Dr. Wes discusses the effects of the Medicare cuts that went through.

Should kids have a best friend?

The Anchoress wonders if “enlightened experts” ever had childhoods after reading an article in the NYTs on best friends:

. . . increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend?
…
“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”

“Parents sometimes say Johnny needs that one special friend,” she continued. “We say he doesn’t need a best friend.”

The Anchoress thinks that experts are playing the busybody when they try to insert their wishes on the kids:

This isn’t about what’s good for the children; it is about being better able to control adults by stripping from them any training in intimacy and interpersonal trust. Don’t let two people get together and separate themselves from the pack, or they might do something subversive, like…think differently.

This move against “best friends” is ultimately about preventing individuals from nurturing and expanding their individuality. It is about training our future adults to be unable to exist outside of the pack, the collective. The schools want you to think this is about potential bullying and the sadness of some children feeling “excluded.” But that is not what this is about.

Frankly, I think telling the kids to congregate in packs could backfire on the helpful (probably liberal) experts who want them together. I don't think keeping kids in a pack makes them less likely to bully. It seems to make them behave more like feral animals. Given that most kids commit crimes in groups due to peer pressure, it seems unwise to tell them to huddle together. And groups of kids may not always do what the liberal adults want them to.

I read recently in The Economist that in 2008 Austria tried lowering the voting age to 16 and the kids promptly pulled the lever for right-leaning politicians. Kids will find a way to express their individuality, whether the adults want them to or not. My guess is that if a kid wants a best friend, he or she will find a way to get one.

If you missed it, Glenn Beck has a great segment here on Hayek's book, The Road to Serfdom (via Newsalert).

What The Hell Is Happening To 30-Something Guys?

Reader Topher sends in an article asking this question from the Frisky:

If every time I met a cute, funny, smart, nice, emotionally stable, 30-something man with a girlfriend an angel exploded into a fireball and someone gave me a nickel, I would have enough money to buy a fancy angel graveyard with marble headstones. That is how frequent—and how tragic—this experience has become....

The only thing worse than a cute, funny, smart, nice, emotionally stable and totally taken man is one who’s single and just wants to play the field. What. A. Waste.

You see, he’s just one example of a larger issue that I’ve encountered again and again since becoming single. Otherwise pretty rad dudes reach their 30s without “settling down”—and by that I mean finding a serious girlfriend they could potentially see marrying or being with forever—and suddenly it’s like they regress to teenage boyhood. There’s some kind of bell curve, where guys get more mature and then they peak, and if they’re not in a stable relationship at that point, then they dip back down to the emotional maturity of 15-year-olds. Suddenly relationships give them that same sense of confusion that choosing between playing Super Mario Land or TP-ing the math teacher’s house used to. I know I’m generalizing here, but for the most part, it’s true. If you’re a 30-something dude and this doesn’t describe you, congrats! You’re likely one of the other generalized types I mentioned—somewhere on the spectrum between single douchebag and taken demi-god.

So, if male, you're a douchbag if you deny a woman marriage and a "demi-god" if you are tied to a woman? Does the author of this article have any idea that her oozing sense of entitlement (read the article to get the gist of it) might be a turn-off? Probably not.

Perhaps if she spent a little more time asking "What the hell is in marriage for 30-something year old guys with self-indulgent types like me, she might come up with an answer for why so many guys in their thirties are single. Throw in the unfair legal battle these same guys have watched their dads, friends, and uncles engage in during divorce and she will know exactly what the hell is happening to 30-something guys. Rather than the regressed or confused "douchbags" she thinks they are, they are simply wise to the ways of the world.

Save the Wieners!

I was coming back from North Carolina and Duke University yesterday and noticed a number of men with a "Save the Ta-Tas" bumper sticker on their car. I've also noticed them around Knoxville. It's always a middle-aged guy. What the hell is that all about?

Why do men have a breast cancer bumper sticker for women with such a dumb slogan? Is it so they can talk about women's breasts in a socially acceptable manner? Is it to make women think they are for women's issues in order to get laid? Did some woman such as a wife or girlfriend stick it on their car? Or all of the above?

Apparently, "Save the Ta-Tas" is very popular--there is even a sock with the same slogan from someone called the "SockGuy."

If men are going to drive around with a save the Ta-Tas bumper sticker on their car, I am tempted to go to Cafe Press and make up a "Save the Wieners" bumper sticker for prostate cancer. After all, men's health problems could use some attention too.

Update: SayUncle: Maybe the opportunity to put something a little dirty on display that won’t cause shrieks of outrage?