Category Archives: Culture

Harvard: Just 6 in 10 Millennials have jobs, half are part-time | WashingtonExaminer.com

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A comprehensive new Harvard University report on Americans under 30, the so-called Millennials, shows that the economy is having a crushing impact, with just 62 percent working, and of those, half are toiling at part-time jobs.

The report, released by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, paints a depressing economic portrait of young Americans, many of whom are stuck with huge college tuition bills and little chance of finding a high-paying job.

But over half, or 59 percent of those aged 18-29, have gone to college and The report reveals that time in college is a better sign of social status than income, mostly because jobs aren’t available.

via Harvard: Just 6 in 10 Millennials have jobs, half are part-time | WashingtonExaminer.com.

Southern Poverty Law Center website triggered FRC shooting | WashingtonExaminer.com

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So can we charge the SPLC as an accomplice?

The Family Research Council shooter, who pleaded guilty today to a terrorism charge, picked his target off a “hate map” on the website of the ultra-liberal Southern Poverty Law Center which is upset with the conservative group’s opposition to gay rights.

Floyd Lee Corkins II pleaded guilty to three charges including a charge of committing an act of terrorism related to the August 15, 2012 injuring of FRC’s guard. He told the FBI that he wanted to kill anti-gay targets and went to the law center’s website for ideas.

At a court hearing where his comments to the FBI were revealed, he said that he intended to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces, and kill the guard.” The shooting occurred after an executive with Chick-Fil-A announced his opposition to same-sex marriage.

via Southern Poverty Law Center website triggered FRC shooting | WashingtonExaminer.com.

Bruce Willis: Don’t infringe on Second Amendment – WTOP.com

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Bruce Willis says he’s against new gun control laws that could infringe on Second Amendment rights. The “Die Hard” star also dismisses any link between Hollywood shootouts and real-life gun violence.

“I think that you can’t start to pick apart anything out of the Bill of Rights without thinking that it’s all going to become undone,” Willis told The Associated Press in a recent interview while promoting his latest film, “A Good Day To Die Hard.” ”If you take one out or change one law, then why wouldn’t they take all your rights away from you?”

Willis’ fifth outing as wise-cracking cop John McClane, due in theaters Feb. 14, comes as his action franchise marks its 25th anniversary. The 57-year-old actor will also be seen firing away at bad guys in the upcoming sequels “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and “Red 2,” both due later this year.

But he believes “the real topic is diminished” when observers link Hollywood entertainment with high-profile mass shootings like those last year in Connecticut and Colorado.

“No one commits a crime because they saw a film. There’s nothing to support that,” Willis said. “We’re not making movies about people that have gone berserk, or gone nuts. Those kind of movies wouldn’t last very long at all.”

Willis added that he doesn’t see how additional legislation could prevent future mass shootings.

via Bruce Willis: Don’t infringe on Second Amendment – WTOP.com.

Colorado boy, 7, reportedly faces suspension for tossing imaginary grenade | Fox News

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A Colorado second-grader may be suspended from his elementary school after he disobeyed a key rule of no weapons, real or imaginary, when he tossed an imaginary grenade Friday during recess and went, ‘pshhh,’ to indicate that the imaginary device detonated, KDVR.com reported.

Alex Watkins,7, who attends Mary Blair Elementary in Loveland, said he was playing the game “Rescue the World.” He plays the role of a heroic soldier out to rid the world of an evil threat.

His duties led him to throw the imaginary grenade into a box he pretended contained evil forces. He said he didn’t make any threats and was playing by himself, KDVR.com reported.

via Colorado boy, 7, reportedly faces suspension for tossing imaginary grenade | Fox News.

Acapulco: Tourists Tied up with Bikinis and Gang Raped by Masked Robbers – IBTimes UK

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Mexico is a mess. My stance on it is to both tighten the border and loosen immigration restrictions for those who will come legally. It’s such a headache to come to this country if you want to, and the large part of the immigrant population from Mexico are good for the USA. We make it easier for the good ones, and crack down on the bad ones, and do our best to stop subsidizing the insanity of the cartels and corrupt governments in Mexico.

A group of tourists have been raped by a masked gang who raided their holiday villa in the Mexican resort of Acapulco.

Local authorities said the armed men burst into the bungalow rented by 13 Spanish tourists, six women and seven men, and a Mexican woman, in Playa Bonfil, facing the Pacific Ocean, near the famous Punta Diamante area, local authorities said.

The attackers gagged and tied up the men with phone cables and then raped the women, who they had bound up with their own bikinis.

via Acapulco: Tourists Tied up with Bikinis and Gang Raped by Masked Robbers – IBTimes UK.

Why I am not having kids | Opinion | The Seattle Times

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It’s too bad. Seattle is a great place to live, but I wish there were more kids around.

On our last vacation, my husband and I mulled over this question: “On your deathbed, what will you regret not doing?” We listed our answers at dinner on the last night. Neither of us mentioned children.

We have decided we have other things to give to the world. We won’t be having kids. We choose to be childless in Seattle.

We are not alone here. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, children make up 15.3 percent of Seattle’s population. We are the second-most childless U.S. city behind San Francisco, which stands at 13.4 percent.

Observers say our childlessness shapes public attitudes toward education and quality-of-life issues, such as parks and playgrounds. I’ll be voting yes for Seattle’s $1.2 billion school levy measures on the Feb. 12 special-election ballot anyway.

I’m lucky. I live in a time and place where I have the freedom not to have kids. But that doesn’t mean society has fully accepted me.

Feminism empowered women to talk about motherhood as a pursuit that deserves as much attention as men’s work. In the past 20 years, women have bravely spoken about struggles to conceive, which helped educate a generation about fertility. But society rarely hears from women who decide not to have kids.

“Do you have children?” My friend’s standard answer is, “No, and it’s not for medical reasons.” I’m cribbing it.

Will I regret it?

via Why I am not having kids | Opinion | The Seattle Times.

Rand Simberg: NASA’s mission is not safety

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Rand Simberg has an article on USA Today. This week is the anniversary of the three worst accidents in NASA’s history: the Apollo 1 fire, the Challenger explosion, and the Columbia break-up. Space is still a very dangerous place, and getting there is risky. His comments (but read the whole thing):

But should safety be NASA’s highest priority? If it is, then that means other things, such as actually accomplishing things in space, are a lower one. The surest way to make sure our astronauts don’t die in space is to keep them on the ground. And indeed, that is more and more what we do, choosing robotic exploration over opening the frontier to humanity.

The obsession with safety is sincere, if unspoken, testimony to just how unimportant we consider the opening of that final and harshest of frontiers. The last time space was important was when we were racing the Soviets to the moon more than four decades ago. Now, we no longer consider it worth the risk. Had we taken such an attitude in Panama, no one would have turned the first shovel of dirt.

As NASA has dithered, private investors who understand the true scope of opportunity in space as well as the dangers are stepping up by investing in new ships, technologies and commercial ventures.

This sad week, perhaps the best way to honor the men and women who gave their lives would be to recognize that they did so willingly, and set forth a bold national frontier-opening policy, including recognizing that it has never happened without human bloodshed. As John Shedd wrote last century, “A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.”

via NASA’s mission is not safety: USA Today.

Reflections of a Former Fetus and Former Incubator | Public Discourse

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But the people of Stop Patriarchy cannot stop themselves. Once convinced of their opening premise, they have no choice but to try to suppress all the differences between men and women. Everything that has to do with reproduction must be suppressed or neutralized.

The goal is clear: The only good woman is a neutered woman. The only good man is a gay man, who poses no sexual threat to women. The only good child is a chosen child. They do not seem to realize that this commodifies the child, making him or her an object to obtain if we want one, and a problem to solve if we don’t want one. Nor do they seem to realize that today’s young people intuit this, which is why so many of the Walkers for Life carried signs saying, “I am the Pro-Life Generation.”

We may be tempted to “click away” from Stop Patriarchy and ignore them as obviously deluded people who shouldn’t be taken seriously. But that would be a mistake. For this very same thought pattern lies behind the HHS contraceptive mandate and the War on Women rhetoric promoted by the political party now in power. And the party out of power seems either unwilling or unable to confront the ideology for what it is: the ideology of a totalitarian movement, bent on denying and wiping out the most basic facts of our human experience.

We should cut no slack, give no quarter, concede no ground, to these enemies of the human race. Not out of politeness, nor out of courtesy, and certainly, not out of fear. Ignoring people because they are irrational has probably been one of our biggest tactical mistakes. Though Stop Patriarchy’s irrationality makes them hard to argue with, they are deadly serious, and we need to be as well.

via Reflections of a Former Fetus and Former Incubator | Public Discourse.

The Superversive: The Leaden Rule

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From Tom Simon, a Tolkien scholar and author:

Wisdom is not a quality much sought after nowadays. The word sounds uncomfortably elitist and anti-subjective. It will not do to say that one person is wiser than another, unless one is prepared to say that one belief may be right and another wrong; and that is just the sort of thing we have grown too mealy-mouthed to say. It is the culmination of our collective amnesia. For two centuries, Western civilization has been growing steadily more infatuated with ephemeral knowledge at the expense of enduring truth. Ancient folktales and traditional songs have been replaced by pop-culture references; philosophy has declined into ideology; and wisdom, as an object of desire, has largely been supplanted by technical know-how.

via The Leaden Rule.

Teen killed1 week after attending Obama inauguration | FOX 32 News

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A week after attending presidential inauguration festivities in the nation’s capital and with dreams of a summer trip to Paris swirling in her 15-year-old imagination, Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon in the South Side’s Kenwood neighborhood.

Police say Hadiya was shot in the back at a neighborhood park about 2:30 p.m. in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald. A teen boy was shot in the leg and taken to Comer’s Children’s Hospital in serious condition.

“As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose,” said Chicago Police Officer Damon Stewart, 36, Hadiya ‘s godfather. “I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.”

via Teen killed in Kenwood 1 week after attending Obama inauguration – Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News.