HUMOUR:

CAN YOUR CHILD OPT OUT ?:

The public protest over the full body scanners and the "enhanced pat-downs" in the USA has come and gone on the busiest day for air travel in that country. From all reports the National Opt Out Day was hardly a resounding success, even though the organizers were claiming a great success in raising public awareness. Somewhat true I guess. Too bad from my point of view, though this would undoubtedly be a hard one to get off the ground (pun intended). Perhaps 40% of the American population is terrorized by their government's propaganda about a terrorist under every bed. Another 40% is terrorized by the government itself and would rather not make waves in an airport for fear of the consequences.

Be that as it may the graphic above is still one great and incisive thing to come out of this campaign. Enjoy.

HUMOUR:

WAR AND LIBERTY:

INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY:

THE BANDS ARE BANNED:

Sometimes there are items of stupidity over and above the call of foolishness that leave me gaping with wide eyed wonder. Now appreciate that I am an anarchist and as such am privy to the occasional screed from those who want to "abolish civilization" (a mercifully small part of modern anarchism) and who also- beggar the imagination- delude themselves into thinking they have a way to accomplish this goal. You'd think I'd be enured to craziness. No such thing. The so-called "mainstream society" contunues to produce examples of insanity that equal or surpass the idea of "abolishing civilization", and it does it on a routine basis. What follows is one such example.

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Apparently there is a new 'tweenie' fad called 'Silly Bandz'. I guess that I may have seen them on the arms of young kids in the homes that I visit but I never paid any attention whatsoever- which is perhaps exactly the level of attention they deserve. I'd be hard put to think of anything that deserves less attention. Basically they are cheap rubber bands in the shape of various things-animals, mythical figures, princess icons,etc. that kids strap across their wrists. There's a website for them, and a Wikipedia note on them as well.

Considering the low cost of this item (which is, of course at least about 50 times the cost of production) I'm considering ordering a bunch to amuse the yard apes and keep them off my back when I visit homes. OK. If you can think of anything more harmless (but I'm sure you can think of things more silly) I challenge you to present it. Maybe nose picking in private? This, however, is not the opinion of various schools who have "banned the silly bands". I became aware of this while reading this week's Time Magazine. They have a more extensive article online. What on God's Green earth could be the problem here ? The teachers and the principals who put their insanity into policy claim that it is "distracting".

Pupils may "play with their bands" rather than sitting with bated breath until the next utterance from the god at the front of the room. I suggest they strip the little buggers naked so they will have nothing to "play with" while they imbibe the great wisdom from the front of the room. But maybe then they would still have "something to play with". Ooops !

The teachers have also claimed that the kids engage in 'trades' of the bands and that sometimes the partners in these trades "regret" the deals that they have made. This leads to "hard feelings", and, of course, the abolition of any feeling beyond loyalty to an ideology is a primary goal of modern education.

Teachers today are, for instance, under the illusion that they can "abolish bullying" by ramping up the control of the students by institutional bullying to such a degree that the students will not engage in "bullying" - other than of course informing the great bully (the teachers and the school administration) of violations of the code ie informing just like any good member of the Hitler Youth would have done.

The inculcation of ideology, however, while a primary goal of our education system is not the primary goal. That goal is pretty simple...to keep the little bastards babysat so that both their parents can engage in the wage labour necessary to raise a family today. In the last few decades the ideas of "progressive eduction" have been gradually corrupted such that today the idea that there are objective standards of knowledge would be considered evidence that you were a right wing fanatic. At the same time the school system, while it has gradually abandoned the real function of teaching ie the passing on of knowledge (the conservatives are right here) has taken up a Hitler/Stalin pact whereby, as long as you have the little lizards trapped in kid jail for a few hours a day you might as well "teach them to behave properly". In this desire to exercise control leftists and right wingers are equally enthusiastic.

The desire to "ban the bands" has to be seen in this context. Of course it is silly and absurd, but it means a lot to that portion of the working class whose product is social control. It comes close to being their reason for being. It is also taken up with enthusiasm by their bosses who are part of the ruling class and are very much in agreement with the idea that children should be controlled whether the control is rational or not. After all control is the major reason for the institutions that they govern. The irrationality is not so irrational once you understand that, aside from warehousing kids, one of the major functions of the schools are to discipline kids to "fit in" to institutions where the word of the boss and his point of view is divine.

That's how I personally see this incredible attempt to impose bureaucratic will on young children. I don't know how long a period of "physical reality" without the ability to control others would be necessary to reform people who want to increase their power by such evil acts. Canada has a huge area on Ellsmere Island for their colonies where they would have no opportunity to direct the behavior of anyone else. A compassionate society would, of course, provide the necessary food and shelter for the bare physical comforts necessary to philosophical contemplation on the nature of good and evil. No "political commissars" would be provided. Figure it out yourselves guys, and maybe some day you could rejoin civilized society.

INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY:

DON'T TOUCH THAT PILL- THE GESTAPO WILL GET YOU:

Here's a sad tale from the USA via the Care2 site about one student;s experience with that part of the working class whose product is pretty much social control. to be sure I have yet to get to this on this blog ie how I see little difference between teachers and prison guards and policemen. Rest assured I will get to describing my view of how people whose main function is to keep a segment of the population in one place through a good part of the day are in the same category as prison guards. Until then here's a horror story about political correctness gone wild.

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Seventh Grader Suspended For Touching Pill
Judy Molland
It all happened on February 23 at River Valley Middle School in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Seventh grader Rachel Greer was in the locker room during fifth period gym class when a fellow student walked in with a bag of pills.

"She was talking to another girl and me about them and she put one in my hand and I was like, ‘I don't want this,' so I put it back in the bag and I went to gym class," said Rachel. The pills were the prescription ADHD drug, Adderall, and after years of training under the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, Rachel knew she had to "Just Say No.

"But that wasn't the end of it. During sixth period, an assistant principal came and took Rachel out of class. It turned out that the girl who originally had the pills and a few other students got caught. Then came the shocker: "We're suspending you for five days because it was in your hand," the administrator told Rachel. Apparently he told the girl that he was very sorry he had to do it, but the rules are the rules. District officials later said that if they're not strict about drug policies no one will take them seriously.

What lesson can Rachel learn here? Because she said NO to illegal drugs and told the complete truth about what happened in the locker room, she was punished. Presumably she would also have been punished if she had said YES, so maybe next time she'll choose that route.

What does it take for school administrators to use some common sense? A policy, zero tolerance or any other, is a guideline. Every situation is different, and school officials need to be able to approach each situation individually, and make an appropriate decision, based on the relevant facts.

After hearing the news, Patty Greer, Rachel's mother, went to school officials to complain. "That's not a good policy," Greer said. "We're teaching our kids if you say no to drugs you're going to get punished; it's not right."

District officials were not impressed. Martin Bell, COO of Greater Clark County Schools, replied that the girl should not have put out her hand. "Someone hands them a pill or a drug or something like that and they say well I said no I didn't participate. Well the act of saying no is not to be there, not to be involved in the handling the, you know, they didn't have to put their hand out." (In case you're wondering, I am quoting Mr. Bell verbatim here.)

According to Greater Clark County Schools district policy, even a touch equals drug possession and a one week suspension. Wanna get a five-day vacation from school? Just say no, and get yourself suspended!

And this just in: When Mason Jammer, a kindergarten student at Jefferson Elementary in Ionia, Michigan, curled his fist into the shape of a gun Wednesday and pointed it at another student, school officials suspended the 6-year-old until Friday, saying the behavior made other students uncomfortable. Really? Couldn't the school find any other way to teach Mason not to make a gun with his hand? When will this madness stop.

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What can I say ? Insofar as propaganda has any effect such liberal attempts at social engineering will have the definite effect of convincing young people that aggression is OK as long as it is mediated through authority . It will convince a subset of young people to become good Nazis. To another subset it will convince them that 'anything goes" provided they don't get caught. While I may disagree with the later possible effect it is better than aggression mediated through authority like what the social engineers want to "teach".

TODAY IN HISTORY:

MARTYR FOR LIBERTY BURNED AT THE STAKE:

Today, February 17, marks the 410th anniversary of when the early rationalist Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600. Bruno was born in Campania (1548) entered the Dominican Order at the age of 17 in Naples and became a priest at the age of 24. His free thinking ways and great ability, however, soon got him into trouble, and in 1576 he began a life of wandering across western Europe. As a refugee from the Roman Catholic Church he briefly stayed in Geneva, but soon fell afoul of the Calvinists there. He then went to France where he was protected by powerful patrons and impressed many with his mnemonic abilities.

In 1583 Bruno went to England where he stayed for two years, once more, predictably (Bruno had a habit of sarcastic offense) falling foul of the authorities, this time mainly for advocating the Copernican system that stated that the Earth revolved around the Sun, rather than the other way around. The next few years were spent in wandering in Germany and what is now the Czech Republic. Once more he continued to attract hostility pretty well everywhere he went, managing to be excommunicated by the Lutherans. By this time he had managed to be a bête noir to all three of the feuding religious sects in Europe, Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist-no mean accomplishment.

He then returned to Italy in 1592 and, after a brief stay in Padua made the mistake that cost him his life by relocating to Venice. Now, for hundreds of years Venice was the most blasphemous state that existed in Europe, but its corruption and hypocrisy was such that bribes could easily be given and people could go on trial for the sort of thing that was very much the day-to-day of the nobles of the City. Going to Venice may be proof of the adage that every genius contains at least one aspect of great stupidity within him. Bruno fell foul of his Venetian host-who was even more corrupt than the usual round of office holders in Europe at that time-, and he was denounced to the Inquisition. the Venetians transferred him to Rome, on the request of the Roman Curia.

His trial in Rome lasted a full 8 years, and his many disagreements with Catholic orthodoxy were the repeated subject of his skillful legal defense. In the end, however, he was condemned and burned at the stake on this day in 1600. Some of the things he upheld included "the plurality of worlds" ie that the stars were suns that could have other solar systems just like our own. He also disagreed with such Catholic (and Protestant) dogma as the absurd theories of the Trinity and the Virgin Birth. Whether he actually believed in reincarnation is in dispute.

Bruno later became a hero to many different political currents. To Italian nationalists who fought against the temporal power of the Church he was a forerunner of their struggle. To socialists, rationalists and anarchists he became a shining example of free thought against clerical obscurantism. In a bizarre twist of fate he is now also a hero to the omnivorous "new age" cultists across the world because of his supposed belief in astrology and, to put it at its crudest, the apparently esoteric nature of his mnemonic graphics. Nobody can accuse new agers of excessive attention to the facts, to history or to detail. Can we say "spinning in the grave " ?

Molly's personal connection to Bruno.

It's actually very little. I once had an Italian anarchist song tape that contained one song whose lyrics began ( In English translation);

"When I die I don't want any priests or monks

Nor 'pater nostri' (funeral services)"

The song goes on to condemn the Catholic Church and end by 'vivas' to Garibaldi and Bruno, after saying that the author wants the socialist flag on his coffin and the socialist leader's girlfriend. I always liked that song.

The other connection was way back when I was in Vet School, and we were condemned to writing an historical essay about medicine. I managed to dig up proof that Bruno, in addition to his other merits, had "discovered" the circulation of the blood during his stay in Geneva, long before its presumed first description by William Harvey. To say the least the peckerhead of a professor wasn't pleased, and I didn't get a great grade in that class. Ah, Giordano, I know how you feel, even if I could never equal your lifelong creativity nor offensiveness.

If you want to read more about Giordano Bruno see the wikipedia article linked above. See also what little writings of his that have been translated into English at http://esoteriaarchives.com/bruno/home.htm , and a good biography at http://punkerslut.com/atrticles/giordanobruno.html .

INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM:

BANNING CLOTHESLINES ????:

Here's a bizarre one from down USA way. It seems that "thousands" of communities in the USA have banned the good old fashioned clothesline. Strange stuff, as in many countries in Europe it is the precise opposite ie excessive use of electricity for driers is prohibited and clotheslines are considered a badge of civic responsibility. Hopefully civilization will eventually arrive in all too many US neighbourhoods. What is the cost of an energy sucking clothes drier nowadays ? I don't know because the old clunker in my basement has been running for well over 20 years. As to "property values" the idea of living in a neighbourhood where snoops have the ability to restrict the way you dry your clothes would drop the value of a house by at least 50% for me. It is doubtful that busybodies would restrict themselves to this one item. Case closed. Here's the story from the Care2 site.

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Clotheslines Banned in Thousands of U.S. Communities:
You are officially invited to join the fight to legalize it...again. No, we're not talking about the smokable plant that's gotten so many politicians in hot water. We're talking about the good old fashioned clothes line.

As families all over the nation seek out different ways to reduce their carbon footprint and save money by using less energy, many have decided to return to hanging their clothes outside to dry them. However, many have met with great disappointment when homeowner's associations and community management services have told them the lines are not allowed.

Treehugger.com reports that, "hanging clotheslines was against the rules in so many communities nationwide that state governments are being forced to step in and make it against the law to ban them. ( I like that idea-a law against passing laws. Too bad it isn't generalized-Molly )And states like Vermont and Utah have already succeeded. But the fight for the right to hang clotheslines is just getting started.

"Using an electric clothes drier can account for up to 10% of a household's total energy use, and the EPA and other environmental organizations concerned with energy conservation and energy efficiency have been telling people to purchase Energy Star appliances for years. While this is a good idea on paper, many people aren't financially able to simply go out and upgrade to a fancy new washer and dryer. However, they are being told they can't have simple outdoor clotheslines, which are much cheaper and carbon neutral.

The reason for this clothesline prejudice, at least according to the ones making the rules, is that hanging clothes is unsightly, offensive, and causes property values to drop.

"It's already hard enough to sell a house in this economy," said Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the national Community Associations Institute, "And when it comes to clotheslines, it should be up to each community association, not state lawmakers, to set rules, much like it is with rules involving parking, architectural guidelines or pets" (via an interview in the NYTimes).

While hanging clothes all over your trees and bushes might not be the best way to make friends with the neighbors, you can hardly call a few t-shirts and pairs of jeans flapping in the breeze an offensive practice...or can you?

Richard Monson, the president of the California Association of Homeowners Associations, told Legal Affairs magazine that a clothesline in a neighborhood can lower property values by 15 percent: "Modern homeowners don't like people's underwear in public. It's just unsightly."( All the worse for "modern homeowners"-Molly )

What do you think?

INTERNATIONAL CIVIL LIBERTIES:

BOOK BANNING:

Molly found this choice opinion piece while browsing through the Care2 site. The following is written by an American, and, of course, deals with the situation in the USA. Lest us Canadians think, however, that we are so high-falutin' pure and tolerant I urge the reader to consult the Freedom to Read 's website HERE for a list of frequently challenged books up here in the frozen North. There is also an, admittedly very incomplete list of banned books worldwide HERE at Wikipedia. The graphic, by the way, is of author J.K. Rawling, one of the most frequent targets of the book burners because of her Harry Potter series.

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Banned Books Week 2009 - Books Too Gay or Too Dangerous for the Public:
posted by: Steve W.

It's Banned Books Week, an annual that, according to the American Library Association (ALA), celebrates "the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment". It aims to highlight the dangers of censorship and attempts to draw attention to any calls to ban books within the USA.

What do we mean by banning a book? The ALA categorizes it as the following:

A ban placed on a book completely removes it from the shelves of the bookstore/district library/school library where the challenge was made and in some rare occasions this can have state wide impact.

A challenge in this instance refers to not one complaint, or even just a few, but a formal protest made by a group against a specific title filed with the library or store.

No book has had a federal ban placed on it for decades now (I believe the last book to be banned in America was Fanny Hill which was banned on its release in 1821, re-released under the name of John Cleland’s Memoirs of A Woman of Pleasure and banned once again for obscenity in 1963, only for that ban to be overthrown by the Supreme Court in 1966), but challenges on certain titles persist throughout America in individual towns and school districts year after year.

So Which Books Face Calls for a Ban or Restrictions?

As you might imagine, literature featuring gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) themes is often the source of controversy.

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Henry Cole is often one such book that is challenged. It is the story of two male penguins who raise a chick in the Central Park Zoo.

The book, aimed at children, is based on true events and, whilst not featuring any explicit affirmations of sexuality, it is often labeled as "indoctrination" and accused of "promoting a homosexual agenda". It is the ALA's most challenged book of 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Baby Be Bop by Francesca Lia Block was one of fifty-five books that were challenged by parents in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They formed a group called the Parents Protecting the Minds of Children who wanted the book removed from shelves for what they called its "graphic language" and for "promoting a homosexual agenda".

Baby Be Bop was also challenged in Wisconsin by group called the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries who wanted all LGBT interest books moved to the adult section, regardless of the nature of the book, claiming that such material filed anywhere else in the library could be harmful, and that restricting access to the books was necessary "to protect children from accessing them without their parents' knowledge and supervision".

Groups don't ask for books to be banned just for the sake of children either. The Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) filed a legal suit against West Bend earlier this year claiming that elderly library goers were "damaged mentally and emotionally" by Baby Be Bop's presence. They sort financial damages and the right to hold a public book burning.

Speaking on the lawsuit a spokesperson for the CCLU said, "We don't want it put in a section for adults. We're saying it's inappropriate to have it in the library, and we want it out or destroyed".

For a list of LGBT themed books that are frequently protested against or have received local bans, please click here.

It's not just LGBT themed books that are targeted. Often books that are considered classics by most are also challenged. The organization Focus on the Family and others like it have, in the past, wanted to restrict access to books they deem " too liberal", "satanic" (concern was raised that The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter promoted sorcery) and books that do not "represent traditional values". The traditional values they stand for include campaigning against abortion, and the perceived homosexual agenda.

"Every year, the ALA and other liberal groups use this trumped-up event to intimidate and basically silence concerned parents... the truth is, parents have every right and responsibility to object to their kids receiving sexually explicit and pro-gay literature without their permission, especially in a school setting." – Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family.

So what kind of books are often objected against? Here's just a small selection:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Beloved by Toni Morrison.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.

For a more comprehensive list, here is a link to the ALA's website.

I have to say, having read all of the books above, and having done so at a relatively young age, I was enriched, not harmed, by the material I found there. Was some of it disturbing? Yes. Did it scar me for life. No. I'd even go as far to say that books like The Color Purple and Beloved changed me for the better.

My parents never restricted what material I was allowed to read. They were of the mind that if I was old enough to understand a book, then I should be allowed to read it. Interestingly, the only book I can ever remember my parents censoring to any degree (and even then we only skipped certain pages) was the Bible.

Both my parents were very religious (my mother was a devout Christian and my father is now a lapsed Methodist) but felt that certain passages within the Bible were not suitable for children.

I wonder if "traditional values" proponents such as Focus on the Family, who have campaigned so heavily to restrict access to certain books, had also thought of applying the same measures to the Bible as well? After all, the Bible clearly mentions incest, rape, hellish views of what awaits some in the afterlife, infanticide, genocide and supernatural phenomena – all of which are reasons that groups have given for restrictions being placed on books in the past.

Personally, I am against censorship and am pro religious freedom, I just wonder how evenly the standard of "traditional values" should be applied?

What are your views on Book Banning Week and censoring books in schools and libraries?

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS-EUROPE:

THE NEOCONOPTICON:
There's an interesting new report being published by the folks over at Statewatch, an European outfit dedicated to keeping a close eye on those who keep a close eye on the rest of us. The Neoconopticon details how much of the total surveillance state is already in place and how much more is yet to come. The title comes from Jeremy Bentham's 'Panopticon', a design for a "perfect prison" where there is total surveillance and control of all the inmates. It should be noted that Bentham was a liberal reformer. Like so much so-called "reform" the idea of total surveillance began as an idea beloved by the left for its sheer stupidity and later taken over by the right for its sheer viciousness. Far too much of statist politics lives out its life in a similar way. Here's the announcement from Statewatch.
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Neoconopticon - the EU Security-Industrial Complex‏:
Major new report by Statewatch and the Transnational Institute:
NeoConOpticon - The EU Security-Industrial Complex by Ben Hayes (pdf):
"Despite the often benign intent behind collaborative European ‘research’ into integrated land, air, maritime, space and cyber-surveillance systems, the EU’s security and R&D policy is coalescing around a high-tech blueprint for a new kind of security. It envisages a future world of red zones and green zones; external borders controlled by military force and internally by a sprawling network of physical and virtual security checkpoints; public spaces, micro-states and ‘mega events’ policed by high-tech surveillance systems and rapid reaction forces;‘peacekeeping’ and ‘crisis management’ missions that make no operational distinction between the suburbs of Basra or the Banlieue; and the increasing integration of defence and national security functions at home and abroad.





It is not just a case of “sleepwalking into” or “waking up to” a “surveillance society”, as the UK’s Information Commissioner famously warned, it feels more like turning a blind eye to the start of a new kind of arms race, one in which all the weapons are pointing inwards. Welcome to the NeoConOpticon."
Press release: Defence industry dominates EU’s security research programme (pdf
Contacts for further information:
Ben Hayes +44 (0) 20 8802 1882 (ben@statewatch.org ) or
Nina Brenjo +31 (0) 63 484 2129 (nina.brenjo@tni.org )

PERSONAL LIBERTY-GREAT BRITAIN:

FIGHT AGAINST THE SURVEILLANCE STATE:

This item is particularly for our readers in the United Kingdom, but, in the end, it is for us all. Great Britain has already gone further along the way towards a "total surveillance state" than any other western country, and, in many ways, the ability of the state to gather information on individuals in GB has gone beyond the practices of most communist states during the worst of their Stalinist regimes. It certainly exceeds the practices of such present communist dictatorships as Cuba and China. This spreading dictatorship, in the land that gave us such things as habeus corpus, jury trial and common law is particularly odious. If it is not defeated there then there is less hope for the rest of us who come from less liberal cultures(such as here in Canada). The following is an appeal to join a Facebook group against these laws,to write a British MP and there is also a link to a general website for this matter of personal liberty.

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If you care about fundamental rights and freedoms, privacy and confidentiality, the time to act is NOW.:

*** UPDATE 3rd July 2009 ***

Back in March 2009, Stop Clause 152! and other groups were successsful in getting the UK government to withdraw the unfettered data-sharing powers in Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill. At the time, we said it would try again.

Now it is.

On Wednesday 8th July 2009, the House of Commons will vote on a group of three ID-related Statutory Instruments including one called 'The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Provision of Information without Consent) Regulations 2009'.

This piece of secondary legislation would give powers to the Identity and Passport Service - the bit of the Home Office responsible for 'identity management' across government - to pass on information it holds on you *without your knowledge or consent*. (The ID scheme - and, most importantly, the linked databases on which it's based - is, contrary to some recent media reports, still very much alive.)

This information would include not only official document numbers, your name, addresses and signature (more than enough to facilitate massive identity fraud) but your fingerprints and even - to the police, intelligence services, taxman, and *anyone else they authorise* - details of every time you had had your ID checked, e.g to register with a GP, open a bank account, travel abroad.

Records of what information has been given to whom and why may be destroyed after 12 months or less.

This is precisely the sort of data trafficking we successfully opposed before, but we have very little time and need you to contact your MP straight away - http://www.WriteToThem.com makes it very easy - to tell him or her that you deeply object to having your personal information shared without your knowledge or consent, and ask him or her to vote against 'The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Provision of Information without Consent) Regulations 2009' and the other two ID-related Statutory Instruments on Wednesday 8th July.

Please write to your MP now AND TELL OTHERS - link to this group, e-mail your friends, but don't delay.
Contact Info
Email:

national.coordinator@no2id.net
Website:
http://www.no2id.net/

ANARCHIST THEORY:

THE DESTRUCTION OF CHILDHOOD:

I am reprinting the following essay from Larry Gambone's Porkupine Blog as it expands what are often my own feelings, especially around a time of year like Halloween. Both Larry and I are old enough (and we both grew up in "the boondocks") to remember a time when children were allowed to be children, when their lives weren't regimented from sunup to sundown, when they weren't under the constant supervision of so-called adults.

My own childhood was hardly "injury free". From skull fractures, to a railway spike through the foot (hence my present Christ complex) to cutting my thumb to the bone on the neighbour's wood lathe to many other things, I hurt myself enough. Neither was it danger free, from plunging through the ice on a slough, to staying out in thunderstorms, to climbing up on a fence post and petting the meanest bull in the RM, to, once more, many other things, I seemed to be determined to make my parents pay for a funeral. But what I can say is that I actually lived a happy childhood. The operative term is "lived". I wasn't driven from school to home to dance classes to hockey practice to home again. I wasn't controlled and glared at (excuse me- "supervised") for every second of my waking life. My time was my own. I read, played, explored, imagined and fought the eternal countryside war against insects, crows and gophers either alone or in the company of other children whom i had freely chosen as my friends.

It's been decades since the majority, or even a significant minority, of children in North America have had such freedom. We adults may think we are doing the right thing by our obsession with control of our children, but are we really ? The "family values" of my childhood were hardly the sickly sentimental idea that you have to fill every second of your child's life that is so popular today, in both left and right wing versions. To speak as an old fart, back in dem days, you simply did what was right to protect and educate the kids. You had enough faith in them to leave the majority of their time to themselves.

But there again this is the voice of what Paul Goodman called a "neo-lithic conservative", someone who actually lived the small town life that the cultural right makes up fantasies about. It sure as hell wasn't the religiously governed totalitarian state that they imagine and want. Neither was it the opposite dystopia of the social working left and their school of indoctrination. It was what it was, not total freedom but a closer approach to it than any thing planned by present day ideologues.

Anyways, here's Gambone's essay. Read it, Enjoy. Try to imagine how we might once more let children be free people ie children rather than little robots enslaved to our illusions.

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The Day After Halloween:
Far fewer kids seem out on Halloween trick or treating these past few years. One more example of the decline of community. Halloween has been replaced by phony parties in the malls. Commercialism reigns triumphant once again. One aspect of this decline has been the fear generated by the media about what might happen to those kiddies roaming around in the dark in your neighborhood. Add to this the urban legends that always appear about this time – poisoned candy, needles in apples or oranges. The latter was current when I was a kid 50 years ago!

Halloween was part of communal culture. You went around in home made costume to your neighbors and got gifts from them. Back in my day and beyond, Halloween also served another function – a kind of safety valve in the community. Living in a very authoritarian and repressive society, the young were given this one day of the year to cause mischief and torment their tormentors. While aimed at adult authority in general, the holiday also served as pay back time to individual members of the community who were unpleasant to children, such as the nasty teacher or the hateful old man down the street. They would get their windows soaped or the air let out of their tires. And the kids would snicker about this for months after.

Today, for the most part, the brute authoritarianism is gone. Children now face a more sublimated kind of tyranny. Every aspect of their lives is monitored and organized. It is of course, like the floggings and denigrating tirades of the past, "done for their own good." For "out there" lurks an army of kidnappers, child-buggerers, and gang members just waiting to pounce on Little Jason and Amanda.

Somehow I doubt it is all that much worse than when I was a kid. The difference is the lack of community. With real towns and real neighborhoods, we kids knew who all the "pervs" were and avoided them. Today "the public"is too aware, but then, overt knowledge of such things as pedophilia and incest was suppressed. We kids understood and expressed our awareness through warnings about not bending over to get the soap in a public shower and jokes about scoutmasters, priests and choirboys.(Molly Note-Larry is a little bit older than me, but my father was born in 1895, so my old man had a few years on his. Old Tom used to tell us that the stories of priests and boys were current in his!!! day as a kid. Oh wow, I wonder how many centuries back this reaches) In real communities, as the late Jane Jacobs pointed out, there are thousands of eyes seeing what goes on. The sick can't get away with much.

The anonymity and alienation of suburban life has given a much freer rein to the emotionally sick amongst us. This creates fear, and fear in turn, further destroys community. The suburb is a vicious circle that eternally grinds down everything that makes us human.The only way Halloween and all other forms of communal, non-alienated activity will revive is through rejecting the American-style suburb and a return to living in real neighborhoods.