Society's ChildS


2 + 2 = 4

Early indoctrination: Compulsory schooling in France to start age 3


The Connexion
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 15:40 UTC
empty classroom
A total 97% of three-year-olds already enrolled in nursery classes.
Compulsory education in France is set to start at the age of three from September 2019, the Elysée has said.

President Emmanuel Macron was expected to formally announce the decision, which will require an additional 800 school staff, during the inauguration of the Assises de la maternelle in Paris on Tuesday.

It is the latest in a string of reforms to the education system in France during Mr Macron's presidency, which have already seen CP class sizes cut in targeted disadvantaged areas, modifications to university access procedures, reforms of the bac and vocational training.

Comment: Numerous studies have stated that children should not be separated from their parents for any length of time before age 9. Age 9 is also the ideal time for a child to begin formal schooling.

Parental bonding makes for happy, stable child

Read More...
Compass

Eastern Ghouta fighter joins the Syrian army


Sputnik
Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:53 UTC
Eastern Ghouta Militant Joins Syrian Army
© Reuters/Stringer
Sputnik has spoken with a fighter from the al-Rahman Legion militant group from Eastern Ghouta, who joined the Syrian army after it had begun to liberate the area.

"The leaders of al-Rahman Legion oppressed and starved us a lot. They made us fight for them otherwise they would deprive us of food and water. We were oppressed as much as the other Eastern Ghouta residents. When the Syrian army approached, we joined it as the truth is with them," he told Sputnik Arabic.

"Together with Syrian soldiers I am fighting for Eastern Ghouta and the whole Syrian land to be free from terrorist filth. The fighters forced hundreds of people like me to fight for them," the man said.

"The leaders of the group were instructed from abroad to starve and torture local people. The orders were followed automatically. It was impossible to deceive the commanders," he added.

Read More...
Family

The Inequality Delusion: Evidence indicates majority of people are not bothered by income inequality

Mark Sheskin
New Scientist
Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:24 UTC
capitalism
You are probably aware that there are high levels of inequality in the world and that inequality is getting worse. But it is unlikely that you appreciate just how unequal things are. So here is a way of visualising it. Take the wealth of the eight richest people on the planet and combine it. Now do the same for the poorest 3.5 billion. The two sums are the same, £350 billion. Correct: just eight people own as much wealth as half of the world's population.

That is just one of many eye-watering measures of inequality. Consider that in the US, almost 85 per cent of the wealth is owned by just 20 per cent of the population, and the bottom 40 per cent own just 0.3 per cent of it. In 1960, a chief executive in the US typically earned 20 times as much as an average worker. Today it is more like 354 times.

Most people find these numbers shocking, even obscene, and inequality has become one of the world's most serious issues. Early in his second term, President Obama called it "the defining challenge of our time"; Pope Francis has described it as "the root of social evil". The general public also rank it highly. When the Pew Research Center asked people in 44 countries whether they thought the gap between rich and poor was a "big problem", a majority in all 44 said it was. A majority in 28 said it was a "very big" problem.
Read More...
People

Robert Fisk: These are the faces of those who have been affected by war in Syria

Robert Fisk
Independent
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Robert Fisk discovers it would take a year, if not a decade, to understand the killing and the cynicism and the innocent suffering behind this epic battle
Syrian refugee Sana el-Boukeri
© Nelofer PaziraSana el-Boukeri in a Syrian refugee camp. She lost her civilian husband and son in the Syrian and Russian bombardment of eastern Ghouta while her other son was wounded fighting in the Syrian government army on the other side of the front line Nelofer Pazira
They were frightened - traumatised might be our medical definition - but the civilians from Douma in Eastern Ghouta were alive. Sat quietly on the government bus that had brought them to the Arbeen crossing were the children with their mothers, the old men, watchful, the younger men - there were not so many of them - looking out of the windows. When we climbed aboard alone with them, notebook in hand and camera moving across the passengers, they sat like extras in a movie, faces from the siege. Were they silent because they were fearful of the future? Or because they were still trying to frame their own suffering of the past?

We were all aware of the usual rumours; that those armed jihadis who had refused the Russian conditions for leaving the besieged villages and fields of Ghouta would shell the refugees to discourage them from crossing. Rubbish. Or that's what we thought until a mortar swished over the buses and crashed in the powdered rubble 30 metres away. The refugees - for that is what they were now after the tunnels of Ghouta - turned their heads like birds towards the cloud of smoke rising into the sky, and the Syrian soldiers outside ran towards the buses. A general climbed aboard. "Get these buses moving!" he shouted.
Read More...
Russian Flag

Conversations about America: What Russians think of the continual demonization of all things Russian

Paul
Russia Feed
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Putin 2018 re-election
Accusations, posturing and hysterical finger pointing is the weird new normal in our world. It reminds me of an old market truism - 'buy the rumors, sell the facts'. Amplified by continued demonization of all things Russian, including their newly re-elected president, I was curious to get current views here on the ground among connected influential Russians and just share them.

I called and met many friends, business partners and contacts in Russia whom I have known for years, some in business, politics and some in government. The result of my informal chats over tea or coffee was largely as I had expected, though it may be of interest to those not living and working in Russia. I spoke with many people, I will just cover three otherwise this opinion piece would make Tolstoy's War & Peace look like a comic book.
Read More...
Light Saber

Lindsay Shepherd: A short video statement on why I no longer call myself a leftist

Lindsay Shepherd
Youtube
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 15:39 UTC
Lindsay Shepherd
I've come to the realization that I am no longer a leftist. Here's why:

Comment: For more information see these articles:

Read More...
Quenelle - Golden

RT video presents how UK 'explains' why Russia is to blame for Skripal poisoning in under 1-minute


RT
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 15:33 UTC
Who poisoned Skripal?
© RT
Who poisoned Sergei Skripal? Can only Russia produce A-234 (also known as 'Novichok')? Who could do it besides Russia? Watch how the UK explained why Russia is to blame in a short video. Warning: no facts are presented.

London does not hesitate to give a solid answer on who's behind the poisoning of ex-spy and double agent Sergei Skripal. It is Russia - the UK says. Yet, judging by what London has offered as proof so far, the allegations are not based on evidence, but on what was deemed a 'highly likely' assumption. Moscow has denied any involvement.

Watch the video to get the nothingburger Skripal case logic:
Read More...
Propaganda

The Shameful U.S. Media Boycott Against Stephen F. Cohen

Eric Zuesse
Sott.net
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 14:36 UTC
stephen cohen
America's leading scholar on Russia, Stephen F. Cohen, now retired from both Princeton and NYU, used to be, during the Cold War, regularly invited onto U.S. news media to discuss U.S.-Soviet, and then U.S.-Russian, relations. But now - save brief, infrequent interviews on Fox News' Tucker Carlson show - he is boycotted by all of the national U.S. 'news' media because he talks about the very real possibility of World War III developing from U.S. policies - not from Russian policies, but from the U.S. government, under both Obama and now Trump.

I used to be critical of Dr. Cohen for his apparent refusal to use the word "coup" in relation to what the U.S. 'news' media euphemistically termed "Ukraine's revolution". That's done even by the BBC, which actually knows better, as is shown here - their own producers and editors know that they are deceiving their viewers by playing along with the U.S. government's (and its allied UK government's) lies on this most crucial matter of international relations. Indeed, how could anyone NOT know about it, especially after hearing and carefully thinking about this audio - actual "smoking gun" proof of America's 2014 Kiev coup - which took control of Ukraine, the country with Europe's longest border with Russia.

And now the U.S. regime is placing U.S. military and weaponry onto and near Russia's border. Did John F. Kennedy allow the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev to do that (actually, far less than that) to America during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962? Of course not! But the U.S. government, and its 'news' media, demand that Russia accept the unacceptable.
Read More...
Cow

Georgia Democrat Rep. Erica Thomas: We don't want to confiscate guns, we want to seize them

Tim Brown
Freedom Outpost
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 15:00 UTC
Erica Thomas Tucker Carlson
What's the difference? Only a Communist gun-grabbing Democrat would say such a stupid thing, and yes, it was a Democrat representative from the state of Georgia!

Erica Thomas, Democrat state representative from Georgia appeared on Tucker Carlson to discuss the legislation she sponsored that would confiscate semi-automatic weapons from law-abiding American citizens and what she thinks the consequences of that would be.

Take a look.

Comment: Thomas seems to only be using her Care/Harm moral taste bud, and that is preventing her from seeing the problem of school shootings and what can be done to prevent them from a more nuanced perspective.

Read More...
Cross

Richard Dawkins warns 'something worse' could replace Christianity

Amy Furr
Townhall
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:30 UTC
Richard Dawkins
In reaction to a recent article, well-known atheist and author Richard Dawkins Tweeted Wednesday that we should not rejoice over the death of Christianity in Europe because we do not know what might replace it.

"Before we rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion, let's not forget Hilaire Belloc's menacing rhyme: 'Always keep a-hold of nurse, For fear of finding something worse.'"


Comment: This is a good point by Dawkins. Unfortunately, the "something worse" he refers to will most likely be Dawkin's brand of atheistic materialism/scientism, with a cultural Marxist bent.


The article Dawkins referenced points to a report conducted by Stephen Bullivant, professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion at St. Mary's University in London which found that young people, ages 16 to 29, are not attending or have never attended religious services.

The report showed that the majority of young adults in 12 European countries practice no form of faith, the Czech Republic being the least religious. It also found that 70 percent of young people in the UK do not identify with any religion, with 59 percent never attending a religious service at all.

Bullivant stated that many young adults in Europe do not identify themselves with any kind of faith.

Comment: There does appear to be a concerted effort to minimize Christianity in the west. See: The Islamization of Europe as Christmas 'gift'

Read More...