Saturday, January 13, 2007



Will India Destroy the United States?

Simon Jones

The title to this article may sound extreme. You be the judge.
After responding recently to articles about the Indian invasion of America, I was finally encouraged to write an article about my experiences in the high-tech industry. Because of severance agreements, the names of my former company and former coworkers have been changed.
I am a computer programmer, and have been for 15 years. I worked for a company TechnoDataCode inCalifornia for 6 years, and I was the director of one of the R&D projects. About a year ago, most of the other American employees and I were fired and replaced with people from India on H-1B and L-1 visas. The people from India were making only a fraction of what we Americans were making. I was making $110K a year; my replacement,$37K. The people under me were making about $75K;their replacements, about $29K. To keep my severance pay, I was required to stay on for an additional six months (after the otherAmericans were fired) to train the replacements.

This was probably the most humiliating experience of my life.What I describe above is happening now every day. Many of my friends in high-tech have also recently been fired, and are being replaced with cheap imported labor from India or China. Microsoft says there is a"high-tech shortage," which is a lie. Almost everyAmerican programmer I know is now unemployed and has been replaced by a cheap import. There is not a"shortage." Big business only wants more cheap labor.But the story only gets better....You would think that the Indians would be appreciative of being allowed to work in the United States, but this was very far from the case. Most of their conversations involved extreme hatred of America, Americans, and anyone of European descent.

Here are some examples of their daily conversations:* Indians are the real "Aryans." The Human Genome Project shows that Indians are closely related to Africans. Thus Indians and Africans are the real"Aryans." * All people of European descent (i.e. all whites) must be exterminated * Blond hair and blue eyes are inferior traits. By the year 2090, all people with blond hair and blue eyes will either be bred or executed out of existence.* One day India will invade and take over. It is India's destiny to rule over whites.* Christianity is a disease that can only be cured with a bullet Although most of the Indians were Hindu, a few were Muslim, and they were quite openly fond of Bin Laden. The Hindus, however, seemed to hate white Americans just as much as if not more than the Muslims. On this they could agree. And then there is the story about Praveen. Praveen, a Hindu from Northern India, was often very"touchy" with me and the other Americans. He wasalways shaking our hands and patting us on the backs.I noticed too that after touching me he often left"red marks" on my clothes, and on others' clothes. There was also a break room that only a few Americans frequented. (Indians never visited it.) And Praveen was always in there tampering with the coffee machine.After seeing him one day pricking himself with a safety pin to make himself bleed, it all came together. He was trying to transmit his blood to others - either by direct contact or by putting it in the coffee machine.Come to find out, he was HIV+ and was trying to transmit it to the Americans. Praveen went back to India shortly after that, so nocriminal action was able to be taken. But a few of the other Indians did transmit HIV to a couple of the American women - and seemed very proud of it. Management of the company was informed of this, but they did very little to look into it. When I told our CEO that I suspected that the Indians were spreading HIV around the workers, he called me a "racist" and told me to be quiet.I'm sure he was aware of what was going on - but simply did not care. Cheap labor is cheap labor, that is the bottom line for big business.The only loyalty of big business is profit, and they could care less about American workers, American values, or the well-being of the United States. And what about the future of America?Are we going to auction off every American job to low-paid imports until there are no good American jobs left? Are we going to let third-world hordes takeover our high-tech sector until not a single Americanis left in any important position? The only effective and patriotic way to stop this is by massive deportations of all the cheap labor fromIndia and China. Otherwise, with the help of big business, we are well on our way to becoming a third-world country.

Saturday, November 11, 2006


My Motherland Serendib

I’ve been getting a lot of mail recently from my fellow Serendibians inquiring as to why I only write on issues pertaining to the Western culture. Some have even gone to the extent of telling me that I am a disgrace to my country of birth.

As a writer, it is not unusual to be criticized by your readers, but when criticism is based on ignorance, then we have a serious problem.

My reason for focusing on issues related to the Western culture has to do with the fact that I grew up in the Western culture and spent a great deal of my life in Western countries. Another reason, I never took the time to do research on issues faced by the people of my motherland. When I say research……………. I mean from books……………. and not from the opinions of individuals who live in Serendib. I did some serious digging in the library and almost gave up until I came across “Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia” by Monique Menkencamp, Paul van Tongeren, and Hans van de Veen. The following excerpts taken from this book is what I tend to agree with wholeheartedly as a Serendibian living in the country of my origin for the past 16 years.

1) The Ethnic War in Serendib -

The type of democracy introduced by the British led to a majority system in which the Sinhalese would always control the country’s parliament. Subsequent policies, especially with regard to language and access to education by successive Sri Lankan (Sinhalese-dominated) governments, and the reactions to these by the Tamil people, sowed the seeds of what has become a protracted and violent conflict that has particularly exacerbated by anti-Tamil rots in 1958, 1977-1978, and 1983.

The conflict, which has been raging at varying intensities since the 1983 attacks against the Tamil population, can be described as being between the largest, and most militarily effective Tamil militant group, the LTTE and the Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka.

The situation has been further inflamed by two violent insurrections in 1971 and 1987-1989 by the JVP, a group made up mostly from disaffected Sinhalese youth which combined a potent mixture of Marxism and nationalism. The second JVP insurrection was in part triggered by the arrival of an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1987.

Although many analysts describe the current situation as an “ethnic war” it is also a crisis of the state in that the LTTE and JVP conflicts are both symptomatic of broader issues concerning the identity, policies, and legitimacy of the state. The legitimacy of the state itself is questioned by some because of corruption and abuses of power, and the disputed and flawed nature of elections in past years.

Denial of justice and abuse of police power in Sri Lanka is often justified by reference to the ongoing civil war and in relation to human-rights abuses committed by the LTTE insurgents. It should be noted that human rights cases against members of the security forces, including the police, rarely result in a successful prosecution. This climate of impunity encourages local politicians, members of the security forces, and other armed groups to pursue personal agendas and engage in corrupt practices. This connection between military and civil “war economy” interests contribute to the tensions in the conflict affected areas of the island.


2) Peace –

How Sri Lankans perceive peacefulness differs between the north, east, central, and southern parts of the country. Polarization of communities continues with little contact with one another, beginning from preschool through to university education. Disparities in access to employment provide little scope for communities to come together. Grievances felt by all sides are heavily loaded by history and, it would seem, manipulated by ethnically motivated interests to keep theses grievances alive and to maintain the polarized and vindictive narrative.

3) NGOs –

Relations between the government and NGOs have been difficult at times, a relationship that has been described as one of “suspicious cooperation.” It seems that some sections of the government and the general population have the view that international NGOs are pro-LTTE, and the LTTE exploits naïve NGOs, and that the LTTE uses humanitarian aid to support their military efforts. This perception is supported by media often hostile towards NGOs.

NGOs, especially international NGOs, can themselves only be part of the overall process of creating a peaceful and just society. The bottom line is that the people and their government themselves must ultimately be responsible for sustainable peace and development.

Most of my earlier postings have been based on the atrocities that prevail when another civilization invades and dominates another culture in a foreign land, but in this posting you can clearly see what happens to a civilization when they are divided (irrespective of the fact that they originate from the same country) solely on the grounds that some of its people feel they are far more superior than the rest.


It’s also sad to note that my ancestor and the other warriors who fought the British, shed their blood in vain. They fought for our country’s independence so that the future generations may live in unification, while respecting our culture as well as each other, and, at the same time work together to develop our land of Serendib.

Unfortunately, we, have failed in fullfilling their vision.

Rain

The Australian Aborigines

Those who have property will do anything to defend it, conversely, that in the Western world those who don’t will do almost anything to get it; whilst the Australian Aborigines, who had no sense of property at all, had no place in a world where property rights counted above all else.

But it would be wrong to put all the blame for what was cultivated in a way completely alien to white understanding on the shoulders of the white invaders without an appreciation of the manner of life and thinking of those invaders. For they were the products of the brutal age and it is very unlikely that they were much more brutal to the blacks, whom they rarely considered to be human beings, than they had been to the convicts who had preceded the Aborigines as beasts of burden.

The early settlers were ignorant concerning the Aborigines and their beliefs and equally ignorant about the land they were ravaging. Unfortunately, there were schools and scholars who were able to teach husbandry long before there were any people of truly Christian attitudes or trained in anthropology who could teach the white man enough about the Aborigines. When there were signs of enlightenment amongst the settlers, greed got in the way and those who would have treated their Aborigines properly, those who trained them to become good stockmen and their women as other than a source of sexual gratification, were soon ostracized.

First, there was the use of hard footed animals killing the native grasses, then over-stocking and destruction of the trees and the waterways in which the spirits of the Aborigines dwelt. At first, some of the squatters treated the Aborigines with decency, mostly because they needed them as shepherds and general laborers. But soon misunderstandings arose. As sheep and cattle drove away the natural inhabitants upon whom the Aborigines depended for food, the Aborigines started to take some of the invader’s cattle for sustenance; this led to slaughter of Aborigines, who retaliated. Then came native troopers, always from other tribes or groupings, who carried out the white man’s wish to destroy the local inhabitants.

When judging the behavior of the whites it must be remembered that they were acting under the pressure of fear and ignorance, two very hard taskmasters.

(Quoted from the book review of “The Cry For The Dead” by A.W. Sheppard)

Rain


Tuesday, October 24, 2006


The Regan Era

After Ronald Reagan’s sweeping victory in 1984, one of his most vigorous critics, House Speaker Thomas (“Tip”) O’Neill, told him, “I’ve never seen a man more popular than you are with the American people.” Reagan maintained that popularity throughout his second term, even though he failed to effect promised changes in social, judicial, and environmental policies, and failed to find solutions for growing budget deficits, declining American productivity, and a widening gap between the rich and poor.

In 1980, his political opponent, George Bush, had ridiculed Reagan’s promise to cut taxes (and thus reduce government income) while boosting military spending and at the same time balancing the budget. Bush called this “voodoo economics.” He nevertheless gladly joined up as Reagan’s vice-president and shared the glory of the “Reaganomics” boom. The U.S. gross national product (GNP) mushroomed to $5 trillion, nearly twice the size of the Soviet and Japanese economies.

Some Americans grew very rich. In 1982 there were thirteen billionaires; by 1988, at least fifty-one.

For various reasons, however, the economy’s health was less rosy than it appeared. First, Reaganomics, especially the tax laws of 1981 and 1986, badly skewed income distribution. The share of the nation’s total after-tax wealth enjoyed by the top 10 percent of the nation’s families rose from 67 percent in 1979 to 73 percent in 1988. By 1990 the richest 2.5 million Americans had enjoyed a spectacular 75 percent income increase during the 1980s. They had nearly as much income as the 100 million Americans who had the lowest incomes.

By the end of the Reagan years, 31.5 million people of the population lived at the poverty level.

A second problem with Reaganomics also appeared. The President argued that his tax cuts would leave wealthier Americans with money that they could invest in productive enterprises. Instead these Americans spent their money on personal goods.

A third problem was that Americans demanded more from their government than they were willing to pay in taxes.

In 1986 alone, Americans spent $150 billion more than they produced. Private borrowing and indebtedness approached $9 trillion. Between 1984 and 1989 they bought $100 billion to 150 billion more each year from overseas than they sold.

Such spending led to a fourth problem: to cover the gap between what they spent and produced, Americans borrowed from foreigners-especially the British, Canadians, Japanese, and Germans. In 1981 the United States had been the world’s largest creditor, the globe’s main source of money. By 1986 the United States had suddenly become the world’s largest debtor. Because of its spending spree, it owed others a half-trillion dollars by the end of the 1980’s. It was the first time in seventy-five years that Americans had owed money to foreigners.

It would be “our children,” as one economist wrote, who would have to pay off the 1980’s debts, or sell off U.S. properties “our kids would otherwise have inherited.”

By 1990, Americans had less control over their economic future than at any time in the twentieth century. Foreigners controlled one-third of all U.S. savings and investments. In addition, Americans dependence on imported foreign oil rose to historic highs in 1990.Americans were the most energy-guzzling people in the world. The Japanese, who had begun radical energy-saving measures after the 1973 oil crisis, were two and one half times more energy saving than Americans. This meant that the Japanese could produce two and one half times more goods per unit of energy than could Americans.

The nation’s economic difficulties meant not only increasing problems at home, but they also meant that U.S. officials had less power to control powers abroad. The days when America enjoyed a large superiority in nuclear weapons, the economic strength to rebuild and control key regions of the world, and the ability to land troops, or CIA agents, to prop up or throw governments against little opposition-all that seemed to be over.

(Quoted from “The American Century” by Walter LaFeber, Richard Polenberg and Nancy Woloch)

Rain

Saturday, October 21, 2006


The Koreans of Japan

North Korea launched its nuclear tests on October 9th. I’m perplexed as to why President Bush and his entourage of administrators didn’t prevent this from happening, especially after all the trouble they took to invade Iraq so that the world would not fall victim to Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction.” Did they invade the wrong country? And let’s not forget about all those people who died in Iraq.

And about Ms. Condoleezza Rice’s trip to Japan. “She said her mission was intended in part to reassure South Korea and Japan they had no need to develop a nuclear deterrent of their own in response to the North’s weapon program ”(Quoted from Tokyo, Wednesday, Reuters). I wonder if she’ll succeed in convincing Japan, especially since some Japanese and Koreans are not too crazy about each other.

Read on to find out why.

Koreans in Japan suffer the same fate as dominated groups in the United States. In Yongsook Lee’s words, most Japanese “despise Koreans.” Korea became a colony of Japan in 1910. Large-scale immigration of Koreans into Japan started in 1922 when Japanese Industrialists recruited them for their expanding economy.

The resentment of Japanese toward these Korean laborers was expressed in the 1923 massacre of between 4,500 and 20,000 Koreans. During World War II, the government forced 2 million Koreans to come to Japan as laborers and military conscripts. Japanese colonial control of Korea ended with the conclusion of World War II.

Today, Koreans in Japan are discriminated against in employment, and they are not eligible for pensions, insurance, and public housing. They cannot be hired by national and local governments, public schools, and universities. Naturalization has provided legal citizenship but not social equality. Applications for jobs, schools or membership in any group requires a copy of one’s family registration.

Korean school graduates face barriers at every level of employment. In school, Koreans experience overt and covert discrimination. Many private schools will not admit Koreans. Some public schools will only admit Koreans if they take a pledge “not to disturb school order.” Japanese textbooks present a negative image of Korean history and culture.

(Quoted from, The Intersection of Cultures by Joel Spring)

Rain



Cultural Differences of Japan and The U.S.

The United States is considered an individualistic culture where a person sees herself or himself as a separate and unique individual, and whose self-definition does not include others. An individualistic culture places emphasis on individual goals.

Japan, on the other hand, is a collectivist culture where a person defines herself or himself in relation to others. The concept of Wa in Japan refers to the harmony of the group, where the self is merged into the group to form a grand harmony. The concept of Enryo refers to reserve or restraint resulting from conformity to the group. Enryo is a response to group pressure to conform.

The United States is a low context and individualistic culture, which emphasizes direct communication. Common phrases in the United States that reflect this cultural style of communication are: “Say what you mean!” “Don’t beat around the bush!” “Get to the point!”

As a high context and collectivist culture, Japanese often use indirect forms of communications filled with qualifiers such as, “perhaps,” “probably” “and “somewhat.” The Japanese are self-effacing and strive to maintain the harmony of the group in their communications.

In Japanese culture, silence is accepted behavior in the company of others. Japanese believe that an indication of good manners is not talking too much. In contrast, North Americans talk more and try to control the conversation.

Japanese like to avoid uncertainty. In conversation they want to know the context of others to avoid uncertainty in the communication. It is considered proper to clearly identify who you are when first meeting. The more context a person can give about themselves the more comfortable the listener feels. This concern about certainty in relationships often results in North Americans referring to Japanese as regimented, rigid and closely ordered.

(Quoted from “ The Intersection of Cultures” by Joel Spring)

Rain

Thursday, October 19, 2006



How the English Dominated the Irish and the Native Americans

The growth of racism in English culture, according to Ronald Takaki, begins with the English conquest of Ireland in the sixteenth century. The English justified their conquest of Ireland by calling the Irish “savages.” Savage in this context referred to cultural differences. The Irish were considered savages because they lived outside the framework of what the English considered civilization. This implied that the Irish could be educated and brought into the realm of what the English defined as civilization. While the English held out the possibility for the improvement of Irish culture, they considered the Irish lazy, wicked and as living like beasts.

One of the important functions of identifying another culture as inferior is that it provides a justification for economic exploitation and political control. Therefore, the English believed that the Irish would benefit by being controlled by the superior culture of England. In addition, since the Irish were considered savages, the English believed that it would be in the best interest of the Irish to deny them political and economic rights. Consequently, English colonizers of Ireland passed laws that gave the death penalty to any Irishman carrying a weapon and denied the Irish the right to purchase land, hold a public office, and serve on a jury.

By branding a culture as inferior and considering that inferiority as biologically inherent, the English could not only justify control and management of a group of people but also their eradication. Genocide is justified with the argument that a group of people is inherently inferior.

While Native Americans retained a sense of the superiority of their culture, English culture was characterized by racist attitudes which branded Native Americans as savages and inferior, and which justified not only moving them off their lands but, in some cases, the practice of genocide. Native Americans thought of social differences in terms of wisdom and the ability to contribute to the welfare of the tribe. The English thought of society in terms of social classes – the rich and the poor.

It is important to understand the relationship between the English concept of “civilizing” Native Americans and economic exploitation. Just as branding the Irish as inferior justified the conquest of Ireland, branding Indian culture as inferior justified the conquest of Indian lands. Turning Native Americans into yeoman farmers as opposed to hunters would reduce the amount of land needed by Indian tribes. Contained on farms, Indian lands would become available to English settlers.

In the 1820s and 1830s, Andrew Jackson adopted the position that Indians were racially inferior and, consequently, incapable of civilization. The only hope was to move them from their lands to the area west of the Mississippi that became known as Indian Territory. Under Andrew Jackson, the forced march of the Five Civilized Tribes to Indian Territory became known as the “Trail of Tears” because of the forced abandonment of homes and the large number of Indians who died on the trail. It was one of the major acts of genocide in human history.
(Quoted from “The
Intersection of Cultures” by Joel Spring)

Rain

Friday, October 13, 2006



Anthrax

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 are a wake up call to how vulnerable we are to terrorist attacks. Antiterrorism experts warn, however, that crashing jet planes into large buildings isn’t the easiest or most effective way to cause panic and destruction. Biological agents can be a greater threat.

Using pathogens as weapons isn’t a new idea. More than 2000 years ago, Sythian archers dipped their arrowheads in rotting corpses to increase their deadlines. During the fourteenth century, Tartar soldiers hurled plague victim’s corpses over the walls of besieged cities in an effort to start epidemics. In 1763, British General Jeffrey Amherst ordered smallpox –infected blankets distributed to Delaware Indians during the French and Indian War. During World War II, the Japanese dropped paper bags filled with plague-infested fleas on Chinese cities, killing thousands of people.

At the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union embarked on massive biological and chemical warfare research programs. Using molecular biology techniques, these research labs combined genes and created new and more dangerous organisms than ever found in nature. Among the most lethal agents known to have been tested are anthrax.

In 1999, the Department of Defense ordered that all 2.5 million military personnel be vaccinated against anthrax, regardless of duty stations or responsibilities. Members of the military were to be vaccinated under threat of court martial. The vaccine is administered in a series of six shots.

Former Air force security specialist Jenny Enoch was diagnosed in February 2000 with fibromyalgia. “I’m in constant pain,” Enoch said, “I have chronic fatigue, I have serious concentration problems and memory loss. I was healthy and active, absolutely prior to that third shot of the anthrax vaccine.”

Army pilot Rhonda Breneman was noticed by superiors for her boundless energy and outstanding physical fitness. But weeks after her third shot for anthrax, she developed extreme gastroparesis, or paralysis of the stomach. She now lives in a state of chronic nausea, has lost 45 pounds, and has memory loss.

Army Specialist Sandra Larson had her immune system collapse in a virulent case of aplastic anemia 31/2 weeks after her sixth anthrax vaccination shot. She died two months later.

Because anthrax vaccines have never been used on a mass scale, their use by the Armed Forces is thought to be an instance of medical experimentation. The entire stockpile of anthrax vaccine is owned by the Department of Defense.

Captain John Buck is a 32-year-old emergency room doctor at Keesler Medical Center who refused the vaccine. He claimed that the germ warfare vaccine is an experimental and potentially hazardous drug that was unlawfully forced on soldiers. He was court-martialed in May 2001.

Marine spokesman, First Lieutenant Vincent Vasquez says –

“ We in the Marine Corps don’t have the luxury of deciding which order to obey and which to refuse. We obey all lawful orders, period. That’s the issue here. It’s our obligation to make sure our marines go into a combat zone with every weapon at their disposal, and the anthrax vaccine is our best weapon against this deadly threat.”

(Quoted from “Principles of Environmental Science” by W.P. Cunningham and M.A Cunningham and “Second Thoughts” by Wanda Teays)

Rain


The Deadly European Germs

Until World War II more victims of war died of microbes than of gunshot or sword wounds. All those military histories glorifying Alexander the Great and Napoleon ignore the ego-deflating truth: the winners of past wars were not necessarily those armies with the best generals and weapons, but those bearing the worst germs with which to smite their enemies.

U.S. and Australian whites bent on wiping out “belligerent” native peoples sent them gifts of blankets previously used by smallpox patients.

In the century or two following Columbus’s arrival in the New World, the Indian population is estimated to have declined about 95 per cent. The main killers were European germs, to which the Indians had never been exposed and against which they therefore had neither immunologic nor genetic resistance.

Smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus competed for top rank among the killers. As if those were not enough, pertussis, plague, tuberculosis, diphtheria, mumps, malaria and yellow fever came close behind.

In countless cases Europeans were actually there to witness the decimation that occurred when the germs arrived. For example, in 1837 the Mandan Indian Tribe, with one of the most elaborate cultures in the Great Plains, contracted smallpox thanks to a steamboat traveling up the Missouri River from St. Louis. The population of one Mandan village crashed from 2,000 to less than 40 within a few weeks.

Eurasian germs played a key role in decimating native peoples in many other parts of the world as well. Racist Europeans use to attribute those conquests to their supposedly better brains. But no evidence for such better brains has been forthcoming.

There’s no doubt that Columbus was a great visionary, seaman and leader. There is also no doubt that he and his successors often behaved as bestial murderers. But those facts alone don’t fully explain why it took so few European immigrants to initially conquer and ultimately supplant so much of the native population of the Americas.

Without the germs Europeans brought with them-germs that were derived from their animals-such conquests might have been impossible.

(Quoted from The Arrow of Disease by Jared Diamond)

Rain

Did You Know………………… Part 2.


1) Being born involves considerable stress for the baby. During each contraction, when the placenta and umbilical chord are compressed as the uterine walls draw together, the supply of oxygen to the fetus is decreased. The baby has considerable capacity to withstand the stress of birth. Large quantities of the hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline are secreted, protecting the fetus in the event of oxygen deficiency. These hormones increase the heart’s pumping, speed up heart rate, channel blood flow to the brain, and raise the blood sugar level. Never again in life will such large amounts of these hormones be secreted.

2) A small number of newborns have a disorder called pelvic field defect, which in boys involves a missing penis. For many years, doctors usually recommended that these genetic boys be raised as girls and undergo castration, which was required because they were born with testicles but not a penis.

3) No matter which set of genital organs have developed in the body – whether the embryo is physically male or female – the brain’s wired-in pattern of sexual behavior is female.
Long after the genes and hormones have dictated a male body, additional sex hormones must act upon the brain and make it a male. If they do not, the embryo will develop a female brain in a male body – and the boy will grow up to act feminine.

4) Bouncing and jiggling a baby can be dangerous. The infant’s heavy but weakly supported head may be flopped back and forth so hard that brain blood vessels bleed, leading to the formation of membranes that interfere with brain growth. Many slow-learning and clumsy children with IQ’s of 90 might have been intelligent and normally mobile children with IQ’s of 120, had they not been habitually shaken and whip lashed during infancy.

5) During the elementary school years, children grow an average of 2 to 3 inches a year. At the age of 8 the average girl and the average boy are 4 feet 2 inches tall. During the middle and late childhood years, children gain about 5 to 7 pounds a year. The average 8-year-old girl and the average 8-year-old boy weigh 56 pounds.

(Quoted from Life – Span Development by John W. Santrock and The Role of the Brain by Ronald H. Bailey)

Rain

Friday, October 06, 2006


Male Producing Gene


Females have two chromosomes called X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y chromosome. But what happens when a female is born with the XY chromosome?

Gender represents a person’s social identity as a male or a female. Most of us accept the fact that people are born either as male or female – that’s all there is to it. While sex and gender are simple matters for most people, it is a complex issue for some. In order to understand the problem, we have to distinguish among phenotypic sex (a person’s sex organs and secondary sexual characteristics), chromosomal sex (the number of X and Y chromosomes), and genetic sex (the presence of genes that determine sex).

A human embryo develops a set of generalized organs and tubes that will eventually turn into the sex organs. A gene, usually found on the Y chromosome, controls which set of organs, male or female develops. Between the fifth and seventh week of development, this gene, if present, produces a chemical that influences the undifferentiated gonad to become a testis. Once the testis begins to develop, it produces secretions that turn the other structures into the male sex organs. If this does not occur by the thirteenth week, the gonad begins to develop into an ovary, and under the influence of ovarian secretions, the undifferentiated organs develop into female structures.

Can an XY individual be a female? This can happen if the male producing gene is not operating (a mutation) or if the receptor sites on the undifferentiated organs do not respond to the presence of the hormone. In addition to this, other problems result in ambiguous phenotypic sex.

One area of human endeavor where this has become a major issue is athletic competition, especially the Olympics. Fearing that a phenotypic female who is a genetic or chromosomal male will have an unfair advantage, all phenotypic female athletes have been forced to undergo testing. Female athletes are put through this demeaning process in spite of the fact that several decades of testing have demonstrated that the few phenotypic females, who, for an example, carry an X and a Y chromosome, do not have any particular athletic advantage.

Women with this syndrome have breasts and vaginas and are socialized as females, but lack a uterus and ovaries and have a testis located within their bodies.

(Quoted from “Gender, Sex and Athletics”, Physical Anthropology-Sixth Edition by Philip L. Stein and Bruce M. Rowe)

Rain

Are The Japanese Smarter Than The Americans?

In October 1986, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister of Japan, offered an explanation of why Japan competes so well against the United States: the Japanese people score higher on IQ tests than Americans.

Here are some reasons why –

1) Japanese children attend school for an average of 240 days a year; American children attend school for less than 180 days a year.

2) The quality of education is uniformly high in Japan. Most Japanese are of the same social class, and about 99 percent are of the same ethnic group.

3) Discipline and expectations of students in Japan are much higher than in the United States.

4) Japanese students are assigned heavier course loads and more homework than their American counterparts.

5) Economic success in Japan is absolutely dependent on academic achievement. Although academic achievement increases the chances of economic success in the United States, it is not absolutely essential.

It is therefore no wonder that mean IQ scores are higher in Japan than in the United States. The Japanese place a greater value on education. As a result, Japanese children take educational goals more seriously and spend more time in school and on homework than American children.

Even though the American IQ is not as high as that of the Japanese, Americans are responsible for innovating more of this century’s new technologies than any other nationality, and they have won more Nobel Prizes than the members of any other culture. IQ scores do not test such things as creativity.
American society emphasizes creativity.

(Quoted from “Are the Japanese, On The Average, Smarter Than Americans?”, Physical Anthropology-Sixth Edition by Philip L. Stein and Bruce M. Rowe)

Rain

Social Inequalities

English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1930), who was greatly influenced by Charles Darwin’s ideas, coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest”.

Spencer and other proponents of social Darwinism viewed social life as a competitive struggle for power, wealth and general well being among individuals and nations. Using this concept, Europeans of the nineteenth century could argue that their dominant position in the world was the result of natural superiority that resulted from natural selection. The Asian, African, Polynesian and other peoples that Europeans ruled or subdued at the time were seen as belonging to earlier and more primitive stages of evolution. Likewise, the social inequalities among individuals within European society were thought to be variations on which natural selection acted. The prosperous were seen as being “fit”, while the poor and powerless was seen as “unfit” individuals that natural selection would select against.

Spencer and other social Darwinists, including the American sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), believed that government should do nothing to aid the poor or sick. Modern social Darwinists assert that programs such as food stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and free public health clinics interfere with the natural weeding out of unfit people and thereby weaken society. Or, said in reverse, a laissez-faire approach to social inequalities would lead to a natural cleansing of a population and hence would lead to a society and a world better adapted to environment pressures. In the United States and Europe, social Darwinism has been used to justify discriminatory actions against women, nonwhites and various ethnic groups. It must be noted, however, that Charles Darwin was not a social Darwinist; at least, he avoided any discussion of the social implications of his ideas.

Scientific studies on human populations have not supported the tenets of social Darwinism. It appears that it is discrimination and the ideas of superiority, as well as differential access to natural resources that produce most inequalities. The fact that some societies are more powerful than others and that some individuals within a society do not have access to necessities and luxuries is due to social history. When populations or classes of people within societies are freed from discriminatory practices, they can reach the same levels of wealth, power and education as those groups who traditionally define them as superiors.

(Quoted from “Social Darwinism”, Physical Anthropology – Sixth Edition by Philip L. Stein and Bruce M. Rowe)

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