How Did Dinosaurs Put on Condoms?

”How did dinosaurs put on condoms?” My pesky 9-year old nephew suddenly asked. Kids ask strange questions. Are they designed to embarrass parents? Or is it because kids have inquisitive minds not yet spoilt by “education”.

Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) having fun with condoms in front of ladies.

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

How Should Your Kids Learn About Sex?

• Parents should teach their kids all about sex.
• Sexual education should be left to trained teachers at school.
• Let them learn from the media and computers.
• My peers and friends taught me about sex. So will theirs.
• The trial and error method works best.

Which of the above would you choose for your kids?

How Kids Learn About Sex

Kids, in many countries nowadays learn the facts about reproductive sex at school. Earlier one learnt from older relatives or friends. They usually fed you cock and bull myths. If you were not so well informed, you stumbled to adult bliss or sudden parenthood through trial and error.

In most contemporary societies a teenager is under extreme pressure to become a sexual top performer. S/he “knows” that civilization on any other planet is a myth like the unicorn or the Loch Ness monster but G-spots have precise geometrical coordinates. In the search for the holy G, do you go straight, turn left or right? “Turn left at Greenland!” is what John Lennon replied when asked by reporters “How did you find America?”

Magazines, available everywhere, and those modern “self-styled shamans” called TV-psychologist or Relationship expert offer standards for orgasmic peaks and preferred length, type and frequency of sexual behaviour. You are not “normal” if you don’t have it 3.6 times a day in five different poses giving you earth shattering rapture each and every time.

Things may be different in families:

• Living in war-torn countries like Afghanistan or Somalia where surviving is at the top of their minds. It is the parents’ duty to occasionally be blessed with children. Children are promptly smacked if they ask questions about sex.
• Living in cultures where cultural values prohibit discussing sex. You (meaning adults) do it but never talk about it. Children learn all kinds of A Thousand and one night stories about sex from older kids. Eventually kids get married, have babies and live happily/unhappily ever after. If they end up believing that sex was invented just to annoy neighbours, they spend their money and time on therapy or becoming grumpy. If they go for DIY (do it yourself) fixes, they spend money on porn or chase other people in pursuit of elusive sexual raptures or even discover that there’s more to life than rubbing waste disposal areas together.
• Where parents actually bring up their children with love, guidance and encourage them in hobbies, help them get education they value, teach them to live with people they care about and become well-adjusted valued members of society.

A Dutch study of 63 kids aged 2-6 found that they had only basic knowledge of genital differences, gender identity, sexual body parts and functions of the genitals, knowledge of pregnancy and birth, reproduction and adult sexual behaviour.

Why would 2-6 year olds need all this knowledge? Many adults seem to be doing fine with knowing less.

Parents Affect Their Children’s Sexual Behaviour the Most

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons (Apologies to the parents of people in this picture)

Studies by the American National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that 38% of teen parents said that their parent’s behaviour shaped theirs and this influence was much greater than the influence of friends, the media, educators, siblings and religious organisations.

A Korean study found that fathering (warmth and involvement measured by frequency of task share) was not a significant factor in their children’s sex role orientations. This study however, found that girls’ femininity was significantly related to the father’s masculinity. This brings hope that children after all don’t always become like their fathers.

Can you blame your children’s sexual behaviour on the TV?

In the late 1970s, research by Paul E. McGhee and Terry Frueh of Fels Research Institute Ohio, USA found that heavy viewers of TV retain male stereotypes over time but moderate viewers don’t. They found no effect on female stereotypes. If your son's going to behave like Conan the Barbarian or James Bond if he watches television 20 hours a day, then you know.

How Do Same-Sex Parents Bring Up Their Children?

Photo source: Wikimedia commons

A research of 500 American households for Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, USA reveals that children brought up in same-sex households (both live-in parents are gay or lesbians) have equally good self-esteem, gender identity or overall emotional health than healthy children brought up in healthy families.

Good teachers are the Best Sex Educators

Recent study by researchers at Ohio State University and the University of Kentucky found that students learn more about sex and relationship issues when taught by their regular classroom teacher, whom they get to trust more than casual teachers or other sources of information.

So how did the dinosaurs put on condoms? Hmm! We don’t have any information of their sex lives. But according to one theory, dinosarus got their bang and earth shattering experience when a large disaster (asteroid) hit the earth off the Texas coast, 65 million years before George Bush II ruled America.


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What is Social? How is the term "social" understood?

What is social? – a pesky student piped up this question at a Masters level lecture on social policy at a prestigious university. The lecturer was dumbfounded and responded angrily “How dare you make such silly questions. This is basic stuff. Go and check the definition from a book.”

Photo source: Wikimedia commons

“Stupid” questions are often the most valuable ones. By questioning even fundamental assumptions occasionally, we manage to make quantum leaps in knowledge.

Different ways of understanding Social

One way to understand social is to contrast it with the individual. What happens inside your head is in the individual domain, what happens outside your head, in the interplay with other individuals is in the social domain. One of the most famous of these usages is Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712-1778) “Social contract”, which claims that an individual is under an implicit contract to conform to the “general will” in return for the benefits of belonging to society.

Many parents, educators and law enforcement understand social by contrasting it with “anti-social behaviour”. Social behaviour considers the needs, interests and intentions of other people while anti-social behaviour like vandalism or terrorism does not.

Screenshot of Mumbai terrorist by author

Karl Marx (1818-1883) defines humans as social beings, who cannot survive and meet their needs without social association and must enter into relations of production ‘independent of their will’.
A zoologist makes no difference between humans and other animals and defines social as “Living in communities consisting of males, females, and neuters, as do ants and most bees.“

In areas dominated by religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, where reincarnation is a core belief, the strict dividing line between human society and nature with animals disappears. People believe that a human being can be reborn as an animal living in the forest. In Hinduism life ideally has four phases: Brahmachari (student), Grihasta (Householder) Vanaprasta (forest dweller or Hermit in semi retirement) and Sannyasi (the renounced one in full retirement). So animals also belong to the extended social dimension.

How different cultures use the word social

In British slang: social refers to social security benefit. “My husband hates going down to the social to sign on.”

In American slang: What’s your social? Means ‘What’s your social security number?’

In the Canadian Prairies it is a dance, held often also to raise money for a young couple about to be married.

Etymology:
"Characterized by friendliness or geniality," also "allied, associated," from M.Fr. social (14th century.), from L. socialis "united, living with others," from socius "companion," probably originally "follower," and related to sequi "to follow."

Is there a uniform concept of social inclusion?

Photo source: Wikimedia commons

Hunter-gatherers like the San people from Namibia, who live exactly like they have done for the past 10 000 years have social, economic and gender equality but ‘social’ is defined on the basis of kinship and band/tribe membership. They have no full time leaders, politicians or artists and no concept of privacy or property. Do they understand ‘social’ in the same way by contrasting individual with tribe or band?

What exactly is the social and who can belong is always a matter of contention. Are men and women allowed on equal terms, are immigrants given the same jobs, equal pay and status? What happens to people who differ from ‘norms’? Can people who conform to every single norm but are attracted to their same sex, function as priests, teachers or judges? – These are very hot contemporary topics and the degree of acceptance tends to ebb and flow across epochs.

The concept of ‘social’ inclusion varies among cultures and time periods. In ancient Athens, citizenship was reserved for male Athenians (if both parents were Athenians). Women and slaves could never get it.

Photo source: Wikimedia commons

Among the Native Americans and Canadian First Nations, the Two-spirits (previously Berdache) were people who mixed gender roles. They dressed and functioned as both. Some of these also had the most prestigious positions in their societies: ceremonial roles among the Cheyenne, foretelling the future for the Winnebago and Ogala Lakotans and ritual functions for the Sun Dance among the Crow, Hidatsa and Ogala Lakotans.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. “

William Arthur Ward.

So, getting back to the teacher’s reactions to the ‘stupid’ question, could we imagine that the lecturer’s reaction was meant to inspire students to learn to use library resources for their research? You would be tempted to say "Yes, but..!"

My wise research supervisor once said that good butt muscles are as important as brains, patience and method for success in research.

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How Do Atheists Scream During Passionate Sex?

Some people love to scream aloud during sex. Do fastidious and uncompromising atheists scream during passionate sex?

“Ah! Unfathomable void!”
“Ahhh! Bottomless pit! I’m coming”

Do they yell “Oh Darwin” if they haven’t come out of the ‘religious’ closet and can’t control the primal urge to deify?

Or do they satisfy the vocalizing urge with “My ..Natural Selection. That was great!”




Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons

Saint Augustine, one of the most influential figures of Christianity, with lots and lots of experience of screaming lust, was honest in his prayers to God. 'Grant me chastity and continence, only not yet.”

If we look at all of known and recorded human history, we see that peoples, cultures and religions are always a tight fit. When you bring in a religion from outside and ‘convert’ a people, the religion also adapts by adopting indigenous worldview, aspects of culture and facets of the collective experience of the people into it. Any religion, which totally disregards what the people are used to, usually doesn’t succeed as Akhenaton, the eighteenth dynasty pharaoh of ancient Egypt (1353 BC – 1336 BC) learnt.

Black Jesus and White Saints

In many churches and cathedrals in South America and Africa, where white Europeans brought Christianity, Jesus is often black, but most of the saints were white.

Photos source: Wikimedia commons

Is this just an oversight or was there a covert message? “Well, you can satisfy your deifying urge by looking at a black Jesus, but don’t even think of ever becoming a Saint! Sainthood is reserved for whites only. You get the point? It is divine will that we, whites rule over you!”


Photo source: Wikimedia commons

Religion can have political, commercial and domination agendas, possibly more than any other sphere of human activity. Often religion gets corrupted and becomes a mechanism to satisfy ego trips rather than bring salvation, happiness and liberation to people as countless cults have shown to do.

Very often God is portrayed as a bearded male figure. With one notable exception, Islam, where idolatry of images is forbidden, many religions and religious art have portrayed God or the supreme deity as an older bearded male.
Should God always be seen as Male? More in this article.

p.s. Apologies to people who enjoy their sex silently.

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Drink More Coffee and Save the Environment!

Coffee is a $70 billion global industry (twice the size of the Hollywood entertainment industry). 80% of Americans and a high percentage of people elsewhere drink coffee regularly to become alert and stay awake. New research at the university of Nevada shows promise that coffee can save the environment too.

Photo source: Wikimedia commons

Since coffee was discovered in Ethiopia and spread around the 11th century in the Arab empire, it has either been promoted as a wonder drink or a terrible health hazard. Historically, the caffeine drink was well suited to Muslims, because the stimulating effects of caffeine helped stay awake and alert during prayers. Coffee is popular with non-Muslim coffee drinkers, who need to stay awake and alert for whatever reason they have.

Coffee Banning was Common in Europe

Allen, Stewart in his book, The Devil's Cup gives a history of coffee banning. Coffee was put on trial in Mecca as a heretical substance and banned in Ottoman Turkey. Pope Clement VIII got addicted to coffee and resisted banning it. "Why, this 'Satan's drink' is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptising it and making it a truly Christian beverage." The Ethiopian Orthodox Christians banned coffee till 1889, because it was a Muslim drink. King Charles II banned coffee in England (for 11 days only, as the king gave in to coffee shop owner protests), because in Europe it was associated with rebellious political activities. In Germany Frederick the Great tried in 1777 to ban coffee so that money wouldn’t go out of the country.

How Drinking Coffee can Save the Environment

Professor Manoranjan Misra, Narasimharao Kondamudi and Susanta Mohapatra of the University of Nevada at Reno have found a way to develop biofuels from used coffee grounds (the powdery remains in the machine, which is thrown away after coffee has been prepared).


Photo source: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

If this method of preparing bio-diesel spreads, soon all the cities will have a whiff of coffee in the exhaust smell. Not only is coffee-grounds efficient as it yields 10-15% of biodiesel by weight, the resulting biodiesel high viscosity and standard engines can use that easily. Professor Misra claims that 5-7 kgs of coffee grounds could yield a litre of biodiesel. Some ingenuous people can already make biodiesel from leftover and recycled cooking oils at home, coffee-based biodiesel is better suited to larger scale industrial processing. The biodiesel manufacturing process of transesterification, where the grounds reacts with alcohol in the presence of catalysts, might pose unnecessary risks of the alcohol being directly consumed by thirsty DIY chemists.

There is however, a drawback. New Scientist claims that about 140 litres of water is needed to grow the coffee beans needed to produce one cup of coffee, and the coffee is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage, such as Ethiopia.

Is it time to buy shares of Starbucks and coffee producers for your grandchildren?

Ref: Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta K. Mohapatra, Mano Misra (2008). Spent Coffee Grounds as a Versatile Source of Green Energy Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 56 (24), 11757-11760 DOI: 10.1021/jf802487s

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Maternity Leave – How Different Countries Treat Working Mothers?

How a society treats working mothers, tells much about that society and its values. Is that really true?

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons

Ask any mother and she will tell you that in addition to the material needs of the mother and her baby (the ability to pay all bills), a mother needs practical help and guidance, support with social and emotional reassurance, physical comfort and health, and appreciation.

What is Maternity Leave?

Maternity leave, often called parental or family leave, is the time a mother (or father to some degree) takes off from work for the birth or adoption of a child. State paid "maternity leave" —the norm in most countries, developed or even developing — is absent in the United States. Some enlightened US companies do offer new parents paid time off, up to six weeks in some cases.

Why Should the State Pay Maternity Leaves?

The idea that the state should be responsible for providing money to help maintain mothers who have given birth, and cannot work as usual is absent in most ancient societies. The responsibility for maintaining mothers and children was the husband’s, families or the community’s. Even the largest matrilineal society in the world today, the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, in Indonesia does not have this concept. In the Minangkabau culture, property and land passes down from mother to daughter, while business, religious, and political affairs are the province of men (although some women do play important roles in these areas). Very prescient these Minangkabau! They knew long before the current financial crisis that businesses fail, religions get corrupted not to talk about politics, but property and land retain value.



Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons

Never before have so many mothers needed to work outside the home along with men (excluding the farm). In an increasing numbers of societies one income is not enough to support a family.

The custom of paid maternity leaves varies greatly among countries. Cuba already started paying maternity leaves to working mothers in 1934 and Sweden in 1931. Afghanistan and Iran have 90 days maternity leave paid by the state. The tiny Estonian government gives a generous 455 calendar days with 100% salary compensation to mothers, while the rich and mighty United States government has no national provision for paid maternity leave.

A diminishing number of children endanger the continuity of the nation state. In Estonia, protecting and nurturing each child, and the more the better is a prime directive for preserving the ethnic Estonian nation. In 1761, British physician William Buchan (1729–1805) noted that one half of the human race dies in infancy, with ominous consequences for the health of the state. Deborah Dwork (1987) in her book “War Is Good for Babies and Other Young Children: A History of the Infant and Child Welfare Movement in England 1898-1918 “ claims that WWI, was actually good for motherhood and childbirth in Britain.

Women Working Till Delivery Day Have More Cesarean Sections Women who worked right up to the delivery day were more likely to have a costly cesarean section, according a study funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. A second study found that the longer a new mother delayed returning to work, the more likely she was to breastfeed – a practice recommended by other studies and the American Academy of Pediatrics to decrease the risk of allergies, obesity and sudden infant death syndrome.

History of Paid Maternity Leaves

Paid maternity leaves were first established, in a modern context, as a part of social insurance by Bismarck in the Germany in 1883. France followed soon. In 1919 the International Labor Organization, adopted its first convention claiming that mothers be entitled to a maternity leave of 12 weeks in two equal parts preceding and following childbirth. In most western countries parental leave is available for those who have worked for their current employer for a certain period of time. Sweden provides generous parental leave: all working parents are entitled to 16 months paid leave per child, the cost being shared between employer and State.

Other Opinions on Maternity Leaves

The extension of maternity leave to up to a year may be sabotaging women's careers according to Nicola Brewer, chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in UK. She claims that some employers were thinking twice about offering women jobs or promotion.

First Israeli Gay Man Gets 'Maternity' Leave

The National Insurance Institute authorized Israel's first-ever "maternity" leave for a male couple on Thursday. Yonatan Gher, director of Jerusalem's nonprofit Open House Pride and Tolerance organization, has received institute approval of a 64-day leave from work on the occasion of the birth of his biological son, born of a surrogate mother in India.

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Fundamentalism of the Christian Kind is not Growing!

Liberal people all over the world love fundie-bashing. It is so snug and comfortable to show how deluded they, the fundamentalists are, how unreasonable, selfish and evil they are. Just put in any fundie you’d love to hate into the formula – the Muslim extremists, the Nazis, the fundamentalist Christians, the NeoCon Republicans, the Taleban – the list is endless.

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How Much Damage Religious Fundamentalists do?

If we look at the death toll of killing campaigns and mass deaths, the fundamentalists lose to secular killing campaigns straight out. The Inquisition or the Crusades total death toll lack a few zeroes, when compared to Mao and the Spanish Flu.

Now, we can argue that religion was involved in these massacres as well.

Stalin attended a theological seminary and almost became a priest, Mao was fighting eradicate religions, and the annihilation of the Native Americans was in the name of progress and religion too.

But religious persecution, of the Christian fundamentalist (“I am right and all others wrong” kind) did a lot of damage by terrorising entire societies. There is no negotiation or room for differences with them (do the Taleban sound familiar?)

Emperor Charlemagne in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain in one day on 5/27/1234 near Altenesch (Germany). Population numbers in those days were also lower than today, so killing 16, 000 persons removed a significant part of the population. Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists justify their actions by calling Western colonialism and post-war Western Imperialism by the chilling term al-Salibiyyah: the Crusade". (Karen Armstrong 2000).

Can Religious Fundamentalists do Any Good?

Religious fundamentalists function on a “If you are not with us, you are against us” principle made so notorious by George Bush. Extremists religious communities are very close knit and they support members much more than social security. Membership does have privileges, but they are withdrawn the moment you start dissenting. Earlier, dissenters were ‘removed’ too.


Photo Source

I am not making any apology for any fundie. I’m awfully glad that the people of India did not put their faith in Hindu fundamentalism in the 2009 elections.

Liberalism and Not Fundamentalism is Rising?

Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research, an American firm that helps Fortune 500 companies make better marketing decisions, reveals that the number of Americans who consider themselves fundamentalist is growing at a much faster rate than those with less orthodox or evangelical views has no basis in fact.

In 1972, 18% of American considered themselves ‘liberals’
In 2002, 29% of American considered themselves ‘liberals’

In 1972, 27% of American considered themselves ‘fundamentalists’
In 2002, 30% of American considered themselves ‘fundamentalists’

For various reasons, we have had slight difficulties in getting figures for Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.

Yes, it seems that 'fundies' of different sorts put a terrible twist to things, mostly for their own benefit. We could be snug and say that 'fundies' are deluded as they call all others deluded. But then doesn’t it become a case of the blind leading the blind? I'm comfortable with people taking different roads or rather making different roads as long as they don't force it on me.

Here’s a very nice article about Christian Fundamentalism by Mark Gordon Brown, which inspired me to write this post.

Ref: Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (p.180)

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Tribute to The Oldest Blogger in the World!

The oldest active blogger in the world, 97 year old Spanish María Amelia López, born in 1911 passed away on May 20, 2009. Her blog was started when her grandson set up a blog for his 95-year old granny as a birthday present. Her site was getting over 1,5 million visitors – a dream for millions of bloggers worldwide.

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When I'm on the Internet, I forget about my illness. The distraction is good for you - being able to communicate with people. It wakes up the brain, and gives you great strength - Maria Amelia Lopez

Not only her ancient origins, but her raspy sense of humour as she shared her insights of the process of getting old made her an Internet celebrity. Recalling her tales of opposing the Franco regime and giving her take on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, this granny became a celebrity such that the Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero had to get photographed with her.

Some people really are late bloomers. The Internet has lost another great “personality”.

The Youngest Blogger in the World

There is going to be a fierce debate about this title. There is even a blog dedicated to discovering the youngest blogger in the world. This blog suggest that Lewis Chew from Malaysia, is the youngest blogger at the age of 2. No, not years but months!

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What Kind of People Blog Globally

According to Technorati the people who research much about blogger and Internet behaviour, this can be said about blogger demographics worldwide in 2008:

• 50% of bloggers are 18-34
• Bloggers more affluent and educated than the general population
• 70% have college degrees
• Four in ten have an annual household income of $75 000+
• One in four have an annual household income of $100 000+
• 44% are parents
• Two-thirds are male

Photo source: Technorati


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