In the comment section of one of Griper's posts, BB-Idaho said something very interesting.
"It's just perspective..
"Q: How do you tell the difference between a liberal and a conservative?
"A: Easy. Watch a man drowning fifty feet offshore.
"The conservative will throw out 25 feet of rope and shout 'swim for it!'
"The liberal will toss out 50 feet of rope, drop his own end, and go off to do another good deed."
I guess that this could be taken as a joke, but I found it to be rather profound and it's just the sort of thing that's right down my ally. I've often talked about the subject of what's wrong with both of the extremes within both the Republican and Democratic parities, and BB said it so perfectly.
The problem with the Republican approach, as described above, is that they assume that the drowning man has the ability to swim 25 feet, which may or may not be the case. The problem with the Democratic approach, as described above, is that they are so eager to do a large number of good deeds, that they do not put adequate thought into each one. Quite often they just give out food, such as a fish, but they do not stick around to teach the person how to fish.
Republicans are willing to teach someone how to fish, but do not give them enough fish in the mean time in order to give them the energy that they will need in order to carry out the lesson. Perhaps I should add that the fish can represent not only food, (what is needed for the body),but also counseling and emotional support (what is needed for the spirit and the soul). Too often, those who are drowning emotionally are expected to swim without any emotional support, just expectation and judgment.
Griper and I were discussing on his blog, not too long ago, about the contrast between Government Programs and Private Charities. I guess it's pretty plain that Government Programs are run pretty inefficiently, yet when it comes to free hand outs, sometimes Private Charities don't do as much better at this as one might think, for many of them do primarily give out hand outs as well.
At the place where I work, we help pregnant teens. We just started a new program in which we have decided to no longer just give out the cloths and baby supplies free, but instead to start requiring them to watch videos and tapes about pregnancy, health, child rearing, budgeting, relationships, sexuality, etc. Interestingly, the girls actually appreciate, whether than resent it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
34 comments:
very nicely worded lista. a lot of jokes are deserving of ponderance too. for there is always the element of truth in them. place the focus of the new program on budgets. incorporate into all the rest of the parts of that new
program.
btw, i like the new idea.
btw, the use of the way to fish or giving a fish has a purpose. teach a hungry man to fish and he can catch his supper tonight thus there is no need to feed him.
in other words, work comes before food. food doesn't come before work. and that joke illustrates that principle.
Which brings up another joke:
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day...teach him to fish, and he will sit the rest of his life on the riverbank, wasting time and drinking beer. I'm in agreement on extremes and black/white viewpoints. Some time back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_(philosophy) it was recognized that there is much merit in a middle of the road approach. (This works fine, except one gets excoriated by each extreme) :)
Griper,
I can pass your idea on to the director and see what she says, yet these girls have whether deep emotional needs, so the non-financial topics are really just as crucial.
Bad relationship skills and parenting skills will only serve to perpetuate all the many factors that contribute to their other problems, such as finances. Often it is best to start with the area of the least resistance or that which the girl is the most opened to and as rapport and trust is established, it is easier to persuade in the areas of higher resistance.
You are assuming, Griper, that teaching job skills is as easy as teaching fishing and this is not so. Though a person can be taught to fish whether easily within a 24 hour period, it takes a bit longer to teach job skills. Also, there are all sorts of emotional problems that contribute to the difficulty in holding a job and these need to be dealt with as well.
The analogy of fishing is just that, an analogy and no analogy is perfect. We can not wait until a person finds a job in order to feed him. All that can reasonably be required is a little effort towards the goal.
Cute BB,
And as to getting excoriated by each extreme, tell me about it. I play the Devil's advocate all the time because of my position on extremes and come across like someone who loves to argue, but all I'm doing is trying to make people think.
C'mon, "Though a person can be taught to fish rather easily within a 24 hour period,." I studied fishing for dozens of years: still can't catch 'em all that easy! :} Job training, IMO,
is more easily said than done. Good
needed jobs, like nursing, teaching etc. require years of college. And a few make that breakthrough. The older displaced worker is a very difficult problem.
Often they lack any prerequisite
classes, and even with a few months of some type of training get little response to hundreds of resumes. The 'hot' employment areas come and go; sometimes one gets trained and the window of opportunity has closed. Basically, when good mfg jobs get shipped overseas by the hundreds of thousands, it is naive to think those displaced folk can pick up where they left off, training or no. More important than re-training, and even more difficult, is providing the many good job openings required. Well, an opinion, anyhoo, I gotta get back to my fishin' lessons....
Your opinion makes sense, BB, and you reminded me of the lack of jobs problem. If you teach someone how to fish and them place them by a pond that has no fish, what kind of a favor is that? Economy usually is, though, more of a Republican concern. Democrats are often more concerned about financing Government Programs than about Economy issues.
There is really no middle-of-the-road party, Lista. By the way, you make a very good devil's advocate! :)
It's all very complicated isn't it? Give people too much and some people will sit on their butts fat and lazy and expect it for life, while others will appreciate it and try to get off of assistance as soon as possible. How to tell the difference? Even with the programs to help the poor or disabled that we already have, many are simply scamming the government, which means they are scamming us, because the government only has the money they collect from us in taxes. As for that drowning guy, being an excellent swimmer I would probably jump in and pull him out, and that may be extreme too because it can be very dangerous. Drowning people often panic and put both their own and their rescuer's life at risk.
What am I getting at? There's no perfect answer. We are all fallible and can only do the best we know how. Will our government ever be perfect. No. There's no such thing and there never has been. Can it be better? Somewhat, but not perfect. Still, it's the best system any country on earth has ever devised and we Americans are blessed to have been born here.
Off soapbox now. LOL! Great post! :)
Hi Gayle,
Thanks for dropping by.
I'm not really looking for a "middle-of-the-road party". I just like to make people think in the hopes that the people within the two parties that we currently have might be willing at least at times to stop some of the bickering and figure out ways to get some meaningful things done.
As to your "Jump in and pull him out." idea, it could be said that it's better to eventually teach the person how to swim, whether than just doing it for him, yet you might have to rescue him first, because it might be a little difficult to teach a dead guy how to swim. That's just another way of saying what's already been said.
Thanks. Glad you liked the post.
Oh, and BTW, there are occasionally candidates that are moderates. I don't like it when they compromise on issues such as Homosexuality and Abortion, though. That's not so good.
in other words lista, no compromise on the things you feel strongly about, especially when you see the issue from a position of morality but compromise on the things you don't feel strongly about huh?
every issue involves morality.
one more thing, about that joke. given that the rope will be thrown out many times which will save the greater number of persons? take your girls and see that rope being thrown out to each one.
ohhhh and one more thing too. one reason we need job training now days is the fact that kids grow up with the idea of specializing their skills. that's not good either. a person should learn more than one skill if he wants to survive.
Griper,
"Every issue involves morality."
Ah yes, but the morality of a rich man being willing to share with the poor is just as much an issue of morality as the issue of being willing to work and share one's God given gifts.
From the perspective of a speed reader and a fast learner, the requirement of learning more than one skill is reasonable, yet from the perspective of a slower learner, one skill may be all that he will be able to master.
I wonder if you have ever read my post entitled "Shay's Day - Insirational Story". I guess that you would probably expect Shay to go out and get a job so that he can support himself.
As the Republican rope is thrown out many times, the ones who have enough going for them to be able to swim the first 25 feet will be saved, yet those who do not have the ability to swim the first 25 feet will not be saved no matter how many times the rope is thrown.
Ah, the old anticipated excoriation: "but compromise on the things you don't feel strongly about huh?" Can you imagine the state of society if there were no compromise? We may hate it, but we all compromise on one thing or another. It is an inate (or learned, or both) human tool for maintaining good order. Not sure if all issues are moral, but consider: parents announce to their 8 youngsters, "We are going out to eat, where do you want to go?" Assuming 8 different answers, the scenario would play out in a number of ways. It could be a lesson in compromise, an internecine power struggle, the start of a summer-long feud, a unilateral parental decision, etc.
We learn from such family issues and move on to gradeschool issues,
higher ed issues, work issues, town issues, nation issues..such is life.
I guess this has to do with the idea that we need to pick our battles.
Since no one can have everything exactly the way they want, a little compromise is inevitable. Since this is true, it makes more sense to compromise on what we value less and cling tightly to what we value more, for somethings are just too important for us to compromise on.
This is especially true in marriage. No human being is going to be able to bear the expectation that they change absolutely everything about themselves that annoys their partner. Such an expectation is not realistic. Because of this, it is necessary to "pick our battles", only fight for what matters most too us and let the rest go. If we are not willing to do this, than the marriage is not going to last.
This is also true in politics. There are some in this country that simply can not bear the burden of all that Republicans like to expect. Some are just too weak to endure it. So what we need to do, if we want to have any kind of a political effect at all, is to "pick our battles", insist on what is crucial and let the rest go. That's how marriage works. That's how friendship works and that's how politics work as well.
It struck me as I was staggering around the blogosphere, that you mentioned a degree in Psych? At least I recall something like that as I took the Jung/Myers-Briggs
Typology Test over at Karen's
http://lightandlife.squarespace.com/ She has a link
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp with the questions. She allows that we mostly take these for fun, but I
was sort of intrigued that she and I tested to the same type. Yet she tends to very spiritual and politically conservative; my total opposite. Are we to believe that
our personality type is independent of our political thought process? Also, I was surprised and dismayed to find I was extremely 'intuitive', even though I was hard-nosed, bottom line, data mining physical chemist. So, any professional thoughts, or do we laugh it off and enjoy? :)
You know, BB, my BA is so outdated that sometimes I almost prefer to not admit that I have it. So much of it is theory anyway.
Believe it or not, sometimes I wonder if my studies in psychology did more in the area of allowing me to blame my parents for things than in encouraging me to take responsibility for my own life, but this is a whole separate subject and it's not even one that I was considering posting on.
Occationally, BB, I wish that you had a blog, because the easiest way to change the subject in a conversation is to introduce a new subject on your own blog.
To answer your question, though, quite often we are not one thing or another, but a little of both. For example, I usually test right down the middle on the introvert/extrovert scale, so I don't see why a person can not also be somewhere in the middle on the Structure/Intuitive scale. I'd have to click on your link in order to see exactly what was measured by this particular test and yes, I think that political opinions are a separate thing.
BB, I tested the same as Karen on that test too. So did many other people. I think there's something wrong with the test. After all, it's very strange that so many would answer those questions the same exact way.
Ok, that does it. Now you guys have got me curious. I guess I'm going to have to go check it out. lol :)
That's interesting that Karen, BB and Gayle all tested the same way, (INTJ), as well as a lot of other people. My guess is that this is a common Internet personality type or perhaps even a common Blogging personality type. I tested as an INFP, which doesn't surprise me because I generally am a little bit of a misfit and I'm willing to bet that my personality type is less common, cause that's usually the way it is with me.
I guess we are way off the subject of this post. Oh well. Whatever.
Er..."the easiest way to change the subject in a conversation is to introduce a new subject on your own blog." As Urkel used to say,
"Did I do that?". Apologies, guess I was thinking outside the box again..the typology test didn't mention the
"plays well with others-or not"
Guess I blog about like I carry on a conversation..all over the map.
ADHD? My wife has an old BS in Psych..like prior to Freud? Lessee here, where were we? Huh?
Maybe we need a break anyway. lolololol.
Back on course. Pregnant teens.
Back when my middle girl was getting her PhD, she volunteered as a 'Big Sister' to a young black girl. Hung out, etc. trying to provide some sort of stability for the kid whose home life was not the best. Movies, talk..fastfood, talk..rollerskating, talk. After five years, my daughter moved on, but kept in touch. Yes, her friend was keeping up her studies.
She would graduate HS, enlist, make something of herself. Last week, her 'little sister' called and announced, "You're an Aunt!
I birthed you a baby nephew!"
She also mentioned that down the hall in the OBGYN ward, another girl gave birth. same father Doesn't it seem disheartening at times?
What's sad is that the girls, as well as our society, don't believe in Virginity anymore. The idea of Abstinence until marriage isn't believed in anymore and it's not really the girls' fault.
I remember one time I made the mistake of discussing the subject with a teenager in the lobby in front of the adult/guardian that she was with and believe it or not, it was the adult, not the teenager, that rolled her eyes. The teenager actually appeared to be listening. Adults don't have any faith in these kids, yet sometimes they have the ability to really surprise us if they are challenged to do so and if we communicate that we believe in their ability to do so.
Someone called the center just the other day wanting to know if we give out birth control and I tell you we do not. It was not the teenager making the request, but her mother. Don't these people realize that birth control does not protect against STDs (Sexually Transmitted Disease or Venereal Disease for you old folk. lolol.).
Condoms protect against HIV/AIDS, but only at the rate of 85%. Personally, I think that 15% is a huge window and what's more, there's no evidence to support any protection at all against the many other STDs, now more than 50 common strands, many of them uncurable and Birth Control Pills offer no protection at all.
When a parent hands her child Birth Control Pills, she is basically communicating that she expects her to fail and unfortunately, we usually have a tendency to get what we expect.
Well we gotta problem..we lead the civilized world in teen pregnancies:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_tee_bir_rat-health-teen-birth-rate
So much for the handing out condoms at schools idea. That approach doesn't appear to be working now does it?
Dunno, here's an opinion from the
OB-Gyn head at SF General Hospital,
" Dr. Darney specifically noted that in 1992, California had the highest teen birth rate in the country, even higher than the national average. The state has since been teaching teens about contraception and the teen birth rate has decreased steeply since then. He compared this to Texas, which embraced the federally-funded "abstinence-only" message...and has the highest birth rate in the country."
RE: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/teen-pregnancy-rates-in-the-u-s-are-up-surprised-207492/
..perhaps I'm old fashioned, but
I think society need look at the other half of the problem..the young frisky fellas. Otherwise, we will continue to have 65% of these mother-daughter kids on our welfare roles. Since you actively work with the problem, I would defer to your experience, but in theory, there must be something to the fact that our subject birth rate is 47 per while the 'socialist' countries in Scandanavia and N Europe the rate is ten. Of course our populations are not nearly as heterogeneous as the European, but they must take a more pragmatic view?
"According to Stephanie Ventura and her colleagues, the United States had 48.7 births per 1,000 women aged fifteen to nineteen, compared to less than 10 births per 1,000 of the same cohort in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Reasons for the difference are unclear. Jacqueline Darroch and colleagues, as well as Douglas Kirby, have suggested that access to effective contraceptives and early exposure to comprehensive sexual health information are lower in the United States than in other developed countries."
RE: http://www.faqs.org/childhood/So-Th/Teenage-Mothers-in-the-United-States.html
My interest in the phenomena is admittedly clouded by the suicides of two young women here, whose parents refused them consideration of abortion on religious grounds, whatever moral/theological complexity that might add. It is so sad. Didn't they know suicide by pregnant girls is 6 times higher than others in that age group? Well, I suspect we disagree and I have used up way to many bits & bites.
Hi BB,
It might take me a minute to get some statistics together. At first glance it appears that a 1992 research may be a little outdated.
1992 was the start point for the data study. It has become more difficult to obtain data:
"Breathtaking as this deception is, it’s not half as bad as what Bush has been up to.
When his cherished abstinence programmes failed to reduce the rate of teenage births,
he instructed the US Centres for Disease Control to stop gathering data. He also forced
them to drop their project identifying the sex education programmes that work, after
they found that none of the successful ones were “abstinence only”. Bush should also
hope that we don’t look too closely at his record as governor of Texas. He spent $10m
on abstinence campaigns there, with the result that Texas has the fourth-highest rate
of HIV infection in the union, and the slowest decline of any state in the birth rate
among 15- to 17-year-olds."
from a British article by George
Monbiot at
http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.04/Mon.04/GM.14.04.pdf
I guess I'm a little cynical about
preaching, especially when the occurance of teen pregnancies relates to economic strata..
You know, I don't even think that I have that brochure relating to "Safe Sex" and Abstinence programs here at the house and since a long weekend is coming up, I may not actually have my hands on it until Tuesday. I could give you some of the statistics that I do have, though.
On second thought, I think I might actually make a post out of this, so stay tuned.
Your info., BB, focuses mainly on the rate of pregnancy. The statistics I have handy right now that I'm going to try and put in a post either tonight or tomorrow are about the rates of Abstinence and STDs.
There is no question that abstinance precludes both STDs and pregnancies. The problem, as I understand, based on many professional studies, is that the theory is perfect, the practice-not so. This is naturally much complicated by high pg rates among
that portion of the teenage population which is non-religious, poor, peer-driven, naive and ill
prepared for sex and its results.
Most studies show that these kids are often born of teen mothers themselves and their offspring will continue the practice, with the male offspring often ending up in jail. This is a situation which appears to require interdiction. Abstinence is great, perfect..if
followed. Sex ed & prophylactic
practice works also..in particular where abstinence seems beyond their ability or self-control.
I certainly empathize with any
15 year old faced with raising a
child on their own..and my hat is off to your and your group for helping these kids face a long hard uphill battle.
Well, yeh. There are rare cases relating to everything. If I understand it right, once in awhile there are HIV cases that can not be explained. This could be because the person has done something that they won't admit to, or it might even be that in some rare cases it is carried by misguitos, which is a very scary thought, yet there is no such thing as a statistic that doesn't contain a few rare exceptions.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that the shared use of needles by drug users causes Aids.
If I think about it, this all comes back to me. You see some STDs are primarily just STDs and others are not. Hepatitus, for example, has a lot of non-sexual causes and there are other types of Herpes and HPV besides that which occurs on the genitals. It's not really fair, though, to include non-genital stuff that just happens to have the same name.
Any way, when a risk factor is brought down to practically nothing, bringing up exceptions is not really helpful in helping people and even more so kids to be motivated to protect themselves.
I'll respond some more when I get back from church, but for now I have to go.
Post a Comment