Tag: social comment

Earl Beatty Has No Balls

(Sorry for the title.  I know it’s cheap but I couldn’t resist.)

For the 6,994,000,000 or so people in the world who are blissfully unaware that Toronto, Canada is the centre of the universe, a public school there, one Earl Beatty Junior and Senior, has banned balls.  You can read about it here.  This has caused some controversy and an immediate reaction from conservative parents in the district.  At a time when there is increasing pressure from activist groups to derail progressive policies, we need to set the record straight with a few facts.

First of all, the school did not ban all balls.  They merely directed parents to be aware that all “hard” balls (up to and including but not limited to) footballs, soccer balls, baseballs, basketballs, volleyballs and probably bowling balls would be confiscated if students brought them to school.    Balls made out of sponge, or nerf material would still be perfectly acceptable and students would be encouraged to enjoy them during supervised recreation.

Secondly, although an outright ban on balls might seem heavy-headed, the school’s reaction was the direct result of a ball-related injury which required hospitalization.  Luckily, it was a parent coming to pick up her child who was injured, not a student.  However, in light of this single event, the school immediately took a proactive approach to prevent any innocent child from getting a noggin floggin’ in the future.

Thirdly, we need to remember that a ball in the hands (or feet) of a child can lead to a potentially dangerous situation.  They may kick or throw it!  Young people have not yet developed the cognitive, judgemental or motor skills to properly handle a ball.  Make no mistake: without the proper skills, balls are missiles, capable of causing great harm – a quick review of America’s Funniest Home Videos is documented proof of this.

Fourthly, overwhelming medical evidence proves a direct link between the use of balls by children and injury.  A study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1994 (this is real, by the way) found that between 2 and 8% of all children who play Little League Baseball suffer some kind of injury.  Although there are no hard statistics to show the severity of these injuries, or whether or not they occurred as an immediate result of contact with a ball, they all happened in a ball environment.  We cannot dismiss these findings as natural or “part of growing up.”  It’s obvious that if these children had not been playing Little League Baseball, they would not have come to grievous bodily harm.

Let’s be clear: the banning of balls at Earl Beatty Junior and Senior is a progressive step which could lead to a number of positive outcomes.   It’s a known fact that children left unattended with a ball will attempt to play a game.  Group games, as we know, are detrimental to a child’s emotional growth.  They create “winners” and “losers” a concept which can irreparably damage a child’s self esteem.  It is far better to engage young people in activities that focus on individual skill development and provide positive reinforcement than rank their performance on an artificial scale.

Furthermore, we know that most games played with a ball in North America are Eurocentric (soccer, baseball, basketball etc.) forced on the rest of the world during the colonial and neocolonial periods.   By eliminating the symbol of oppression, the ball, we allow our children to experience the true diversity of our society at the most primal level — play.  Our children are free to explore, without being constrained by a narrow European model.  In our changing society, stressing our diversity is very important.

In a much wider sense, the Earl Beatty ban on balls — if viewed in an open, unbiased manner — could result in a district-wide ban, or even a city-wide ban.  This would encourage our entire nation to open a dialogue on the role of balls in our society.  Perhaps, this could eventually lead to a national “hard” ball registry.  We could then control the indiscriminate use of balls and limit their impact to those who would play with them responsibly.

The future is bright, my friends.  We can change our world and make it a safer place for our children.

However, there are some in our society who don’t want change.  They wish to turn the clock back to a darker time when balls created fear in the youngest and most vulnerable among us.  Against those people, we must stand firm.  We must send a strong message that hope is better than fear.  We must tell them that when any child is put at risk, that is not acceptable.  When it is within our power to spare any child needless pain and suffering, we are morally obligated to do it.  Children are our future.  They are our most precious natural resource.

You Don’t Have Any “Rights”

There’s been a lot of talk recently about rights.  Just who has rights?  What are they?  Why are some people being physically restrained from exercising their rights while others seem to have the right to rob us at every corner?   It doesn’t matter which side of the heated discussion you’re on; you probably see the other folks claiming rights they aren’t entitled to while simultaneously trampling all over yours.  This is a natural phenomenon when you deal in “them” and “us.”  However, let me let you in on a big secret. You’d better sit down because this is going to blow your bonnet off.  You have no rights.  None, zip, bupkis — and I’m not just playing with semantics here.  It’s an absolute, etched in stone, shout-it-from-the-rooftops fact.  And while we’re at it, you don’t have any privileges either; that’s just a word people use when they’re pissed off at dissidents.   As in: “Freedom of speech is not a right; it’s a privilege.”  Load-a-crap is what it is.  The only reason we can say what we like about Barack Obama (or anybody else for that matter) is that our society has a bunch of heavily armed young people who say we can.  But before you think you’ve landed in Hyperbole Heaven and gear up to take a run at the appalling “police state” tyranny we supposedly suffer under, that’s not what I’m talking about.  In fact, the quote/unquote police state everyone is so fond of invoking is one of the institutions that allows us to practice those things we mistakenly call rights.

Here’s the truth; like it or not.  Those things we call rights are nothing more than an ad hoc collection of laws that haven’t even been agreed on yet.  They are not inalienable, and they are certainly not universal.  How do I know this?  It’s quite simple.  In our society, two hundred years ago, I had the “right” to wander down to the local slave market and buy another human being to help me do the dishes.  I owned that person: they were my property.  Not only that but a hundred years ago, not one female in North America had the “right” to vote.  Actually, in my country, it wasn’t until 1929 that women were even considered “persons” under the law.  Historically speaking, there are tons of examples just exactly like this — temporary habits mistaken for universal rights and privileges.  Yes, those were “a relic of days more barbarous than ours”* but so is every moment of history before this morning.  Nobody is going to convince me that, in a mere 5,000 years or so of written history, we have reached the pinnacle of human achievement and awareness.  Nor, that in 2011, we finally understand the human condition so thoroughly that we can now pronounce what our rights should and always will be.  That’s just 21st century arrogance.  Honestly, if this is the peak, we are in trouble!  So all those rights everybody keeps yipping about are simply temporary accommodations that may (or may not) change, depending on the circumstances.

These days, we’re spending so much time demanding our nonexistent rights that we’re forgetting how we got them in the first place.  Our society is based on a very few generally accepted principles, guaranteed by the generosity of a whole lot of strangers.  For example, we, as a group, believe you, as an individual, have the “right” to worship your neighbour’s cat if you so choose.  We are willing to make contributions (in fact or in kind) not to you directly, but to the group as a whole in support of that “right.”  Also, we are willing — on occasion — to forego some of our own freedoms to ensure you have that “right.”  This is because it doesn’t belong to you; it belongs to all of us.

However, this guaranteeing generosity is not an infinite commodity, nor is it eternal.  It breaks down quite easily and with surprising regularity.  In times of crisis, it disappears entirely.  And as we have seen throughout history, once it’s gone, it’s very difficult to get back.  Depending on the kindness of strangers only
works as long as the strangers are kind: just ask Blanche Dubois.  Therefore, the only way we can maintain a continuity of liberty to think, speak and act as we please is to maintain the society which nurtures that liberty.

Without the institutions to back them up, our much heralded rights are just an illusion.  Until we understand that, all we’re doing is jacking our jaw or playing
around discussing how many rights can dance on the head of a pin.

*British Privy Council October 18th, 1929

Information Overload

One of the serious side effects of living in the 21st century is the incredible amount of intrusive information that comes our way every day.  I’m not just talking about crap either but high grade ore suitable for framing.  I found out Berlusconi was going down for the count while I was standing in line at McDonald’s, probably before some of his own party members knew it.  Most people will tell you this is a good thing: that information is power (and all that other claptrap.)  This is not true.  Giving too much information to people who don’t want it, need it, or understand it is a dangerous thing.  Information is like any other commodity: when supply overwhelms demand its value decreases.

Let me give you an absurd example.  The Louvre has one of the greatest collections of art in the world.  There’s enough paint on canvas there to wallpaper an entire condo development — with lots left over.  However, talk to any ordinary person (read “non art student”) who’s been there, and after they mention the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and a few others, they invariably run out of things to say.  That’s not because all the other works are second rate.  There’s one huge room filled with wall-to-wall Rubens, for example (which, by the way, was actually commissioned as wallpaper by one of the Medici girls.)  No, it’s because there’s simply too much to see.  At the end of two hours (three hours, max!) the average person just can’t take any more.  The senses shut down, fold up their tents and wander off.  The bratty kid, ying-yanging on the guardrail, gets equal attention to the Titian hanging on the wall behind her.  People just can’t process that much stuff in that length of time.  It’s difficult enough to appreciate the intricacies of a single masterpiece in isolation; it’s impossible to do it when you’ve upped the ante by a thousand.

Information works the same way.  Here’s another absurd example.  There have probably been more words written about the Kardashians this week than anybody else on the planet.  The mega-hours of reporting Kim’s wooing, wedding, build-up and breakup when laid end to end (pardon the old pun) would likely last longer that the marriage itself.  Yet, despite tons of information, even the harshest Kardashifan has no idea what’s going on.  The whole sordid spectacle could be anything from a brilliantly executed publicity stunt to the tragicest love story in the history of Reality TV.  Mere information is helpless if you’re looking into the heart of a Kardashian.

Out of sheer self defence many people make a couple of big mistakes when dealing with the volumes of information coming at them.  First of all, they confuse information with knowledge.  While knowledge is especially useful in a world that’s travelling faster than a speeding Tweet, information on its own is the closest thing you can get to useless without actually going there.  In fact, it’s actually detrimental.  Just because you know something, doesn’t mean you understand it – and that can cause problems.  For example, back when I cared about such things, I knew a bunch of stuff about cars.  I could open the hood and tell you where things were and what they did.  However, even then, as I found out a couple of times, give me a wrench and you better call a tow truck.  I had information but no understanding, and without understanding, I couldn’t postulate far enough to solve even minor problems.  In order to make a reasonable assessment of anything, you have to understand it, not just recognize it exists.

The second big mistake people make about information is assuming it’s an end unto itself.  It isn’t.  Information is the raw material that we build things out of, it is not the final product.  Even though I know the attributes of a right angle triangle, that doesn’t make me Pythagoras.   I might think I am, but unless I have a practical application for a2 + b2 = c2, it could be written in Greek for all the good it does me.  Most of the tons of information we receive is like that: we hardly ever apply it.  It lies dormant; its usefulness wasted by benign neglect.  Essentially, it’s like sitting on the sofa getting all the answers (Questions?) correct on Jeopardy: if we aren’t contestants we’re never going to win any money.  It’s not the information we have that counts; it’s what we do with it.

Here in the 21st century, we believe there is intrinsic value in the possession of information.   We think a well-informed population will naturally make well-informed decisions.  While this is basically true, the problem comes from the minor annoyance that the general population is not well-informed, at all.  They merely have access to information; they’re two different things.  Without understanding and application, the information we do have is useless.  In fact, the tsunami of data that assaults us every day is actually a hindrance to informed decision-making.  Not only do we think we already have the information we need, but in many cases our brains have already shut down from information overload.  Therefore, we have to rely on those comfortable sound bytes and buzzwords we already know to guide us.  The problem is that just isn’t real information: is it?