When Cultures Collide

If you're looking for something to smile about watch this.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that:

1. Sunshine.


2. Flowers blooming in the garden.


3. Helping hands.


4. Competent allies.


5. Incompetent unfriendlies.


6. A firm foundation.

What are you thankful for?

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that:

1. Salt.


2. Light.


3. Life.

What are you thankful for?

The Racist Nature of Cotton Balls

Yes I said cotton balls. Apparently dropping cotton balls outside of an establishment known to be frequented by black people is a hate crime. And here I thought it was at worst littering.

Arrests Made In Mizzou Cotton Ball Incident: 2 Students Suspended After Their Arrest
Two students have been arrested in connection with the incident where cotton balls were left overnight outside the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center on the campus of the University of Missouri-Columbia. Very early Friday morning, someone threw cotton balls outside the Culture Center. The offensive act sparked a town hall meeting on the Campus Monday night. At the meeting, students discussed what to do in response to the racist display. Police investigated the incident as a hate crime.

What to do about cotton balls on the sidewalk? Trample them into oblivion or pick them up! All that drama over cotton balls. I'm trying to imagine a mind fragile enough to be offended by cotton balls on the sidewalk. I don't have a very good imagination for this kind of thing. If this is the quality of thinker that colleges and universities are turning out (that cotton balls on the side walk are funny or offensive) we're in more trouble than I thought.

Where Are All of The Women?

It should have been an obvious outcome of the combination of unforgiving government attempts at population control, cultures that value men above women, and advancements in medical technology that allow sex identification and the termination of the unwanted in utero.

Gendercide The worldwide war on baby girls: Technology, declining fertility and ancient prejudice are combining to unbalance societies

According to the article the normal ratio of births is 103 to 106 boys for every 100 girls. But in some areas there have been reported ratios as high as 275 boys for every 100 girls. I find this imbalance appalling not for the sake of all of the men who will be unable to find wives but for all of the girls who had to die and the mothers who had to kill their daughters to produce the imbalance.

Not even the education and advancement of women seems to stop the trend of terminating baby girls. The stakes only get higher when you're only going to have one or two children in a culture that still values men over women. Then a boy child must be born and baby girls become even more disposable.

Another article discusses the problem in one region of India, from the perspective of the men, Distorted sex ratios in India Haryana's lonely bachelors: Struggling to cope with a dearth of brides. The article ends with this bit of irony,

Meanwhile, the greying bachelors pine on. “I still want a wife,” says Babulal Yadav, a 50-year-old farmer. “I’m used to being alone. But I want a son.”

That desire for a son is the reason why he and others like him can't find a local girl to marry.

This article, Mothers in China Sobs on the night breeze, talks about the lengths to which some families go to dispose of girl children in hopes of having a boy child.

Most of Xinran’s mothers submit stoically to the cruelties of “son preference” and the one-child policy. But a few go to extraordinary lengths to have more than one child. On a train journey she meets one of China’s so-called “extra-birth guerrilla troops”—families with daughters who leave home and move secretly from city to city, hoping to escape the birth-control regulators long enough to produce a son.

The governments of the countries involved are attempting to reverse the trends that could destroy their societies. South Korea was the first nation to realize the danger and reverse the trend bringing their sex ratio closer to the norm (110 to 100). For those other nations that have yet to solve the problem may I suggest an ad campaign along the lines of, "Let your daughters live. They might give birth to boys someday." That way no one has to give up their cultural prejudices against women but the baby girls get to live anyway.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that:

1. Hubby has joined the battle with the Hydra (aka the laundry).


2. My little helpers actually do help on occasion.


3. Bird song.


4. Sunshine.


5. Flowers.

What are you thankful for?