Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Nearly 40 per cent of school principals are highly stressed and about the same number are spending more than 65 hours a week on the job, a new survey shows. Results of a survey by the New Zealand Principals' Federation carried out at the end of June showed while over 80 per cent of the 1500 principals surveyed said they still got satisfaction from their job, many were suffering as a result of long-term stress. "Many of them say 'We love the job, but it is killing us'," said federation president Pat Newman. Nearly 40 per cent of respondents put their level of stress at high or extremely high, and 42 per cent were spending more than 65 hours a week on the job.
In a significant social shift, embryos left over by Kiwi couples who have successfully undergone in vitro fertilisation (IVF) will be made available to others trying to have a child. The new rules, released by the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction, provide a fresh avenue for couples desperate to have a child and could save them thousands of dollars otherwise spent on IVF. Embryo donation will be subject to strict conditions and approved case by case because of the ethical and social issues it raises. It effectively involves the separation of children from their genetic parents and siblings and sees them raised by "social parents". [This is another step in a major movement which is separating children from their biological parents. It is a consequence of the HART Act passed in the last couple of years, but it is reflected in much other legislation, such as the Care of Children Act.]
A genuine debate about immigration and multiculturalism seems almost impossible in New Zealand at the moment. But at least it is starting to happen in Britain. “My view is that a multicultural society is an impossibility,” [Norman Tebbit] says. “ Society is defined by its culture. And if you have competing cultures existing inside the same territory, sooner or later there will be a contest to decide the dominant one.”
Tebbit’s views, once confined to the fringes of his own party, are now suddenly back at the centre of a new and highly focused debate on multiculturalism. The importance and profile of the debate was emphasised last week by David Davis, the favourite to become the next leader of the Tories, who claimed Britain’s pursuit of multiculturalism, one he defined as allowing people of different cultures to settle (in the UK) without expecting them to integrate into society, is now “outdated” and should be abandoned. Davis claimed “the authorities” have seemed “more concerned with encouraging distinctive identities than with providing common values of nationhood … we must speak openly about what we expect of those who settle here, and of ourselves”.
Appeasement has cost millions of lives in Europe: the Jews in Nazi Germany, Germans under the Communists, atrocities in Kosovo. So how is Germany planning to meet the threat of Islamic terrorism inside its borders? By suggesting an official state Muslim holiday.
America is becoming more virtuous. Americans today hurt each other less than they did 13 years ago. They are more likely to resist selfish and shortsighted impulses. They are leading more responsible, more organized lives. A result is an improvement in social order across a range of behaviors. The decline in domestic violence is of a piece with the decline in violent crime over all. Violent crime over all is down by 55 percent since 1993 and violence by teenagers has dropped an astonishing 71 percent, according to the Department of Justice. The number of drunken driving fatalities has declined by 38 percent since 1982, according to the Department of Transportation, even though the number of vehicle miles traveled is up 81 percent. The total consumption of hard liquor by Americans over that time has declined by over 30 percent. Teenage pregnancy has declined by 28 percent since its peak in 1990. Teenage births are down significantly and, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortions performed in the country has also been declining since the early 1990's.
Fewer children are living in poverty, even allowing for an uptick during the last recession. There's even evidence that divorce rates are declining, albeit at a much more gradual pace. People with college degrees are seeing a sharp decline in divorce, especially if they were born after 1955. I could go on. Teenage suicide is down. Elementary school test scores are rising (a sign than more kids are living in homes conducive to learning). Teenagers are losing their virginity later in life and having fewer sex partners. In short, many of the indicators of social breakdown, which shot upward in the late 1960's and 1970's, and which plateaued at high levels in the 1980's, have been declining since the early 1990's. I always thought it would be dramatic to live through a moral revival. Great leaders would emerge. There would be important books, speeches, marches and crusades. We're in the middle of a moral revival now, and there has been very little of that. This revival has been a bottom-up, prosaic, un-self-conscious one, led by normal parents, normal neighbors and normal community activists.
There are many big stories happening in the world outside the radar of the news media. Rick Warren - pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the best-selling "Purpose Driven Life" - gave a bunch of key US journalists a list of them.
Americans have long considered Saudi Arabia the one constant in the Arab Middle East — a source of cheap oil, political stability, and lucrative business relationships. But the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family that has been funding militant Islamic movements abroad in an attempt to protect itself from them at home. A former CIA operative argues, in an article drawn form his new book, Sleeping With the Devil, that today's Saudi Arabia can't last much longer — and the social and economic fallout of its demise could be calamitous.
Where bin Laden is, why he's still alive, and why it may be impossible to capture him. At least, according to WorldNetDaily.
In a significant social shift, embryos left over by Kiwi couples who have successfully undergone in vitro fertilisation (IVF) will be made available to others trying to have a child. The new rules, released by the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction, provide a fresh avenue for couples desperate to have a child and could save them thousands of dollars otherwise spent on IVF. Embryo donation will be subject to strict conditions and approved case by case because of the ethical and social issues it raises. It effectively involves the separation of children from their genetic parents and siblings and sees them raised by "social parents". [This is another step in a major movement which is separating children from their biological parents. It is a consequence of the HART Act passed in the last couple of years, but it is reflected in much other legislation, such as the Care of Children Act.]
A genuine debate about immigration and multiculturalism seems almost impossible in New Zealand at the moment. But at least it is starting to happen in Britain. “My view is that a multicultural society is an impossibility,” [Norman Tebbit] says. “ Society is defined by its culture. And if you have competing cultures existing inside the same territory, sooner or later there will be a contest to decide the dominant one.”
Tebbit’s views, once confined to the fringes of his own party, are now suddenly back at the centre of a new and highly focused debate on multiculturalism. The importance and profile of the debate was emphasised last week by David Davis, the favourite to become the next leader of the Tories, who claimed Britain’s pursuit of multiculturalism, one he defined as allowing people of different cultures to settle (in the UK) without expecting them to integrate into society, is now “outdated” and should be abandoned. Davis claimed “the authorities” have seemed “more concerned with encouraging distinctive identities than with providing common values of nationhood … we must speak openly about what we expect of those who settle here, and of ourselves”.
Appeasement has cost millions of lives in Europe: the Jews in Nazi Germany, Germans under the Communists, atrocities in Kosovo. So how is Germany planning to meet the threat of Islamic terrorism inside its borders? By suggesting an official state Muslim holiday.
America is becoming more virtuous. Americans today hurt each other less than they did 13 years ago. They are more likely to resist selfish and shortsighted impulses. They are leading more responsible, more organized lives. A result is an improvement in social order across a range of behaviors. The decline in domestic violence is of a piece with the decline in violent crime over all. Violent crime over all is down by 55 percent since 1993 and violence by teenagers has dropped an astonishing 71 percent, according to the Department of Justice. The number of drunken driving fatalities has declined by 38 percent since 1982, according to the Department of Transportation, even though the number of vehicle miles traveled is up 81 percent. The total consumption of hard liquor by Americans over that time has declined by over 30 percent. Teenage pregnancy has declined by 28 percent since its peak in 1990. Teenage births are down significantly and, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortions performed in the country has also been declining since the early 1990's.
Fewer children are living in poverty, even allowing for an uptick during the last recession. There's even evidence that divorce rates are declining, albeit at a much more gradual pace. People with college degrees are seeing a sharp decline in divorce, especially if they were born after 1955. I could go on. Teenage suicide is down. Elementary school test scores are rising (a sign than more kids are living in homes conducive to learning). Teenagers are losing their virginity later in life and having fewer sex partners. In short, many of the indicators of social breakdown, which shot upward in the late 1960's and 1970's, and which plateaued at high levels in the 1980's, have been declining since the early 1990's. I always thought it would be dramatic to live through a moral revival. Great leaders would emerge. There would be important books, speeches, marches and crusades. We're in the middle of a moral revival now, and there has been very little of that. This revival has been a bottom-up, prosaic, un-self-conscious one, led by normal parents, normal neighbors and normal community activists.
There are many big stories happening in the world outside the radar of the news media. Rick Warren - pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the best-selling "Purpose Driven Life" - gave a bunch of key US journalists a list of them.
Americans have long considered Saudi Arabia the one constant in the Arab Middle East — a source of cheap oil, political stability, and lucrative business relationships. But the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family that has been funding militant Islamic movements abroad in an attempt to protect itself from them at home. A former CIA operative argues, in an article drawn form his new book, Sleeping With the Devil, that today's Saudi Arabia can't last much longer — and the social and economic fallout of its demise could be calamitous.
Where bin Laden is, why he's still alive, and why it may be impossible to capture him. At least, according to WorldNetDaily.
