I broke the end off my clutch lever by dropping the Tiger in my driveway, because I'm a klutz.
Aimee and I went to Engle Motors as part of our Fathers' Day date mostly so I could drool over the new Thruxton R. While we were there, I ordered some new adjustable levers.
They look a lot nicer than the stock levers and and have a lot more adjustability.
They were very easy to install. I only used a 10 mm socket and a screwdriver. I think I'd like some had guards. I don't plan to do any offroading with this bike, but they'd make cold weather riding a little more comfortable. I'll probably wait until the weather cools down.
“Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society, the way that a child catches the measles.” ~ Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
Culture matters. A lot. And if Francis Schaeffer was right about how most people form their world view, popular culture matters most of all.
The contempt for fathers that generations of children (now adults) absorbed through popular culture is one major reason that families are crumbling in the US and throughout the West. Families are the foundation of civilization. If the foundation crumbles, what happens to the civilization?
Fortunately, there are still movies that portray married fathers as heroes, and Fathers' Day is the perfect time to highlight them. This is a non-exhaustive list, so if you know of others, please feel free leave a comment below.
Cinderella Man James J. Braddock was a real life Rocky Balboa, an aging, has been, washed up, working class boxer with far more heart than talent who got a shot at the world championship. Unlike Rocky, Braddock was a married, devoted father of three who lived during the Great Depression. He fractured his right hand (his only weapon in the ring) in a fight he lost and was forced to retire from boxing. He lost everything during the Depression - except his family.
This is a story about the lengths to which a father will go to support his wife and children. If you haven't watched it, do so. Better yet, read the book.
We Were Soldiers
Hal Moore is one of the great American combat commanders of the Vietnam War. He commanded the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Ia Drang in 1965. He is also a married (now widowed) father of five (now grandfather of 12). The first act of the movie focuses on the Soldiers and families of the 1-7 as they prepare for the deployment. I posted one of my favorite scenes above, in which then-LTC Moore mentors one of his young LTs on balancing soldiering with fatherhood.
American Sniper I reviewed this movie previously, so I won't write much about it here. Chris Kyle was not only a heroic Navy SEAL sniper, he was a devoted married father of two. Read the book!
The Impossible
If you have kids, this movie will scare you more than any horror movie ever could. It's based on a true story (are you starting to see a trend?) about Enrique Álvarez, María Belón and their three sons Lucas, Simón and Tomás Álvarez, who were on vacation in Thailand during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The movie changes the names and nationality of the characters from Spanish to English, but the main theme remains intact - the lengths to which a father will go to reunite his family after a natural disaster tears them apart.
Soul Surfer When, in real life, a shark bit Bethany Hamilton's left arm off just below the shoulder, it was her dad who trained her to surf again. Since then, she's placed first in six international surfing competitions and competed in many more.
Apocalypto
This one really surprised me. Though set in a completely alien (now extinct) culture, the primary subject matter is entirely familiar. It's a story of the lengths to which a father will go to protect his family. Whether intentionally or not, this movie makes the point that marriage is God's idea, and therefore transcends culture and time. Jaguar Paw and his wife, Seven, obviously weren't married in a church, nor do they hold a marriage license, yet we recognize them as husband and wife.
Act of Valor
A fictional story portrayed by real-life Navy SEALS, it begins and ends with a letter written by one of the SEALS to his battle buddy's son. Yes, I know that's an Army term that the SEALS don't use. Sue me.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
When the Avengers need a place to recuperate after a mission goes disastrously wrong, they take refuge at Hawkeye's house, the only member of their team who is a married father.
Man of Steel Though flawed, Man of Steel portrays Superman's natural father (Jor El) and his adoptive father (Jonathan Kent) as honorable men doing what they believe is best for their families and their people.
That's all I have for now. Surely there are more. My tastes obviously gravitate towards action, adventure and war movies, and I haven't watched all of those, much less every other genre. If you're a dad, I hope you had a happy Fathers' Day. Enjoy a good movie with your kids!
If you've ever watched the movie Watchmen - or better yet, read the comic - you probably remember the following scene. If you're squeamish, skip the video.
Rorschach, one of the heroes, gets locked up with many of the criminals he put in prison. After defeating an attacker in a fight, Rorschach yells at his fellow inmates, "I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!"
Police don’t actually protect law-abiding citizens from criminals so much as they protect criminals from the much-rougher justice they’d get in the absence of a legal system. Burglars would be hung from lampposts, and shoplifters would be beaten and tossed into the gutter if there were no police, as in fact happens in countries where there isn’t a reliable justice system and a civil-society culture that restrains vigilantism. Reminder to the criminal class: Ultimately, we’re not stuck in this country with you. You’re stuck in this country with us.
The following day (3 Sep 2015), Prof. Reynolds linked to a story about the rising trend of street "justice" in Venezuela.
When a man they believed to be a thief sneaked into their parking lot in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, angry residents caught him, stripped him and beat him with fists, sticks and stones.
They tied him up and doused him in gasoline, according to witnesses, in one of what rights groups and media reports say are an increasing number of mob beatings and lynchings in a country ravaged by crime.
Almost a year later, the trend has not abated. In fact, as Venezuela continues its death spiral under the crushing weight of Socialism, it seems to be getting worse. Why? Caracas city councilman, Jesús Armas, explains...
This year will without a doubt be the most violent in the history of our city...
The insecurity has three roots. The first is associated with levels of poverty and inequality that we see in the city. Today Venezuela is the country with the highest inflation in the world, with shortages that force people to line up for hours to buy food. For decades neighborhoods have sprung up outside the city, and now more than 50 percent of the city's population lives in places where houses are built with low-quality materials, and where they don't formally have access to basic public services and are without roads or consolidated public spaces.
Poverty, inequality and no basic public services in the Chavista Socialist paradise? Unpossible!
The second element has to do with a culture of lawlessness. In the country, a habit of disrespect for most basic laws - those related to transit, shoplifting, even the ways the authorities and the rest of the population interact with these laws, has resulted in a collective indifference toward much larger crimes because the law is simply a dead letter.
When the government officials who are supposed to enforce the law are the biggest thieves, how can anyone else be expected to respect the law? Chavez died a billionaire, and his daughter is the wealthiest person in Venezuela.
Finally, there is the reaction of the national and local government in terms of managing the violence. The truth is that we have a mayor who, through hate speech and a series of acts of violence promoted by groups related to his party and his administration, has over the years exhibited excessive permissiveness toward huge criminal groups that dominate vast and populous parts of the city, either because they handle drug trafficking or because they have a monopoly on violence and illegal activities that generate income.
Likewise, the state has implemented a policy that has nothing to do with protecting life, liberty and property of citizens, but on the contrary, has driven a socialist model that seeks to limit those freedoms, using crime as a way to maintain power and control of the population. But the truth is that today things are out of control and we are left with a failed state in which the so-called peace zones are micro-states controlled by gangsters and not by constitutional institutions.
... a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
Unfortunately, Venezuela's Socialist government - like all Socialist governments - busies itself primarily with "[taking] from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned", secondarily with buying votes with the bread it took from the mouth of labor, and not at all with its actual responsibility of "[restraining] men from injuring one another".
The result is what we now see in Venezuela. We may not see it for long, not because it'll stop any time soon, but because Venezuela's government - embarrassed by its own impotence and incompetence - banned media coverage of the lynchings. Venezuela's government won't crack down on crime, much less unshackle the people and economy from the disastrous Socialist policies that led to the disintegration of Venezuelan society. They'll just prevent news outlets from talking about it, thereby accomplishing nothing of value.
As European governments refuse to protect their citizens from Muslim migrant criminals and conspire to cover up their negligence, homicide rates in some American cities skyrocket due to the Ferguson Effect, and insurmountable federal debt leads us towards Venezuela-style hyperinflation, lessons abound. The decent among us need to learn those lessons quickly and prepare accordingly. Criminals won't. After all, criminals aren't known for prudence or self-control.
Observing the actions of 2nd Amendment opponents has convinced me that they fundamentally oppose the right to self defense... for us peasants, anyway. Supposedly anti-gun politicians and celebrities routinely surround themselves with well armed, professional security teams, and even avail themselves of concealed weapons permits. They deny the rest of us the right to own the most effective self defense tools (guns) because they deny our right to defend ourselves.
Police initially charged Mamadou Diallo, 61 years old, with manslaughter after he repeatedly struck Earl Nash with a tire iron in the elevator bank of a Bronx apartment building Monday night...
...
Mr. Nash, who has a long criminal history, has been in and out of state prison since 2006 and was most recently released in July 2015...
...
Nash
The wife told police that when she answered the door, Mr. Nash forced his way in, took off his pants, tried to tear off her clothes and attempted to rape her, the official said.
The [female] cousin heard the commotion and tried to fight off Mr. Nash, the official said.
While the cousin and Mr. Nash struggled, the wife used a cellphone to call her husband, who was outside, the official said.
As Mr. Diallo arrived in one elevator, Mr. Nash tried to flee in another, the official said. The wife pointed to Mr. Nash as her assailant and the men clashed in the elevator bank in a one- to two-minute fight that was caught on surveillance video, officials said.
The father was never arrested, but the killing was investigated as a homicide.
Philip Hilder, a Houston criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, said he would have been surprised if the grand jury had decided to indict the father. Hilder said Texas law provides several justifications for the use of deadly force, including if someone commits a sexual assault.
"The grand jury was not about to indict this father for protecting his daughter," he said.
The anti-2nd-Amendment Brady Campaign gave New York State an A- for its strict gun laws. Why only an A-? Presumably because 100% confiscation alone would satisfy the Brady Campaign.
By contrast, gun-crazy Texas received an F. Unfortunately, an F is the lowest grade the Brady Campaign awards, because Texas has since then legalized open carry, and freedom-minded folk take pride in low Brady scores. It's kind of like golf. Just ask the people of Wyoming. It won't take long. There aren't that many.
Here's the score that actually matters.
In anti-gun New York, a man will be prosecuted for beating to death his wife's attempted rapist.
In gun-friendly Texas, a man wasn't even arrested for beating to death his 5-year-old daughter's attempted rapist.
Why? Because anti-gun actually means anti-self-defense. Hopefully, sanity will win the day, but it's Mr. Diallo's misfortune that he lives in an anti-gun, anti-self-defense, "liberal" state.
Why do we conservatives support the 2nd Amendment? Because we believe humans have the right to live. In fact, the right to live is the foundation of all other rights, because one can only exercise ones other rights if one is alive. If a human has the right to live, then it stands to reason that he/she also has the right to defend his/her right to live. If a human has the right to defend his/her right to live, then it stands to reason that he/she also has the right to "keep and bear (carry)" the most effective tools with which to defend his/her right to live - guns.
One can't oppose a human's right to "keep and bear (carry)" the most effective self defense tools available and logically, simultaneously claim to support that human's right to defend his/her right to live.
That tortoise is dead, dude, and it probably died slowly, painfully and in terror. Drowning is no joke. The (apparently) young man who thought he was rescuing a confused, wayward turtle, obviously felt really good about himself until someone informed him that the testudo he tossed in the water can't swim. Tortoises are exclusively terrestrial. They sink like rocks.
The photo above is a perfect metaphor of "liberal" "thought". As Denis Prager explains below, "liberals" don't care what actions or policies accomplish good things in the real world, they only care about what actions or policies make them feel good about themselves.
Mr. Prager provides two very good examples in his video, the minimum wage and pacifism. But there may be an even better example: the welfare state. The American welfare system purports to help the poor, but instead creates perverse incentives that lock people into poverty for generations, and the people most negatively affected are poor blacks, the very people "liberals" claim to help most.
The results of welfare policies discouraging marriage and family were dramatic, as out-of-wedlock birthrates skyrocketed among all demographic groups in the U.S., but most notably African Americans. In the mid-1960s, the out-of-wedlock birth rate was scarcely 3% for whites, 7.7% for Americans overall, and 24.5% among blacks. By 1976, those figures had risen to nearly 10% for whites, 24.7% for Americans as a whole, and 50.3% for blacks specifically. And today, the numbers stand at 29% for whites, 41% for the nation overall, and 73% for blacks. In other words, the entire country is moving rapidly in the wrong direction, but blacks in particular have reached a point of veritable catastrophe.
The devastating societal consequences of family breakdown cannot be overstated. Father-absent families—black and white alike—generally occupy the bottom rung of America's economic ladder. Regardless of race or ethnicity, the poverty rate for single parents with children is several times higher than the corresponding rate for married couples with children. According to Robert Rector, senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, “the absence of marriage increases the frequency of child poverty 700 percent” and thus constitutes the single most reliable predictor of a self-perpetuating underclass. Articulating a similar theme many years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people to pull themselves out of poverty.”
Children in single-parent households are burdened not only with economic, but also profound social and psychological, disadvantages. For example, youngsters raised by single parents, as compared to those who grow up in intact married homes, are more likely to be physically abused; to display emotional disorders; to smoke, drink, and use drugs; to perform poorly in school; to be suspended or expelled from school; to drop out of high school; to behave aggressively and violently; to be arrested for a juvenile crime; to serve jail time before age 30; and to go on to experience poverty as adults. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, 60% of rapists, 72% of adolescent murderers, and 70% of long-term prison inmates are men who grew up in fatherless homes. With regard to girls in particular, those raised by single mothers are more than twice as likely to give birth out-of-wedlock, thereby perpetuating the cycle of poverty for yet another generation.
Obviously, "liberals" can't blame their pet policies for this catastrophe. After all, their hearts - and therefore their intentions - are pure, unlike those mean, heartless conservatives. "Liberals" therefore invent all kinds of excuses, like racism and "white privilege", as though 21st century America could possibly be more racist than Jim Crow America.
After several years of interviewing, observing, and living among these fathers, I’ve learned that not caring about their children is not the problem. Our 2013 book, Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City, reveals that these men desperately want to be good fathers, and they are often quite intensively involved in the early years of their children’s lives. Yet they usually fail to stay closely connected as their kids grow older.
...
If they want to stop the father-go-round, moms will have to do what they can to keep the biological dad involved with his child and not push him aside. It’s up to them, because currently, mothers have most of the power de facto, if not de jure. Almost always, an unmarried mother has presumed custody, even if the dad willingly signs documents to establish legal paternity.
...
So here is my message to the single moms I’ve come to know and admire over the years, the ones who do so much of the nurturing and caring—those who often struggle mightily just to keep a roof over their kids’ heads: You can’t easily substitute someone else for your kid’s dad.
Unfortunately, Ms. Edin doesn't make the connection that custody law is not the only factor that gives mothers the power, and that fathers aren't just being replaced by other men, but by government itself. As Daniel Mitchell points out, depending on her state of residence, a single mother might need to make $69,000/year before getting off welfare makes economic sense.
That also means that the father needs to make $69,000/year before marrying him and getting off welfare makes economic sense. The probability that a young man who grew up poor in the inner city can clear that bar is minuscule. That means that governments give mothers incentives to kick fathers out of the home rather than marrying them, even if both together can make that much. From the Front Page Magazine article quoted above:
The marriage penalties that are embedded in welfare programs can be particularly severe if a woman on public assistance weds a man who is employed in a low-paying job. As a FamilyScholars.org report puts it: “When a couple's income nears the limits prescribed by Medicaid, a few extra dollars in income cause thousands of dollars in benefits to be lost. What all of this means is that the two most important routes out of poverty—marriage and work—are heavily taxed under the current U.S. system.”
William Galston, who served in the '90s as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, estimated that the welfare system, with its economic disincentives to marriage, was responsible for at least 15% to 20% of the family disintegration in the United States. Libertarian scholar Charles Murray has placed the figure at somewhere around 50%. By Murray's reckoning, the growth and increased liberalization of the “welfare complex” have eroded the traditional ethos of working-class communities that once held people who worked at low-wage jobs, and men who married the mothers of their children, in much higher esteem than unwed parents who became wards of the state.
People tend to respond predictably to incentives. Obviously, these perverse incentives affect everyone who partakes of the welfare state, not just blacks, but blacks are most likely to partake, and are therefore most negatively affected.
Note that blacks make up 15.1% of the under-18 population, but 30.5% of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) recipients, which makes them the demographic most likely to use welfare. Hispanics are next, followed by whites, followed by Asians. Note that, as noted above, blacks are most likely to grow up in fatherless homes, followed by Hispanics, then whites, then Asians. That's a strong correlation, and although it's true that correlation does not necessarily prove causation, when strong correlation exists alongside strong financial incentives, causation becomes rather obvious.
The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, what Jim Crow couldn't do, what the harshest racism couldn't do, and that is to destroy the black family.
I've presented this evidence to my "liberal" friends and they simply don't care. It doesn't matter to them that in reality the welfare state they support has destroyed the most vulnerable American families, causing untold, unnecessary misery. It doesn't matter to them that the murder rate in Chicago and Baltimore, the incarceration rate of young black men, the poverty rate, unemployment rate and rate of drug use among blacks can all be traced back to fatherless homes, which can be traced back to the welfare state. It's not about race. The same is true for poor Hispanics in the migrant farmer communities where I grew up and poor whites in Appalachia.
None of that matters. Like the ignoramus who tossed the non-swimming, terrestrial tortoise in the water without so much as a Google search on his smart phone, facts don't matter to "liberals". All that matters to them is the feeling of righteousness they derive from supporting policies that Democrat politicians insist are compassionate. But there's nothing compassionate about perpetuating generational cycles of dependency, poverty and criminality.
It's not just economically stupid. It's immoral. It's unconscionable. It's an atrocity. It's downright evil.
Feminist Julie Bindel claims that "marriage can never be feminist". On that much we agree. You can watch and listen to her arguments below.
I get the feeling that Ms. Bindel's video will backfire more often than not. Why? Because Ms. Bindle perpetuates stereotypes about feminists. Compare Ms. Bindle to the women she mocks in her video.
Enlightened feminist Julie Bindel
Poor misguided sap #1
Poor misguided sap #2
Poor misguided sap #3
When selling something, the salesperson matters. That's especially true if you're selling something intangible, like an idea. A product can sell itself if it's good enough. An idea can't. The salesperson needs to embody that which he/she is selling. Ms. Bindel is selling feminism as a means to freedom, and ultimately happiness, yet she she comes off as dour, bitter and generally unpleasant. The impression one gets from the video is that of a woman whose choices have made her miserable, and would love some equally miserable company.
If I didn't know better I'd wonder if Ms. Bindel's video was a parody made by her ideological opponents. But I do know better, because I've been exposed to feminists. Stereotypes about feminists exist for a reason. Behold exhibit A (language warning).
Behold exhibit B.
When selling
something, the salesperson matters. That's especially true if you're selling
something intangible, like an idea.
I could do this all day, but there's only so much
I can take. All these feminists are perfect examples of why
"liberals" want conservatives to shut up, while conservatives want
"liberals" to keep talking. In fact, when exhibit B went viral, a
fellow feminist penned an angry
(what else?) email that "provided a list of demands
that included a request that [student journalist Kassy] Dillon be prohibited
from writing or publishing for Campus Reform or
any Mount Holyoke-affiliated student publication".
In
other words, a student journalist provided a feminist with a soapbox from which
to broadcast her message, and feminists are so embarrassed by their peer and
her message that they want to punish the journalist.
I can't say that I blame them.
This brings us back to Ms. Bindel's video. She's a terrible salesperson for
feminism, not because she gives a false impression of feminism and its
adherents, but because she gives an accurate impression of them. Feminism
does, in fact, make women miserable, and miserable company. A 2009 paper
published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (clearly
a bastion of conservative thought) put it this way:
By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States
have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective
well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and
relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative wellbeing is found
across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive
across demographic groups and industrialized countries.
It's
not a paradox. There is no paradox. There is an obvious correlation between
increased acceptance of feminist though throughout industrialized countries and
increased female misery. Looking at and listening to the women who've most
wholeheartedly embraced feminism, no one should be surprised. This is why -
like most conservatives - I want feminists to be seen and heard as much as
possible. Because I suspect that when most young women are exposed to their misery and hysteria, their reactions will resemble that of this young woman.
What about the substance of Ms. Bindel's arguments? I'll let Steven Crowder handle that.
UPDATE (30 May 2016):The Guardian tackles the question of why women are more miserable than ever "despite" feminist "progress", comes tantalizingly close to the answer, and still misses the mark.
The social history of Switzerland, where women weren’t allowed to vote until 1971, reveals the subtleties of employment expectations on happiness. A decade after Swiss women gained suffrage, the country’s citizens voted in a referendum on whether the constitution should be amended to state that women deserve equal pay for equal work.
Different parts of Switzerland voted very differently. Unsurprisingly, cantons (Swiss states) with a high proportion of votes in favor of the amendment were recorded as having a small gender wage gap some years later. But strangely, working women in areas with strong traditional values – where most people had voted against equal pay – were happier than working women in liberal cantons.
Right. "Strangely". No correlation to see here, folks. Move along.
Researchers at the U of A's Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic reviewed a decade's worth of data from medical examinations following mixed martial arts and boxing matches and found that MMA fighters face a slightly higher risk of minor injuries. Boxers, however, are more likely to experience serious harm from concussions and other head trauma, loss of consciousness, eye injuries, smashed noses and broken bones.
...
In this study, Karpman and U of A Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine colleagues Leah Phillips, Ziling Qin and Doug Gross, and Patrick Reid of the Edmonton Combative Sports Commission, reviewed post-fight records from 1,181 MMA fighters and 550 boxers who fought matches in Edmonton between 2003 and 2013.
They found that 59.4 per cent of MMA fighters suffered some form of injury in their bouts--significantly higher than the injury rate of 49.8 per cent for boxers. Most of these injuries were bruises and contusions. But boxers were more likely to experience loss of consciousness during the bout (7.1 per cent compared with 4.2 per cent for MMA fighters) or serious eye injuries.
Boxers were also significantly more likely to receive medical suspensions due to injuries suffered during bouts.
The greater incidence of broken bones in boxing surprised me. The article doesn't specify, but I assume that means hand and facial fractures. I thought that the smaller, lighter gloves used in MMA would result in more frequent fractures. I'd like to see more detailed data.
The greater incidence of "head trauma, loss of consciousness, eye injuries, [and] smashed noses" in boxing definitely did not surprise me. Boxers are only allowed to punch, and although "working the body" is a big part of boxing, the head is a major target. MMA fighters can punch, elbow, knee, kick and grapple. MMA fighters therefore receive fewer strikes to the head.
More importantly, boxing's rules make the sport more dangerous than MMA. When an MMA fighter gets knocked down, and is dazed unable to "defend himself intelligently", the fight stops. When a boxer gets knocked down, and is dazed and unable to defend himself, the fight pauses for a count of 10. That may be long enough for the boxer to stand up and look like he recovered, but his brain is already injured, though the injury may be minor and temporary. When the fight resumes, the boxer is likely to receive more punches to the head, which can then compound the injury. That can easily result in a traumatic brain injury, which is why the stereotype of the old, retired, permanently punch drunk boxer is so prevalent.
So, why is boxing - which is more dangerous to its athletes - still so much more widely accepted in North America than MMA? As I've noted before, it comes down to familiarity. The article also makes that point, comparing MMA to hockey.
The reality is that football, hockey, rugby, boxing, wrestling and judo are just as violent as MMA, but because they've been around much longer (sort of), their violence is considered more acceptable.
By the way, considering the controversy over traumatic brain injuries in the NFL, I'd really like to see a comparison of injuries between football and rugby. My guess is that the lack of helmets in rugby results in fewer TBIs.
