaults have fallen by 68 percent. Even in the last two years, when the FBI reported upticks in violent crime, the number of rapes continued to fall.

these researchers say:

I think it is better to expend our energies in two directions. 1) Make better pornography so that preferred role models are portrayed and more segments of society can come to appreciate or at least understand and tolerate its value23; and 2) turn our research to other directions to eliminate or reduce the social ills of rape and other sex crimes. The best place to look is probably in the home during the first decade of life. But it is only by research that we can continue to understand how to most effectively meet this social challenge. Governments as well as the pornography industry itself would do well to finance and encourage such research.

Todd Kendall, professor of economics at Clemson University concludes,

The results above suggest that potential rapists perceive pornography as a substitute for rape. With the mass market introduction of the world wide web in the late-1990’s, both pecuniary and non-pecuniary prices for pornography fell. The associated decline in rape illustrated in the analysis here is consistent with a theory, such as that in Posner (1994), in which pornography is a complement for masturbation or consensual sex, which are themselves substitutes for rape, making pornography a net substitute for rape.

Given the limitations of the data, policy prescriptions based on these results must be made with extreme care. Nevertheless, the results suggest that, in contrast to previous theories to the contrary, liberalization of pornography access may lead to declines in sexual victimization of women.

Very interesting and it makes some sense. While I'm not crazy about about pornography and have never seen the Paris Hilton or Pamela Anderson tapes, my libertarian leanings say that freely consenting adults creating pornography is to be tolerated.

I've always found the feminist position of supporting abortion because "a woman has a right to control her body" but opposing prostitution hypocritical. Why can a person have sex with any number of others and it's perfectly legal until cash is exchanged? Another one of those mysteries of life.

Mike McConnell almost always makes me think. He certainly did this time.

I've wondered what "purpose" granting driver's licenses to illegal aliens would serve. Some think it would get illegal immigrants to comply with auto insurance and other laws regarding operating motor vehicles in the U.S.

Do the benefits of “bringing immigrants out of the shadows” and making sure they comply with auto insurance and other regulations outweigh concerns about making it easier for “illegal” immigrants to live and work in the U.S.?

Note how he can't even use the word "illegal" in front of immigrants without putting double quotes around it. But I digress.

According to this "logic" (love those double quotes) people whose very act of entering this country is a criminal act; people of whose identity we cannot be sure; people who can easily disappear across our southern border to avoid prosecution for crimes will somehow become transformed, by having a driver's license, into a law abiding resident with full insurance coverage, etc. I don't think so.

As the saying goes, I may have been born yesterday but it wasn't last night.

My son was rear-ended a couple of weeks ago so hard that it totaled his car. The "legal" citizen with a driver's license who hit him drove off. A witness got the license plate number and the guy was later caught. No insurance. I was hit in a gas starion once. No insurance. Each of my two ex-wives was rear-ended once. No insurance but one guy did pay for the damages.

Yet, somehow, magically, illegal immigrants will attain insurance as required by law. Excuse me, would you like to buy a bridge?

Much more likely the reason our Democratic "friends" support the driver's licenses for illegal immigrants move is votes. That is votes for Democrats cast by illegal immigrants. This becomes easy because of the motor voter bill passed in 1993.

The background here is the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as "Motor Voter," that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993. It required all states to offer voter registration to anyone getting a driver's license. One simply fills out a form and checks a box stating he is a citizen; he is then registered and in most states does not have to show any ID to vote.

But no one checks if the person registering to vote is indeed a citizen. That greatly concerns New York election officials, who processed 245,000 voter registrations at DMV offices last year. "It would be [tough to catch] if someone wanted to . . . get a number of people registered who aren't citizens and went ahead and got them drivers' licenses," says Lee Daghlian, spokesman for New York's Board of Elections. Assemblywoman Ginny Fields, a Long Island Democrat, warns that the state's "Board of Elections has no voter police" and that the state probably has upwards of 500,000 illegal immigrants old enough to drive.

Indeed, in Tennessee, a legal immigrant have served, illegally, on juries. I doubt she was aware that this was a problem but it clearly points out the difficulty of identifying who can do what. In many states, such as Ohio where I live, people are selected for jury duty according to the address on their driver's license.

I voted today. The only ID I needed to show was my driver's license.

What the Democrats see is a supply of votes. Legality doesn't matter, winning does. Undermining the democratic (ironic use of the word here) process doesn't matter, winning does. Any other damage caused by their actions doesn't matter, winning does. Of course, when your "right", the ends justify the means.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Occasionally I've mentioned my kids' school system, Mason County Schools in Kentucky. Mason County Schools perform well in many ways - academics, sports, music and other areas.

When I first moved to Mason County in 1990, this was not so. I no intention of allowing my son, and children to come, to attend Mason County Schools but rather the local parochial school. But things have changed.

Associate Superintendents Kelly Middleton and Elizabeth Petitt have written a book detailing their approach to improve their schools. The most interesting part of their approach is that they didn't look to the educational world for ideas but to the corporate world.

The concept for the book came from Middleton and Petitt's brainstorming of best customer service practices which could be implemented within the Mason County School District.

They evaluated some of the practices of companies known best for their customer service, interviewed professionals with those businesses, then determined how those practices could be implemented within the public school system.

The Mason County School District has made strides towards improving customer service based on those practices.

Sometimes just caring and showing it makes a big difference. I've never met Elizabeth Pettit. But Kelly Middleton and Superintendent Tim Moore are Mason County natives who left and eventually returned to raise the level of their old schools. I believe it is a matter of personal and community pride for them.

School systems are one of those governmental entities in which it is all too easy to coast and to you job well enough to just get by. I applaud the leaders of the Mason County school system for their efforts. Hopefully other school systems will find inspiration from the book.