First item of business is pretty simple and straightforward:
China is now in the process of recruiting more male teachers in order to teach young Chinese boys how to grow up to become men.
I can’t make this up.
Says so, right here in this article in the NY Times this weekend. A key quote from a teacher’s talk with students about history:
““Men have special duties,” he said. “They have to be brave, protect women and take responsibility for wrongdoing.”
Which gets us to a very interesting question: How is it that the Chinese have re-contacted chivalry while the U.S. largely can’t even spell the word anymore?
What the Chinese are doing is an affront to every sexual minority marketer in the land formerly known as America! Why, at this rate, China will raise a middle class with a values system that we have – over the past 50 years – turned our backs on in America.
The word Chivalry, by the way, in common use means:
“…the combination of qualities expected of an ideal knight, especially courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak.”
Something is terribly wrong in China! Has the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee failed to remind their comrades that total equality for women, gays, etc. on the battlefield is a first duty? Why, just look at Commanders Obama and Bush!
What’s more, it seems that China has missed the sterling example of selling out women’s managing-partner-in-charge of home role by failing to kick off a massive women’s rights initiative, too.
If they had, the women of China would be too busy worrying about the “glass ceiling” to have that second child which is now becoming acceptable. What’s more, the promotion of equal rights lets the corporate masters put the “yoke of labor” on about twice as many people, compared to the pre-Steinem era.
I will probably get stoned for saying this (if not, we can drive to Colorado, LOL), but in my middle class values perfect family upbringing of the 50s and 60s, women did have a special place and since they hadn’t been hornswoggled into the labor force.
This is why back then, a family could (and successfully did) get along on (and this is unbelievable today…) a single income.
Mom was a working partner in the home. The kids “got a lick’n” if they strayed from the straight and narrow values. And for the particularly egregious sins of the children, such at the time my life-long buddy and I accidentally set a vacant lot on fire next to a church yard, there was a serious visit to my backside by the backside of a hair brush.
I haven’t set a fire since and I’m still dodge-headed about camp fires. Corporal punishment and a strong male concept seems to work.
The Chinese are creeping more and more toward old American values while we are running headlong away from them. “Spare the rod and spoil the country” is now coming home to roost.
Yes, women work in China. But they are seriously building a middle class.
No, they are not turning sexual preference or identity into marketing tools or “business enterprises of last resort when we stop actually making things.” We’re already well down that road. They aren’t likely to follow.
Yes sir, I am a throwback and none-too repentant about it.
I still open the doors for my wife.
She is still dear though I am still not clear if she means ‘hon’ ‘hun’ of ‘Hun’ (as in Attila) when addressing me.
I still go over to my office and she has the house all to herself while I’m off working. She can come over and use the treadmill, I can go over and make tea.
I put the money in the bank and dirty clothes in the hamper. She puts dirty clothes through the laundry and puts dinner on the table.
There’s another old value from the land formerly known as America which doesn’t get mentioned very often: That value is called partnering.
In a good partnership, couples do for one-another. They focus on leveraging their values into the relationship. Which has worked out super well for us. We are both deliriously happy.
Whatever you do, don’t mention this to the political correctness police. Elaine likes me earning the money and I enjoy a marvelous and arty/eclectic home life.
The Chinese middle class which is by most accounts on the way up, will hopefully have the courtesy to wave as we pass them going the other way; on the way down.
China’s also got one other leg up on the former America that no one talks about: When MF Global went bankrupt, did the CEO go to jail? Went to Bundler for someone, did he not?
When corruption on that scale (and even lower) happens in China,they summarily deal with it, right? They hold an instant trial that often ends in the single round solution. Why I don’t even know if they allow the vic to pick their exit caliber,,,can you imagine that?
Whether we like it, or not, the reason China has been a global power for 5,000 years is abundantly clear: They are more pragmatic than we are.
A further political correctness note: In order to avoid the trap of him/her/it, Elaine and I have developed a special language between us. I refer to her at the “cat,” and she simple calls me “dog.”
When we have something of emotional content to exchange, we will often do so as an animal noise. A bark or meow with a bit of practice can convey vastly more emotional content than hours of conversation.
When surprised or not clear on a comment from E, I will use the cartoon voice “scooby-doo???” with a very accentuated question mark.
If she’s not tracking with me, she will respond with a “meow???”
It’s a very effective way to communicate emotional states without using words.
We’ve both seen (and been in) relationships where when there is an emotional item to be conveyed, there are “non-word ways” to do it.
Using the approach, you can avoid all the pitfalls of a partner seizing on a bad word choice and having a disagreement spiral. As a result, we never argue…I mean ever.
You might want to give it a try sometime. A “hurt puppy” sound is a lot more difficult to argue with, since there are no words. Or, in E’s case, if there is a sound like a rocking chair just hit a cats tail, then I know something I did was the cause of it.
The English language (Engrish) is fine for most human to human communications. Except that it is a very emotion-limited system. It requires we each use a fairly complete look-up table in order to construe meaning. But, by using animal sounds (dogs and cats are fine – and you can get really creative with it – there is very little risk of “excess/wrong words” being chosen.
It’s actually a much cleaner way of communicating. Silly? Well, 16 years and still in newlywed land – you tell me!
Well, there, now. Two groups of people you can’t share this with: The Political Correctness Police and the guys in the white coats. You don’t need to worry though, as I’m sure the folks at the castle in Utah (the one surrounded by the moat) will take care of it for us.
And forget I mentioned comparing China’s level of progress to ours. They’ve had a 4,500 year head start.
In Lieu of Football – Echo
I mounted up on the tractor and got several acres on the west side of the property cleaned up Sunday.
By doing a good part of the work in high range on the tractor (it has a two range, three speed auto trans) I was able to get a splendid workout. At the end of which, the usual sedentary me has his pulse up over 100 and I lost, so says the scales today, 2 pounds.
But just so you know: When I talk about using weekends to work for your own account, that’s really what we do around here…work on our own.
The only thing about the Denver Super Bowl game that matters was the the final 2-minutes (which stretched past 10 if history repeated). Not that it matters. Another Manning ring – which is somehow important in today’s world.
49% of Americans are just as confused as I am on this. And with good reason.
We live in a world where “play” seems to be pretty darned important. A kind of well-monetized opposite of work. Except with the work, the flow of funds is to the worker. In play, since it’s the opposite, the flow of funds is the other way.
I am obviously un-American in thinking this, but it there was only one part of the game that by all accounts should give some comfort to readers.
Namely the Amazon Echo made for one of the ads. And that made news headlines.
I don’t know why…I have been telling you how cool our Echo is for months now.
The latest feature enhancement is it reads most of your Amazon book content for you. And that is a way-cool feature.
Now: Think this through: With one of those $60 FM transmitters you can buy on eBay, you can broadcast Amazon Echo reading any (of most) books you’ve purchased. So I can be out on tractorback tearing up 12 acres and be catching up on daily life in the Great Depression. So I am leveraging my value: Doing physical work as well as mental work at all times.
I’m telling you, that will determine who is the top of the heap in coming years. But don’t wait for me to be right again. Voice is the new interactive battle zone in computing and if you don’t have an Echo and Dragon NaturallySpeaking you’re in the stone age of tech adoption.
But yeah, the hotdogs and brewskis are good, I’ll have to grant you that…but those are the kind of things I can do without, too.
Write when you bark-even,
George george@ure.net
I would agree with Elaine and your methods for sharing ‘household duties’ with the proviso that ‘who ever is best at something does it’.
Almost twenty years ago when my husband passed away it was the end of the month and of course the bills were due and had to be paid. I was writing checks and getting them ready for the post, when my sisters came up to me and said “You’re writing checks, didn’t X do them?” As if this was a rare thing . . . They added that their husband/boyfriend did all that ‘money stuff’ as their mindset was that women were incapable . . .
I may have mentally ‘cursed’ at that but in reality only sighed, and said that, ‘it would be a good idea – just in case something awful happened – that you know how and what to do . . . I always ‘did’ the bills.
Yes, I did the ‘informational stuff’ and X did the physical work I couldn’t – but the important thing was – we were a team and could bounce ideas back and forth to find solutions, and not just in any particular field . . . There are many reasons why more women are in the work force – some good, some bad, and most really neutral.
You are not going to put ‘the genie back in the bottle’ so you need to deal with it, and in this case all the wishing won’t make a difference . . .
“… This is why back then, a family could (and successfully did) get along on (and this is unbelievable today…) a single income ….”
Yes, I remember it well. Single incomes could pay off a mortgage, college debts, a new car every three years, and two kids, but families weren’t spending enough for the “economy”. So, along comes Avon and Tupperware to entice women to add a little income, but wait! A second car needed to be bought, but wait! A two-car garage needed to be bought, but wait! Mom feels guilty about spending less time at home and buys, buys, buys, for the kids. Yay credit cards, but wait! Just like “minimum wage” increases cause inflation, two wage earners per family also creates inflation (just saying).
So, here we are. Cars and houses cost 10x as much, but hairbrushes not so much.
Like it JW.
It looks like Obama is bringing closure to the feminist issue, by wanting to draft both men and women.
“””This is why back then, a family could (and successfully did) get along on (and this is unbelievable today…) asingle income.”””
Funny you brought that up…in the seventies .every company offered employees heath,care and retirement benefits etc.going to work you felt like everyone was familt and the boss was like a father..he made a modest profit and inn many cases worked beside his employees. .in 1982 that started to change .no longer would 2.75 make a living bosses started to shoot for higher profit margins and benefits were slowly taken away from employees to improve profits for management jobs started to be outsourced and your company ended as an extension of family..as times moved on it’s gotten worse .some work three or four jobs to make a living
The only problem with your version of partnering is that while one partner gets loads of options about how they’ll spend their days, having an unlimited number of fields in which to choose to work, the other partner gets only one option–kids and home. Yes, it may seem more natural for the woman to do home duty, but there are many women who would like other venues for their talents and interests. As with men, women are not single-faceted. My ideal solution would be that lots more good-paying, part-time jobs (not of the Walmart greeter type) be available for women to use their non-home skills and stay in touch with the “outside” world. This would not only be an escape valve from what some might consider drudgery (housework), but would also prepare them for a life after kids, should they choose to pursue a different career. To say nothing of preparing them for the need to have their own income should a divorce occur. From my own experience of staying home to raise kids and then getting divorced and needing a job, without a steady work background, employers consider you an idiot who can barely sharpen a pencil, regardless of your pre-marriage educational and work experience. So, although our shangri-las of partnering have a few differences, it’s all a moot point because the world at present is too crazy for a shangri-la of any type.
Your words on partnering are so very true.
Something about today’s society is moving sideways to me, no progressively forward at all. Currently, I now know of two couples who seemed to be happily married, divorcing/seperating because they don’t connect due to their busy life from each other. These people have been together for years longer than my marriage, yet when I look at them from my perspective, I wonder how they lasted this long. It seems too many people focus on themselves far more than their partner of choice. So sad.
You are definitely hitting on something with the Chinese developing middle class point. I was watching a documentary on the local PBS about the business process and problems of a small garment factory in China. Really small scale production, but orders of magnitude more up by the bootstraps than what we can do here any more. Not that abuses don’t occur, but this place weren’t no sweatshop or other assorted hell on earth. The biggest complaints were about dealing with US companies really. This and a few other international programs have had me thinking that a lot of folks in asia are starting to really out America we Americans.
Great idea with the animal sounds. I never even thought of that one. I don’t feel like a dog though. Can both sexes be cats? I understand cat emotionally much better than human. I often purr and use cat sounds to communicate with my cat, and she understands.
BTW, I’m seriously in the market for the right woman that knows AND wants to be what a man desires; and also believes in the model that George just described. I’d be glad to reciprocate.
Regarding tractoring – straight lines with no sidehilling and you can do the radio read thing, but when the land is choppy, or you’re digging or spreading near a cliff, I’d cut it out. Even just loading a truck or trailer, and especially if you’re using pallet forks. Those things require 100% attention or you’ll have a mess to recover from.
Any animal sound you can make seems to work. Sometimes, I’m convinced, people communicate emotionally with sounds than words./ They are much less susceptible to argument.
Something is missing from Ure’s idyllic bliss, the support of extended family (unless you count the local brother-in-law). In Asia (a few thousand years ahead of Europe/USA culture-wise) the extended family is a kind of corporation. Promising young ones are supported financially (in business, higher education, etc.). In return, they are expected to share their blessings with the family (corporate) whole. In California, Western USA that is why the Chinese buy such big houses. They are housing a whole group of relatives, not just a nuclear husband, wife, children unit.
The American ideal of ‘not wanting to be a burden’ is a falsehood. At some point the old-uns need help from the young-uns. But that system has been broken here by the frontier mentality (everybody just wants to do their own thing). Things are great until a spouse dies or illness comes or the financial flow ebbs. Does anyone here really think a public system of any kind will care for you sufficiently? Witness the NHS mess in UK. If you are deemed unworthy, they just let you die (by withholding care) as there are too many cases (expenses) budget-wise. Just read the many articles of a dead person found in some apartment. Only when the money stops does anyone go investigate. Neighbors ignore each other. Even when you do connect, the ever-moving economic landscape separates people eventually. This system sets everyone up for future failure. Sounds like a plan to me – a plan with an unhappy ending.
OK George now you almost have me talked into getting the Echo. I am just a little bit concerned about the security on the thing and also will this thing make it easier for me (and the Boss) to overspend with it or will it get me a beer. But then again I guess you could just turn it off it gets to be too much. And what good is she after Nightfall??
All that and I still look at it thinking “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”
We push the mic button off when we are plotting revolutions and overthrows of governments, lol,
We also unplug TVs with voice commands. And then we walk out back into the middle of a field, turn up a portable radio on a foreign broadcast station….
Do you really think the off button works?
Yeah, I’m too paranoid to trust the ‘mic off’ button – would need to disconnect the power supply entirely (plug & any battery) to feel comfortable keeping this thing in my living space. That and/or put it in a metal ‘Faraday’ cage/box/can when not in active use.
You do know that the mic on your cell phone is on all the time (even when the device is powered off) right? – office phones can be “hot miced,” too. See the docs Snodwden released if you don’t believe me.
Can’t even remove the battery on newer cell phones these days – not without cracking open the case and voiding any warranty.. ridiculous
Beautiful post, George, and thoughtful comments from the peanut gallery.
Made my day.