Back to the seventies, Hippity Hop and Big Wheel

I'm not sure why I posted this 10 years ago on Facebook, except to tell of my parents' voices in my head. They are about 60 in the photo, so I was maybe 34. The original in 2013 said, "Hallmark should have a card to celebrate the day you become your parent(s). (Heard on the radio) I would love to sound like my mother, but usually it is Dad who speaks. He would give a solid yes or no, and Mom would say, "We'll see," so we interpreted that any way that suited us."

Now I've waited too long to tell about the visit or what we did. If I had my photo album, I might have notes. It was spring, that's a flowering quince which will take over the yard if you aren't careful, a sand box which Bob built and the neighborhood cats used. The kids weren't very interested in t.  The toys are Big wheel and Hippity Hop. Anyone remember those? Today about 50 years later I'm wearing mom's hairstyle in this photo. It's very windy this week at the Lake. Not once did I ever hear her complain about her hair, but I do every day. Every day. Oh, how I miss her wisdom, strength and love of service.

Luke Witte at Lakeside

We went to Orchestra Hall today to hear Luke Witte, from the OSU basketball fame. Then to the Patio for perch sandwiches. Here's a summary from a publication about what we heard; Witte is now a Methodist pastor and gives talks on reconciliation.

"Back in 1972, The University of Minnesota was hosting Ohio State, and on that day, the young Musselman had predictably worked his players into a frenzy prior to the game. Observers noted he was encouraging extra-physical play. At the end of the first half, OSU missed a shot, and Gopher Bobby Nix raised a fist in celebration. Luke Witte shoved Nix’s arm out of his way on his way off the court, and hit Nix’s face in the process. In the final minute of the game, with the Buckeyes wrapping up the win, Witte attempted a layup and was slugged in the face by Clyde Turner. Gopher Corky Taylor offered his hand to Witte, and when Witte took it, Taylor kneed him in the groin and punched him in the head. While back down on the floor, Minnesota player Ron Behagen approached, and kicked and stomped Witte. When Buckeye Dave Merchant came to Witte’s aid, Jim Brewer approached and was pushed out of the way. Buckeye Mark Wagar was approached from behind by Winfield, who punched Wagar in the face five times. The incident, easily obtainable on YouTube, carried racial overtones, since all of the Minnesota attackers were black and all of the Ohio State victims were white. A Sports Illustrated photo sequence recorded the disgusting violence.

Luke Witte was beat up the worst. After the referees forfeited the game to the Buckeyes, Witte was carried off the court while Minnesota fans booed and hurled debris. Witte and two other Buckeyes spent time in the hospital; Witte was in intensive care for a time, his eye injuries impaired him long-term. When one revisits the 1972 brawl, emotions of anger arise1.

For his part, Witte remembers nothing, from half-time of that game to the next morning. He has recalled his mental state in the years immediately following the Minnesota game. He often felt fine- as if nothing had happened. Other times, he would allow the lingering physical effects (such as the limitations in his eyesight) to cause hostility to fester inside of himself. His hatred focused on Behagen, Turner, Taylor, and Musselman.

He allows he’d lost the passion for the game after the fight. This included his three seasons with the Cavaliers. Over time, during a life journey that spanned decades and included seminary study and becoming an ordained pastor, Luke Witte came to a conclusion:

He needed to forgive those who were involved in the attack back in 1972.

It sounds easy enough: give up your anger and your desire for revenge, and move on. It can be extremely difficult, in practice. Truly forgiving is probably the most important skill of happiness. It takes strength to overcome our own vengeful heart. It is within our power to do so, however. The gesture liberates the victim and allows him to shed his bitterness.

In 1982, ten years after the brawl, Corky Miller reached out to Luke Witte by mail. Witte agonized over how, or whether, to respond- until his wife convinced him to call. They initially didn’t say much, but began to occasionally write each other. When the age of email dawned, they wrote more often. Strong emotional and spiritual bonds formed.

Eventually, Corky Miller invited Luke Witte to visit him and his family in Minnesota. Their relationship had become that of brothers, as they discussed basketball, race relations, and the nature of forgiveness.

While Witte was visiting Miller, he was surprised by a visit by Clyde Turner. The three of them later watched a tape of the attack on the court. They were silent, yet with a dozen questions that would later be discussed.

In the meantime, the three men reconciled. They became liberated."

https://waitingfornextyear.com/2015/01/luke-witte-jim-brewer-ohio-state-cavs/

Reaping the whirlwind

Ohio is now considering a parental rights bill similar to Florida's. One of the best reasons for schools NOT to indoctrinate small children about sex--how, why, when, and who--is what the schools have done with ordinary, tried and true, historical meaning and traditional instruction on biology, i.e. how babies are made. It's called grooming. If you look at the statistics, when serious sex instruction took hold (with parental objection) in the 1960s and 70s, the teen pregnancy rate and subsequently the abortion rate, really took off. It did the opposite of what was intended. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. teen pregnancy rates rose. They remained steady through the 1980s, even as sexual activity among teens increased, due to improved contraceptive use among those teenagers who are sexually active. (Guttmacher, arm of Planned Parenthood statistics). When overall birthrates declined, unmarried teen pregnancies soared. The conservative and religious push to link marriage and sex was just too old fashioned for the age of easy contraception. Just wasn't "progressive," but Uncle Sam made a very bad step father for generations of Americans.

People have such faith in "education." Why, I don't know. All the bad political and financial policy ideas are sowed in academe and fertilized in Washington DC. We the people reap the whirlwind. Prove me wrong.

"They have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind. The stalks of grain wither and produce nothing to eat. And even if there is any grain, foreigners will eat it." Hosea 8:7

More files for the trash

I'm throwing out files from 40-50 years ago. I was a Democrat then. I wrote to anyone who would listen/respond from Robert Lazarus to the chaplain at the Ohio Penitentiary, from the Principal of my kids' school to the public library director, from the Columbus Dispatch editor to our church's education director--about prison conditions, bank practices that hurt the poor, story hours that included racist or weak female story lines, the number of black clerks that Lazarus hired for Upper Arlington Kingsdale, fair housing practices and the morally squishy material from ELCA. I remember attending meetings to discuss the need for a local food warehouse that was going the "end" hunger, and a planning group for a community center for Upper Arlington. I was carrying posters at the state house about the ERA. I was beyond woke, but I was asking specific people and companies to change their policies. I wasn't asking the government to do it. I guess I should have organized some protests and thrown bricks through windows instead of writing letters. 

What if Joe Biden had worked as hard on these issues as I did? Maybe he might have made a difference in his 40-something years in "service."

Yale, May 1970; the Floyd protests in context

Putting the Floyd protests in context--May Day, 1970 at Yale by Al Kresta. https://avemariaradio.net/audio-archive/kresta-in-the-afternoon-june-3-2020-hour-1/

Al Kresta was 18 during the turbulent years of campus protests, including the Kent State disaster. He says what is happening today happened then, but our media haven't learned or even researched. He also explains the 2019 study (using the Washington Post data base) on police vs. unarmed citizens, white and black. There is NO gross epidemic of police violence against blacks. Black citizens are more likely to be killed by black officers, not white. And what correlates is the race of the criminals. It's the best predictor of fatal shootings. In 2019 there were 9 fatal shootings of blacks and 19 of whites out of millions of encounters with the police. This flies in the face of every TV report, newspaper opinion or Facebook meme you see. Fatalities of whites rarely get any media attention. Our main stream media do not do their research. [njb: Our local news last night did a great disservice featuring a white mother of 2 young black sons and the inaccurate information and myths surrounding the police and blacks.]

Kresta was there in 1970, and he says it's the same today. There are three groups: the largest group are the peaceful protestors, next are the revolutionaries with an ideology--then as now, usually Communist, socialist, globalist, anti-government (Bobby Seal, etc.), and third is the criminal element, looters, rioters, long time criminals just stealing and creating mayhem.

It's very useful to put today's problems in the context of these 3 groups including Nixon (who was no more popular than Trump), Revolutionary white groups, Black Panthers (would work with any left wing group), the Yale students with their ideals and white privilege and their liberal president; 4,000 national guard troops. There was no serious violence and rioting in New Haven . Unfortunately, Kent State was to come.

This discussion continues on June 4.

Roe v. Wade

"We had an unplanned and unexpected pregnancy in the 70’s when abortion was rampant. And we gave serious thought to going that direction. We were young and active, just out of college and just getting started. We wanted children, but not right then. We decided against termination. Please indulge my “what if” for a moment:

“What If”‘ we had chosen abortion? There would be 4 grandsons I would not know, one of which I watched as a junior in high school pitch in his team’s first district baseball game of the season last Saturday. I would not be able to watch he and his next youngest brother play together on their high school football team that will be looking for their 15th State Championship in the Fall. (They won their 14th State High School championship last year) I would not know their 11 year old brother who is already becoming an accomplished pianist and song writer. Nor would I know their “little” brother, who at 8 years old is the most active, most outgoing and happy young man I’ve ever known, and is already a phenomenal athlete.

I would have not known their Mom who is one of the most amazing women alive today. She is brilliant, focused, hard working, hopelessly devoted to her family, and is the loving glue that holds our extended family together, plans every function and is an organizational and artistic genius. One other “what if” is probably the most sobering: we would be buried in the guilt of knowing we missed all of these people that would have been our descendants because we chose abortion. My “what ifs” are a bit scary. Think for a moment about yours." https://dnewman.org/roe-v-wade/

Friday family photo, memorabilia and memories

I don't remember the exact date, maybe 1970. My dishes were new then. I thought I had given them away about 40 years ago, but found one piece this week while rearranging the cupboards to fit my new crock pot (which I think will go to basement storage due to space problems). Enjoying white tea and memories with this little sweetie.   

I think the first time I used these dishes was the visit of my sister-in-law Jeanne with her mom and two daughters, Julie and Joanie, and they got lost in Columbus. (Three weeks ago Joan and husband Dan came for an R & R visit with us.) The three hour trip (from Indianapolis) became five hours.  They finally called us and Bob went to get them so they could follow him to our house. We lived on the northwest side on Abington Rd., and there was another Abington on the northeast side.  Julie immediately jumped in our car and said, "I'm riding with Uncle Bob." Then in browsing our photo album of the 1960s and 1970s, I spotted a photo of a festive reception in our dining room with these dishes and the dining set.

The table and chairs are now one of the most expensive items in our home after 50 years of use.  It's been in the dining room (108 E. White, Champaign, Charles St. in Champaign, Abington Rd. in Columbus, and our condo where we live now), the kitchen, the family room and at our daughter's home for awhile. Mid-century modern is very "hot" right now, and this little Paul McCobb set is popular.  So popular in fact, I can't afford to buy two more chairs if I decide to move the set back to the dining  room.

Photo album from the 1960s and earlier

How my children did it

I had a 50’ cord on the kitchen phone so I could keep an eye on the children and walk into the living room to see what was going on.

Monday Memories—watercolor

When my husband began painting in the 1970s he had a limited palette, burnt umber, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue , yellow ochre, cadmium red, Hooker's green with a few dabs of other blues and reds. He did barns and trees with no leaves, because green is very difficult to master in watercolor. Over the years he got more frisky and added a bird, then a chicken, a cow, and the barns got more red, a...nd the skies more pink. Then he took up sailing and started painting boats that weren't washed up on a beach or rocks. About 5 years ago he painted some flowers. A few years ago he started painting people, like 150 people on the dock at Lakeside and even did one of 5 girls in colorful saris last year. But as far as I can recall, Max is his first dog.

Max is a one woman dog—my sister-in-law Debbie who we were visiting in California two weeks ago.  He would look like he would let you pet him, or throw him a ball, but then would back off.  This will be sent to his “people.”

Binding up the old memories

This morning I gathered up the pieces of my 1978 Upper Arlington Lutheran Church photo directory and took them to Staples (thank you, Mitt Romney, for helping that company get a start) along with some “new member inserts” and had it spiral bound with clear acrylic covers.  It had been on a shelf with a huge metal clip.  It cost me less than $3.50, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.  Looking through it I see many saints who have gone to their reward, and also many families who are no longer together.  One widow, Mary Brenner, smiled out at me.  We met in 1978 and she died in 2005.  I wrote up a few memories of her after attending her funeral.

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2005/03/881-saying-good-bye-to-mary-she-was.html

Coffee shop encounter

“What do you say!” she barked loudly to her small daughter who had just received her do-nut. “Thank you,” the little one meekly replied.

I know I did that to my kids too back in the 1970s, which is probably why I noticed (could hear myself) but gosh, it grates on my old ears now.  It kind of smacks of “Everyone look at me, I’m teaching my kid good manners (by being rude to her in public).”

We had a lot of help becoming the crass, rude, it’s-all-about-me people we are today. Here’s my own assessment.

Prayer and Bible reading were taken out of schools incrementally, which removed any thought that there was an over arching system of  justice or wisdom above Me. Today you can’t even pass out red and green M&Ms at a school “holiday party.”

A War on Poverty was launched which drove men out of their children’s lives and diminished respect for marriage, which in turn removed tacit authority of parents. A single mom making $29,000 a year, can boost her income to about $69,000 through government benefits like housing allowances, EITC, SNAP, etc.

Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) took the Catholic church in a different direction, with much misunderstanding and craziness, and the Protestants just followed along.  Happy clappy songs and sloppy loopy teachings have replaced sound doctrine and good liturgy in all Christian denominations.

With falling standards among Christians in the 60s and 70s, divorce, contraception and abortion became the trinity of free and/or marital sex and shacking up.  What’s the point of modeling good behavior?

Boomers came of age—got themselves into all sorts of messes, including war protests and Marxism.  Resulted in a lot of them becoming academics and passing it along to Gen-Xers and Next-Gen. They became sappy grandparents with low to no standards.

That’s a lot to read into a rude parenting style, but words have consequences to the 3rd and 4th generation.

Friday Family Photo--The Wedding 1970

My husband's brother, James B. DeMott, died on September 14 at 63. This is a photo of them together before Jim's wedding in 1970 (not sure of the date).

Glenn Beck provides the genealogy of Days of Rage

If you don't subscribe to GBTV, you missed Glenn Beck's monologue on the Days of Rage this past week-end (it fizzled miserably), back, back way back to the Weather Underground of 1969. He updated us on Jeff Jones, Mark Rudd, Tom Hayden, Carl Davidson, and of course, Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine, and what they're doing today. Noted that Tom Hayden is teaching at Occidental in California, where the Obama transcripts are being held hostage. Here's a web site that will do about the same--it's a good read.

Guest Post: Tracing the Origins of the Days of Rage Protest « RickMick

However, don't discount the Days of Rage--which ended up on the steps of the Smithsonian instead of Wall Street, I think he said. The Weathermen started small too, and four of them managed to bomb a building of the University of Wisconsin and kill and injure people. And have you ever read a more apologetic marker for violence? If I were the family of that dead grad student, Robert Fassnacht, I'd sue for such a limp, vacuous account of this tragedy.

This article updates what happened to the dead, injured, and perps.

What becomes of electronic waste?

Today I control more electronic gadgets in a day in my own house than what I would do in a year in 1977 when I returned to work in a high tech computerized library at a university of 50,000. Three digital cameras (there's a 4th in a drawer), a video camera, 3 scanners, 2 printers, 2 computers (a 3rd not connected), 2 email accounts, a phone/fax, a cable network, a wireless network, a copier (2 if you count the one in the scanner), 12 blogs with the information stored off-site, Facebook account, 3 cd players, DVD player and VCR, 6 or more remotes, microwave, various digital clocks that blink and flip if the power goes off, an i-pod, 2 cell phones one with a camera, and 3 cordless phones one with an answering machine. We have 6 TVs (4 cable connected, 2 with antennas). We also have 6 radios in the house, but the one with batteries which would be useful in a storm I can't find. In 1977 we had one TV and one telephone and maybe 2 radios. If we had batteries, they were in the car or flashlight.

In 1957, the year I graduated from high school, my parents had electric clocks with moving hands, maybe 3 radios, but no TV, or AC or even an electric fan in the house. Only children rode bicycles. The U.S. mail was delivered twice a day by mailmen who walked, we received 2 newspapers at the door, and one local weekly, plus numerous magazine subscriptions. Thirty five or 55 years ago, the American family had a much smaller footprint, even with a car that only got 11 miles/gallon, but I don't know very many greenies who would give up their computers, cell phones, or cameras. Do you?

Our kitchen clock when I was growing up.



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The Carter-Obama Comparisons

This is a "kiss and tell" entry. I adored President Jimmy Carter, and wrote him a fan letter after he was turned out to pasture by Reagan (and I received a thank you note which I kept on my refrigerator for at least a year). However, at first I thought he was a wonderful ex-president going about inspiring people with authentic Christian good works (Habitat for Humanity). However, as he got older and more restless he began setting a really bad example for future Democratic ex-presidents and ex-vice presidents. (This doesn't seem to be an affliction of Republicans.) He began to act as though he still mattered to the American public, that people cared what he thought. That said, I still admire a man who will defend his record while working out of a cramped apartment with a Murphy bed rather than living it up in high style the way other Democrats do. Old clips seen on 60 minutes a few days ago, however, did bring some unfortunate comparisons with my least favorite president, Barack Obama.

"Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, for instance, told Fox News in August 2008 that Mr. Obama's "rhetoric is more like Jimmy Carter's than any other Democratic president in recent memory." Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg noted more recently that Mr. Obama, like Mr. Carter in his 1976 campaign, "promised a transformational presidency, a new accommodation with religion, a new centrism, a changed tone."

But within a few months, liberals were already finding fault with his rhetoric. "He's the great earnest bore at the dinner party," wrote Michael Wolff, a contributor to Vanity Fair. "He's cold; he's prickly; he's uncomfortable; he's not funny; and he's getting awfully tedious. He thinks it's all about him." That sounds like a critique of Mr. Carter.

I don't think Carter is the narcissist that Obama is, nor is he a Marxist, but he is a liberal, finger wagging whine. When I saw that 1970s clip of him lecturing the American public on their morals, it just sent a chill down my back. Excuse me if it sounds racist, but that was way too much blue-eyed, elder soul for this former fan.

John Fund: The Carter-Obama Comparisons Grow - WSJ.com

Should you take a temp job?

We joined our church, UALC, on Palm Sunday 1976 and the next day my husband lost his job. The economy was a mess--he was already on a 4 day week and had changed firms about a year before, so it was "last hired, first fired." I have no recollection what we did about insurance--probably didn't have any, and if unemployment benefits were available, we didn't know about it. He found another job in 3 weeks where he quickly became a partner and owner, and which he left in 1994 to start his own sole proprietorship. But the shock of being unemployed with a wife, kids, mortgage, car payments, etc. affected his health and confidence for years.

Before he found a job, I signed on for temp work. I doubt that we had any savings to speak of. I was a stay at home Mom and the kids were in 3rd and 4th grade. I had dabbled in job-sharing, a big idea in the early years of the Woman's Movement of the 70s, but the baby sitting arrangements were appalling. After signing with a temp agency who located the jobs for me (taking a percentage of my salary), I did some interesting office work at various local firms like Ashland Chemical, Battelle, plus a medical office at Ohio State University. I distinctly remember it was my first experience socializing with women who had live-in boyfriends, and as the older woman (36) in the staff room on coffee break, I got an earful on why this is always a bad idea. Especially for the kids. No sharing of bed and utility bills is worth that. It was a bit like second hand smoke. Stinks as conversation.

In early 1978 through 1983 I began taking part-time, contract jobs. Yes, I was on the "government dole," as my dad liked to point out. All these jobs, mostly library or clerical, were from federal government grants, massaged and funnelled through state or university offices with a long red line of employees above me taking their cuts. Sometimes my benefactor was the USAID (Agency for International Development, State Department), sometimes FIPSE (U.S. Dept. of Education) or some other library funding group, and once Dept. of Labor, JTPA. But one stint was with a private company--a chain bookstore. Wow, what an eye opener. State workers have cushy jobs compared to private industry, and believe me, I couldn't wait to get back! Running an electronic cash register is not as easy as a library computer. Someone always had to rescue me with the gift card/discount stuff. Now, as a retiree whose pension depends on investments in the private sector, I see things a bit differently.

If you do take a temp job to tide you over, remember they are great learning experiences, and may actually lead you to your next best job. Just keep your mouth shut on coffee breaks.

Thursday Thirteen not written

I had most of it drafted--13 ways the feminists of the 1970s changed our society forever, mostly for the worse, but it got way too long and depressing. By the time I wrote about the population of a small country aborted, the spread of STDs with the free sex movement, the links between pantheistic goddess worship and environmental movement, the awful movies, the growth of porn, the rise of obesity brought on by more processed foods and dependency on eating out, the growth of the pre-school movement which reduced parental influence even more, Title 9 sports, the impoverishment of children caused by the marginalization of men and denigration of marriage, the crummy fashions from ethnic chic to stretchy pants suit, and most importantly (next to the aborting of our future) the launching of inflation in the early 1970s and a nation living on credit setting the scene for today. See? No fun at all. The research by the feminists (basically a marxist movement) will all report that women were the victims, either of the programs they put in place, or the right wing back lash (another thing they created), but I was there at the beginning. I was marching around the state house waving my ERA sign. I am woman, hear me roar. Departments of Women's Studies are now a huge industry wasting students' time with required courses, and libraries are dying, so I guess I'll be shouted down. But you read the truth here.

Remembering the Seventies--Monday Memories

I first heard the details about the modern women's movement in my living room. A neighbor/friend with whom I worked on a fair housing committee mentioned she was losing interest in civil rights, but had become interested in women's rights. Not the one from the 19th century, not getting out the vote of the early 20th century, but Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay stuff. Neither of us were employed, although we both had advanced degrees, and that wasn't unusual in my neighborhood near Ohio State University. I think her teenage daughter had run away from home; shortly thereafter she did too, and I never saw her again. Not too long after that I remember attending “consciousness raising” groups on the OSU campus--women sitting around in dumpy duplexes, usually on the floor, discussing the various ways society or more specifically men had kept them from their potential or dreams, and how things would be different if women were in charge. More collaborative. Kinder. More team work. We were so radical we didn’t even serve snacks like church ladies.

Yes, I remember when the professional schools of medicine, veterinary medicine, pharmacy and law weren't over 60% female. I just stared in amazement when the female student vet walked in to look at my 5 week old kitten in 1976. I remember when suburban neighborhoods weren't expensively furnished ghost towns during the day. People were around and children were playing in yards unsupervised. I remember when most pastors in Protestant mainline churches were male seminary graduates. I can even remember when people only went out to eat (unless they were fabulously wealthy) on special occasions. I can count on one hand the number of times I'd been in a fast food restaurant before 1970. I remember when I knew no one who homeschooled and no one sent their children (except Catholics) to private school. Grover and Big Bird were just a few years old and quite innocent; Phil Donahue was leaving Dayton around 1970, as I recall.

I didn't read a lot of medical literature in the early 1970s (except baby stuff), but it seems it was more about disease, cures and epidemiology and not so much about poverty, ethnicity and gender in those days. Children played in their own neighborhoods, or mothers organized play groups and supervised each others children. I didn't see a Wal-Mart until about 1978, or later,--in Bradenton I think. I used disposable diapers only on car trips, held the babies in my lap not car seats, their toys and clothing were made in the U.S.A. (or by me), and I never took my children to grocery stores or church. Like most of the people we knew we had one TV, one car, and one telephone.

That's sort of how I remember the 70s. The women's movement changed everything and brought us many of our current social, economic and health problems. More on that later.

[Sorry, this missed the deadline for Monday. There's no one to blame, but me.]

The Reckless bad boys of Columbus

The project was intended to construct a model program to divert young boys from crime by developing their inner controls with a positive self-image. Walter C. Reckless was a well-known, frequently published criminologist who published in the 1950s and 1960s on self-concept as an insulator against deviant behavior. In 1972 he published, with Simon Dinitz, "The prevention of juvenile delinquency; an experiment (Ohio State University Press), on the role of self concept in preventing juvenile delinquency.

The authors theorized that if a youngster had a good self-concept, he would be less likely to slip into delinquency, so they studied over 1700 pre-adolescent boys in a blue-collar, deprived, working class neighborhood and school system of Columbus, Ohio for four years. They already knew that most of the children in this neighborhood, despite sharing similar lives, would NOT grow up to be criminals, but what made the difference? They divided the boys into three groups, all selected by their teachers and principals--The Experimental Group (bad boys), The Control Group (bad boys) and The Comparison Group (good boys). The first two groups, the teachers decided, were prime candidates based on their early years in school to become delinquents. The third group was considered to be well-adjusted, ordinary kids, rarely in trouble.

The Experimental Group received the same academic curriculum, but were put in special classes where they received additional attention and the teachers had had special training. They had a special "role model" interpersonal component which included relationships at work, school, government, family and getting along with others. They also had a different outcome for discipline, with strong emphasis on the rights of others, and their peers helping to bring them back into the group when they misbehaved. The other group of bad boys received nothing extra.

All the boys were evaluated at the end of their 10th grade (4 years later), and much to the disappointment of the researchers (I'm guessing) there was no difference in police contacts, seriousness of behavior problems, the drop out rate, attendance, grades or achievement level between the enriched role model group and the control group. The good boys had continued on their way, causing no problems and doing well.

If I'd spent 15 years of my life invested in this self-worth concept to reduce crime, I think I would have been distraught. But as far as I know, the researchers just decided their model program wasn't tweaked right, and I think Dr. Reckless is still being cited in the literature for his self constraint theories of criminal behavior.

What I found most interesting was that when the researchers interviewed both the students and the teachers after 4 years, they thought the program was a success! The teachers rated the bad boys in the experimental group as much improved in behavior, even though there was no evidence, and the boys themselves were enthusiastic and recommended it for their friends! But it didn't translate into better grades or less contact with the police and courts.

3710

Thirty seven years later

I don't actually know the exact date of the current "woman's movement." I date it from 1970--because that's when I became aware of it and moved away from the civil rights activities in which I'd been involved into women's rights. Women have done a lot of good in the almost 40 years since then, but also a lot of harm, particularly to marriage and children. They've swamped certain professions like Protestant clergy, veterinary medicine, law, pharmacy and medicine tipping the balance to a majority of females, lowering standards and salaries. We have so many regulations on the books to protect women, you'd think we were either an endangered species or queens. Our society isn't really kinder and gentler and less mean, or more cooperative and egalitarian, is it? To look at our popular culture, women and girls are more sexualized and objectified than 30-40 years ago, less safe, and children are less likely to have a father in the home, not more. Single women are much more at a disadvantage financially than they were when I was a young woman, because now they need a household income that goes up against a two income household. Single motherhood no longer means just divorced or widowed, as it did 30 years ago, it could mean she decided the clock was ticking and it was time she borrowed a sperm donor.

I remember back when they made a big deal about women truck drivers and construction workers. And women on road crews. You still only see women as "flag persons," and I can't remember the last time I saw a woman in a delivery truck. They were rather common in the 70s when women decided it might be fun, then learned they didn't have enough upper body strength. And everytime I see a woman standing in the sun in her cutsy shorts and t-shirt with the SLOW sign, while the guys dressed for real work are driving the heavy equipment, I think, "Yes, lady, you really are slow if this is what you've aspired to."

But a picture is worth a thousand words--two pictures maybe 1,500. Here's the latest issue of Columbus CEO. Is there any phrase that makes a better case for how all these regs and rules have held women back than, "Women rule"? Would there ever be a cover phrase like that for men that wouldn't bring down the wrath of the thought police? Talk about different treatment of the sexes!!!


The second example is from the stock report I received today. I've fudged the faces a bit, but you can see there is one black male, and one white female on this board of directors. Sometimes there is a two-fer, and the female is black.


But I've been looking at these reports for 7 years, and it's always the same. That's why I modified the faces--who they are doesn't matter, nor what the company is. The Board of Directors and the officers of the company change little. I don't blame men for this, or even the business culture.

I wish we could go back and have a do-over. See if in 2007 without all the government bureaucratic red tape that has snarled the law books for 40 years, the enforced brain mush courses and the left socialist drivel that the colleges teach women instead of real courses, just where women would be. I'm guessing we'd have 3 or 4 women on this board. I've met a lot of women in their 70s and 80s who had careers before the women's movement and the numbers were rising. Colleges and businesses were swamped by less capable women kicking down the doors.

I don't think women want these jobs. They're tough, take 80 hours a week, lots of travel, bored meetings and creating networks. Maybe even golf! To be an executive or a board member, it helps if you have a wife to take care of things at home, and most husbands don't want to be her.