[chachaheels]

Oh mah god, that's not Phillipe Rushton and his stale, recycled, boring and hate filled ideas again, is it? I thought I'd seen the last of him 20 years ago or so, when his whole racism fueled "blacks aren't as bright as whites, orientals are brighter than either of them..." garbage got him a lot of media attention and a post at a kinda-prestigious university. Of course, he was laughed off the air in Canada (though I'm sure the university where he worked kept him on for the publicity).

So this is his new groundbreaking research? Wow. He should have dinner with that president from Harvard who says women make lousy scientists, just cause he says so.

I can't believe research that old (and so clearly shoddy) is still keeping this guy employed.

[stargazer]

i agree with what you said erinjane. as a soon to be psychologist...those tests do discriminate towards people of other cultures. not a reliable test to measure IQ.

[erinjane]

I've been told my numerous profs as well that IQ tests are no longer seen as a reliable test of intelligence because they are often biased to white, male, middle-class majorities, so it's no surprise that men would test higher.

I think I've heard of this guy before. His claims are ridiculous.

[margot]

Oh no. Not the Daily bloody Mail. They write utter bollocks all the time.
I couldn't be bothered to read the whole article.
The thing is, a high IQ test result proves that one is good at taking IQ tests.
Pretty scary that there are some fuckwits who believe men are cleverer. I successfully avoid people like that.

As an aside, I am constantly challenging gender stereotyping when it occurs in my (2 yr old) daughter's play.
She LOVES playing with mini-kitchens though!
I can really go off on one, when someone says to her "Ooh, you won't like that toy hammer, it's for boys" And people do! Grr!

[katiebelle2882]

unfortanately maddy, its not the first study that has proved this. really, would i be surprised if men had a higher IQ. definitly not. Why you are? because IQ is influenced by enumerable factors and the difference in upbringing is just one of them. women and men are raised differently, men are raised better if you think about it. i wouldnt be surprised in the least if bc we encourage boys to go out and play and women to play with kitchen sets led to discrepancys in IQ were a result!

[maddy29]

fuckwad...

from the article "Prof Rushton, who four years ago triggered a scientific row by claiming intelligence and behaviour are influenced by race, with blacks being more likely to be involved in crime and Asians having a greater chance of high IQs, however, stands by his results."

ummmm, ok-who the HELLLLL is funding his "research?"

ok i just wrote an irate response on there, because those people responding are all "oh yeah, men are smarter, we've always known that."

It really makes me want to cry and punch several walls when i realize that yes, people really DO believe this shit!!!!!!!!!!!!! GAHJHHHH!! :ljs;roig h304952!

[katiebelle2882]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...e#StartComments


great. now what?

[pepper]

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/10/08/turkey-teacher.html

someone please explain to my WHY a first offender (childporn) in canada wouldn't face jail time? wtf is that load of absolute garbage?!? you can go to jail for a joint in your car but you can have hundreds of pictures of children being fucked in the ass on your computer and they let you back on the street? aaahhh gggrrrrr *furious*.

[chachaheels]

We are trying to understand something impossible to understand. The killer is dead, there's no way we can know what his motives or motivations were--and it's possible he would not have known, himself. It's senseless and random and violent and impossible to grasp on an intellectual level, which is what we're trying to do here.

On the other hand, I don't think the amish are preaching "not to think evil". I think they do not want to judge the man (because what purpose would that serve other than to prolong everyone's suffering?) and I certainly think they know that the key to picking up the peaces and restoring some kind of healing in the community can't start until there is forgiveness for what has happened. It's that cannot be reversed. It's simply like a collective way of saying they won't waste time fueling an anger for a thing that can't be changed, when there are survivors to be looked after. The family of the murderer included--after all, the family members who survived the milkman aren't guilty of anything except being related to him. But they may just spend the rest of their lives wishing they had known, or somehow intervened--and that's a devastating torment in itself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I learned at some point that Amish communities don't want you to be with them unless you're committed to living the way they do--so to this end, everyone who reaches a certain age is given an opportunity to go out in to the world and experience what life there is like (Isn't that what "rumspringa" is supposed to be?). Only if they want to come back to the Amish community are they welcomed back, so that they make up their minds knowing full well what life will be like when they return to their communities. They're similar to the Mennonite communities that are all over the place in my area, except the Mennonites don't always separate themselves from media, or supporting the utility grid around them, or using cars and gasoline. Many of them live the same way any of us do, but their ideas about community and faith are very similar to the Amish; modern in one sense, and very much still embracing the outward traditions of the path.

[maddy29]

my boyfriend is telling me that the killer of the amish girls was a milkman in the area- the funeral went right by his house, so it sounds like really small town, where everyone knows everyone, so i wonder if he knew these girls prior, or had at least seen them around....maybe it wans't so random who his victims were.

and, a mile away there was another amish 1 room schoolhouse, so what made himpick that one?

i guess we're all still trying to understand the un-understandable

[katiebelle2882]

http://www.adrants.com/2006/10/corona-says...er.php#comments


um? i like corona but not that much. i cant believe this ad. i mean its sheer genius bc it will work with men however, i find it pretty offensive i wont lie. i mean, theres so many things here that are wrong that i dont even know where to begin.

apparently its in Japan only. and actually, i work for a company that is owned by the same company that owns this particular agency. the japanese never fail to to come up with some of the most bizarre sexual things i have ever seen or heard of.

[nickclick]

i dunno about this ease with forgiveness, in this situation or any, by the amish or anyone else.

there's obviously reason to be outraged and pissed, and sad. on one hand, anger isn't going to return those girls. on the other hand, anger can be productive. but maybe the amish community might not have an interest in solving this trend of school shootings in the US. now we know that keeping away from the modern world doesn't keep it away from you.

i guess i'm trying to find a lesson, but to no avail.

[katiebelle2882]

i find it very very amazing that these amish are preaching not to think evil of this man etc etc. but its hard for me to truly think well of them, mostly bc i have read many accounts of the abuse women suffer in those communities. not many women get out of that life, and the ones that do, well, the stories they tell are very sad.

either way, how they are dealing with it touched me, even despite the stories about women i have heard.

i for one wouldnt want anything to do with that crazy mans family and if he hadnt killed himself i would have done it. i know its not the right way but i know thats how i would feel.

[ginger_kitty]

Violent or mentally ill, I couldn't say. I don't understand school shootings. But I came across this somewhat related article earlier that makes me mad:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/04/school-violence-funding/

It doesn't really surprise me much, but it would probably help if schools had better funding available to deal with situations like that.

[maddy29]

i love you all.

that's all for now.

[chachaheels]

The amish do believe in mental health care, and many amish communities place very high importance on ensuring people in their communities are mentally healthy. They do, in fact, have counselling and treatment centres. In fact, the community targetted with this crime actually has a centre for mental health care. One of the first things they did as a community after this took place was work on forgiveness for this crime--they actually got together and contacted the murderer's family to bring them food, and see how they were doing almost immediately after the fact.

I don't think the information about whether or not a particular criminal was using drugs for psychiatric treatment is made common knowledge; in fact, that kind of information comes out usually several weeks or months after the fact. Violent, murderous "sprees" have been an often-recorded side effect of SSRIs, Prozac specifically: a number of people who've gone on these kind of killing rampages and then committed suicide afterwards have in fact done so after being treated for depression with these drugs, but usually the violence is directed towards close family members. No one's reported anything about his depression and seriousness and illness other than people knew he was suffering from it...so it's quite possible he may have been under treatment for his condition. We don't know yet.

And I know: most people with mental illness are not violent; however violent people ARE suffering from some kind of illness, some kind of inability to keep from being violent. Violent, abusive behaviour is often one of the signs of advanced illnesses of all kinds, for example advanced syphilis or gonorrhea, particularly if there are delusions involved as well. Again, we have no way of knowing; and we don't know if any of the events might have been preventable or even predictable by others who would have known this person.

Today I was listening to a republican being interviewed on NPR and he mouthed off about Foley being inclined to the abuse he was caught committing because he is gay. He said, "the gays tend to be obsessed about sex" (or something to that effect). Of course, the interviewer said that many people would take offence and challenge that statement...and the republican stated that he didn't care, what he was saying was true and could be proven by psychiatrists and other people who have to "deal with them".

Wait!!! It's Republicans who obsess about sex...after all, so many of them knew what Foley was up to months ago, and did nothing till now (probably cause they were all up to the same thing); and all kinds of Republicans spent way too much time, money, and effort to try to impeach a legitimately elected Democrat over a blow job.

[crazyoldcatlady]

side note, to answer wombat-

i used to live near Amish country, and when I did a rotation through the state psych hospital, there was a good majority of the patients who were Amish, for a myriad of illnesses. and one of the reasons why they were at the state facility instead of say, the local hospital's psych ward, was because they didn't have the traditional medical insurance...

[butterfly]

Oh, no, I knew what you meant Wombat-
The stuff about violence/mental illness: absolutely. I was just saying that the things that seem so inexplicable make headlines, and that can lead people to believe otherwise.

And no, I don't mean stop them in that way. I was meaning that I have a history of a mad bad dangerous person in my life, who I couldn't stop- for exactly the reasons you outline- and I think that now that they are no longer a physical pressence, I realise that one of the outcomes is that I keep searching for reasons why they behaved that way. And as Maddy said- I'm not going to get to far with that one.

But mainly? Yes- the family is usually left to deal, and then bear the responsibility of the outcomes. And I think it's a tragedy that even where there isn't nessecarily violence or abuse towards others, that the stigma and the turning away from illness, the unwillingness by society to see- adds to the feeling of *outsider*, of stigma, and of isolation.

xposted with Bunny. I wondered if he chose an Amish school because of their beliefs in the afterlife.

[bunnyb]

wombat, I'm sorry if it came across as a contradiction which obviously it was, because he's not Amish, but not a contemptuous one.

However, you were making the discussion of his mental illness about whether the Amish believed in modern medicine and whether he could afford treatment and I wanted to take that off the table because it's not applicable to the discussion. Whether he was Amish or not was significant to what you were attempting to discuss in that instance but not now.

So, can we move on please?

I believe his wife did phone the authorities but they had already been alerted by one of the teachers who was let go who managed to get to a phone (I don't know how quickly after her release).

It took on another dimension for me when I read earlier that, yes, the schoolhouse was convenient for him but he passed another on the way. He delivered milk to the house of two of the victims (one sister dies, the other injured) on Sunday night.

[wombat]

A few points: Most mentally ill people are not violent.
Most violent people are not mentally ill.

However, the point I was making is that people who are violent or mentally ill or sexually abusive are dumped back on their families after their stint in the given institution, and it takes years to institutionalize them in the first place.

This has a direct bearing on whether his family, neighbors, co-workers etcetera could have "seen it coming" and on the erroneous assumption that if they did "see it coming' they could have done something about it.

His wife -- I guess? -- called the police and probably aborted the episode. But she could not call the police and say "I think maybe he's GOING TO do something" or, she could, but they wouldn't do anything about it.

I don't think any of us could physically stop him. Are your shooting skills current and your flak jacket accessible and up to code?

She couldn't successfully get them to intervene until there was physical evidence and action on his part, I know this from experience.

Whether he himself was Amish is as insignificant to this as what color his eyes were.