Horizon

The irony is that I think it may an Orwell pseudo-quote - at least, I am suspicious about the way it is so often used without specific citation.

If this site is right, then the quote comes from this unpublished preface to Animal Farm.

Since it's used in the context of freedom of the press, I guess it's valid. Still, it's gone from a quote to an axiom to the trite. It's everyone's excuse for offensiveness.

I stand corrected. Though the juxtaposition of a quote from Animal Farm and a flag-waving member of the Communist Party has its ironies too.

Ben, I'm interested you're getting the German hate spam too. This is the second time I've received a wave of the stuff and in the previous case some of the faked "return addresses" turned out to be the unique identifiers of posts I had written myself on the Scottish Newsgroup, apparently because I had used words that haters use in other contexts. It's really disturbing, yes.

Maybe this is where the filter and the ISP abuse complaint come in. Yeah, liberty entails the right to send offensive messages, but liberty also entails the right not to read them, as the inventor of telescreens without 'off' switches would probably have admitted.

My coworkers tell me that there was an article on Tuesday's nightly news about the German spam. I don't find it that disturbing myself, just irritating. Don't worry too hard about the return addresses — likely this is just the by-product of whatever site-scraping is being done to generate the email.

I've had weird spam things happening over the years: stuff from people I knew that I knew couldn't be from them; stuff that tried to make it look like I was writing emails to Elton John and the British National Party! (In that context the British National Party sounds like something altogether less nasty, perhaps a knees-up in Hyde Park- apologies to those who cannot bear to see any humour extracted from fascism...) I've also had stuff put around the net to make me look as if I've signed up to weird porn, but while it's sinister it's not disturbing, because it's just some freak nerding around on a PC.

Thx, Ben. I'm relieved to see the German thing is a more general problem, i.e. nobody decided we were especially receptive to that stuff.

How's fatherhood?

nobody decided we were especially receptive to that stuff

Well, the subject matter made that seem more-or-less obvious, since there's very little I could do about the domestic politics of Germany, even if I wanted to. That said, it's rather interesting for any former WW2 ally to get a message in German whose subject line is "You will be made a slave!" Reminds me of The Man in the High Tower.

How's fatherhood?

Probably the scariest thing I've ever done. I think I was expecting a cascade of literary allusions to suddenly make sense to me, but it seems like (as with alcohol, sex, and gardening) that won't happen until I reencounter them.

I don't envy your ethical challenges...

Seriously, it takes more courage than I've got to have a child. Congratulations.

Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to make babies and not lose sleep at night over the final resting place of diapers.

'Seriously, it takes more courage than I've got to have a child.'

May I ask if that is because you feel it will challenge your political and social outlook?

From the article:

Our gadget habit was fingered.

I wonder what, precisely, the "ethical auditors" had a problem with here? It wouldn't surprise me to see too much credence given to primitivist tut-tutting from a country boasting an 18% dishwasher ownership rate and non-mixing taps in public bathroom sinks.

Regarding the diaper issue, there's no ethical quandry at all for me there. I live in central Texas, and I'm well aware of the environmental conditions here. We have plenty of land -- for landfills, and for the cheap, abundant housing that gets labeled as "sprawl." What we do not have an abundance of is water. I mulch my vegetable garden to reduce waterings by half, and I only water the lawn when it's in peril of death (usually only once a year). I do not play golf. However, I happily throw away disposable diapers in the full knowledge that they'll sit inside a landfill for aeons, anaerobically preserved for future generations of archaeologists to study. Lucky them.

It's entirely possible that if I lived in rainy, cramped England, I'd evaluate the data and come to a different conclusion. Even then, I might stick with disposables as being worth the environmental cost for the convenience, especially given the likely reduction in mechanical standard of living I'd have there.

While disposable diapers may take up a lot of landfill space and the washable kind suck up gallons of water, the problem isn't diapers. Having babies and properly caring for them is one of the most basic and necessary things we do. If we have to crowd out disposable nappies from the landfills to ensure enough space for food scraps, we've got a problem. If we deny water to young parents for washing soiled diapers in order to to have lush fairways on the Arizona desert, we're doomed as a species.

May I ask if that is because you feel it will challenge your political and social outlook?

That's a cheap shot but I'll answer seriously. It has to do with worrying that it's much more difficult to be a child in this time and place than it was for the members of our own generation. And worrying what a person born this year would have to face in thirty or fifty years, and fearing that some of the patterns on my side of the family might repeat, and then childbirth in itself is terrifying.

...and non-mixing taps in public bathroom sinks.

My mother seriously claims that in the course of running a group travel business she had to introduce the concept of mixing hot and cold water in a single tap to the manager of a Welsh hostelry. As in the man had never heard of such a thing and at first claimed that the process would not work.

My mother has been threatening for some time to write a book on Strange Plumbing Of The Known World. Do you suppose it would find takers?

That's a cheap shot

It wasn't meant that way. Did Camus have kids? He would have trouble not walking in front of them.
Leftish, secular Europe seems to be following suit in the non-reproduction stakes; but the people with the faith keep knocking them out- this may say something much about all sides: it definitely says: Eurabia!

It has to do with worrying that it's much more difficult to be a child in this time and place than it was for the members of our own generation. And worrying what a person born this year would have to face in thirty or fifty years

There are lots of respectable reasons to choose not to have children (assuming it's even a question of choice), and you mention one or two of them towards the end of that post. But IMHO it's irrational and nihilistic to refuse to breed on the grounds that the future will in some vague way be less pleasant or endurable than now. As a species we're incredibly enduring. Your ancestors survived thousands of years of conditions unimaginably worse than anything the future realistically holds. I'd almost say it's genetically irresponsible to turn your back on that legacy out of nothing but fear.

I hope you're right that we aren't taking a turn for the worse as a species. But what does "genetically irresponsible" mean?

Oh don't get all in a liberal tizzy. I wasn't alluding to anything eugenically incorrect. All I meant was that those other generations of mommies and daddies took the trouble of procurating on your behalf, and the least you could do is to honor their collective confidence in you and your theoretical progeny.

Well, I never thought I'd get a chance to say this again, but...a responsible increase in the birthrate is the only thing that will truly rescue the social security system.

But Martha, your comment about the terror, the suffering, of childbirth is on the mark. I've seen two women deliver, and I never want to see it again.

'procurating'?

OK, though, point taken.

Bobby wrote:
"But Martha, your comment about the terror, the suffering, of childbirth is on the mark. I've seen two women deliver, and I never want to see it again."

Have you have seen a Caesarean section? - Now that's horrifying! And the mother looks like death warmed up for days afterwards. Unlike the mother who delivers normally and is usually as happy as can be within two or three hours - all those endorphins flooding her system.

see: http://www.parentsurf.com/p/articles/mi_m0838/is_n79/ai_18223185

Bobby wrote:
"But Martha, your comment about the terror, the suffering, of childbirth is on the mark. I've seen two women deliver, and I never want to see it again."

Have you have seen a Caesarean section? - Now that's horrifying! And the mother looks like death warmed up for days afterwards. Unlike the mother who delivers normally and is usually as happy as can be within two or three hours - all those endorphins flooding her system.

see: http://www.parentsurf.com/p/articles/mi_m0838/is_n79/ai_18223185

Re birth agony.

Maybe y'all should have a quango and focus group (possibly look at taxing the problem) and it may go away.

Unlike the mother who delivers normally and is usually as happy as can be within two or three hours

I know. Two hours after my youngest daughter was born, my wife said, "I could do that again." One of the craziest things I'd ever heard.

Robbie: thanks for the tip on quango. I'll see if I can't work it into a pick-up line.

Not all mothers. A friend of mine's said it was like trying to stuff a grapefruit up your nose. Most days I think I'd rather be sent to war.

had to introduce the concept of mixing hot and cold water in a single tap

You know, I'd never even heard the phrase "mixing tap" until I hung out with American ex-pats in England.

I suspect that when it comes to plumbing, Great Britain suffers from Early Adopter Syndrome.

it's much more difficult to be a child in this time and place than it was for the members of our own generation

You're obviously entitled to your own opinion, but I certainly don't see things this way.

I remember an interview I heard last month with the author of Windows on the World, in which the French novelist explained his dedication of the book as an apology to his daughter for giving birth to her. I can't say that that sort of sentiment is wholly alien to me, but it does indicate a radically different evaluation of the world that I see myself making.

I'd almost say it's genetically irresponsible to turn your back on that legacy out of nothing but fear.

Hmm. What about cases in which the people making that evaluation were probably correct? One thinks of the mass extinction of the Caribe indians during their enslavement -- something I understand to have been as much a product of suicide and failure to procreate as of disease and abuse.

I certainly don't think anything similar applies now, of course. I actually suspect that the world was a much scarier, drearier place when I was born in the early seventies than it was last month.

Two hours after my youngest daughter was born, my wife said, "I could do that again."

We were actually pretty shocked by how easy the birth was. Neither one of us were prepared for that at all, and feel really lucky and blessed.

Of course we're surrounded by advocates of unanaestetized childbirth here in Austin, so we tend to keep our mouths shut about that.

I don't know. I don't think that when we were children you could get expelled from preschool at the age of two or, worse, begin to accumulate an adverse Permanent Record on that basis. Nor did you have to ride in cars facing backwards.

Ahem.

I was expelled from preschool in c. 1974.

We didn't have permanent records but I'm sure if we had it would have been appropriately tagged.

I don't know about your driving habits, but everyone in my family from Thomas upwards sits forward in the car.

By the way, as one of the I suspect very few regulars here who actually spends a fair amount of time in a preschool (and one which bends over backwards to be accomodating to and tolerant of its students), I can testify that serial biters are no joke. I notice that the SFC article has a lot more sympathy for the biters than the bitten (who are just, you know, hysterical litigious crybabies, and probably middle-class to boot).

(who are just, you know, hysterical litigious crybabies, and probably middle-class to boot)

Huh?

Re: expulsions -- yeah, tiny kids used to get kicked out of places, but it didn't use to affect what schools they got into later in life.

yeah, tiny kids used to get kicked out of places, but it didn't use to affect what schools they got into later in life.

I'm curious - where are you getting all this stuff about permanent records from anyway? Did I miss something in the original article?

Y'know, I just went back and read it and I seem to have leapt to a conclusion from those paragraphs toward the end talking about the cumulative effect on the child of successive expulsions. You're right, it doesn't say a record is created, it just says kids who have been thrown out of several places tend to feel bad about it in ways that can affect their later development.

On the other hand, doesn't it creep you even a little to read that "Mental-health intervention for preschoolers with behavioral problems has been part of the landscape here for nearly two decades." That's the kind of thing that *does* give a kid a jacket.

I think some fairly normal acting-out by young kids is increasingly and unnecessarily diagnosed as a medical problem. That's a trend I dislike. On the other hand, there are a few children who genuinely need help - and until they get it they can be a genuine threat to their peers. If they receive appropriate treatment it's a win-win situation.

Nor did you have to ride in cars facing backwards.

I once read (Salon, several years ago) that the saftey-happy rules we now have requiring even petite grown women to sit in booster seats under penalty of law are not merely absurd, but also fuel the market for SUVs. Having spent a mere two weeks dealing with the block-fitting IQ test that is placing a carseat into its holder in the back of a Volvo sedan, I'm certain the writer was on to something.