h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm reading in my newspaper that the government of Texas on this day in 1835 enacted that a force called the Texas Rangers be established to protect the area from Indians.
This despite the fact that the area had actually been doing fine for thousands of years after the first native Americans arrived

Well, that's Texas. Everything's outsized. Even the Indian threat.

Yeah... That's something I'm having to process, reclassifying the Texas Rangers from a point of pride to a recognition of their troublesome history. Even the more recent history of the Rangers, and their unofficial motto of "one riot, one ranger" is quite troubling.

I never knew what that "one riot" was about until recently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Riot,_One_Ranger

So at first the rangers protected the area from First Nation Americans and later also African Americans? What about Hispanics and Asians?

(I was reminded today of the "camps" for Americans of Japanese descent)



PS: Please do not take this as pointing fingers. Given both the past and the present Europeans have no right to do so. In fact prejudice and bigotry is everywhere on this

Texas is big and sprawling and spread out (yes, some that is redundant). Not unlike Canada, which had the RCMP. So, you do what you can. You send people out to keep order, and there isn't much oversight, so things happen.

Well, I wouldn't put it that way (about the rangers protecting the state from African Americans). They weren't sent to block school integration. But they definitely weren't on the right side of history either.

Quoting a young male colleague:

Once again Men's International Day on 19 November was ignored by all the media. Do the media think it's not worth as much as International Women's Day?
Every year on Women's Day readers can open all Danish media to hear about women's struggle for equality. It is a real joy to see that the women are being heard and that there are actually sections of the population who are actively fighting to solve the obvious issues.
But why can readers not also, at least to some degree, open the media and hear about men's struggle for equality?
Okay men do not fight for equality in the same cases as women do. But when all the media make a big show out of highlighting the women's fight for equality it is too much to demand that there is at least some focus on the men's struggle. It is fair to illuminate too, right?
And why should the media cover men's day? Because there are battles that should be fought. Men are overrepresented when it comes to psychiatric diagnoses, suicide, homelessness, prison inmates, victims of violence, lack of custody and, last but not least, the right to maternity leave and so on.
Even in the education system it is seen that men/boys are increasingly doing worse than their female colleagues. So there is an abundance of societal relevance!
If the media are to appear fair they must cover the men's day! All editors in the Danish media should be ashamed that they have apparently not given this a single thought.

[Markus Valentin Jakobsen, student at the Danish School of Media and Journalism and vice chairman of Media and Journalism Students]

What i reply to the idiots on twitter and in RL who spout this idiocy to me i say something along these lines:

1) do you ever ever think about men's issues except on International Women's Day?
2) When you think about these things, what do you do about it? Do you fume silently to yourself? Do you look out some information and share it? Do you donate to projects? Do you see a lack of initiatives to help these issues and work out how to start an awareness raising project?
3) Who do you think it is that puts in the work to raise awareness of women's issues? Are you aware of the Campaign Against Living Miserably? It shares resources to help men with mental health issues. Do you know who started it? Clue: it wasn't a man
4) This young male colleague is presumably a journalist? I am in a facebook group for women journalists. In the run up to things like IWD and the recent start of the campaign to End Violence Against Women (kicked off yesterday on the annual 16 days thing) - anyway, in the run up to things like IWD the group is awash with people talking about articles they are going to pitch, asking for people with experience of X for the article they're writing about y issue etc etc

So in essence, what young colleague is complaining about is that nobody - him included - can get worked up enough about issues affecting men to actually do something about it.

As i point out to the idiots who do the "oh no - your life is ending" schtick when one of their friends is getting married: it is a well known phenomenon that on average married men live longer than single men. And one of the reasons is that their wives "nag" them into going to the doctor, or make appointments and take them to the doctor, and make sure they eat healthily etc etc.

If men, as a group, would put as much energy into raising awareness of, say, the appalling figures on male suicide, and addressing Toxic Masculinity as they do whingeing that women did things like set up women's refuges and fought long and hard for (an as yet still unattained) equality - the world would be a far better (and quieter) place.

Thus endeth the lesson :D

Idiot? Idiocy? I think the young man raises a valid question: Why is the media ignoring International Men's Day?
He is clearly full of respect for what the women's cause has achieved and is still working for. And fully supports it.
He just wants a little more attention around men's challenges also. (Challenges that - if solved - will also benefit everyone else by the way.)
No, the young man is not a journalist yet. But he will be soon. And then he might become the man who really gets the men's cause started.

I thought there was a Men's March on Washington some years back. There arwe groups that try to get men to take responsibility for their lives.

You need both men and women in the world. Falling birth rates created a dilemma for society: women would usually be raising larger families, or replacing children lost to mortality from infectious diseases. It's only fair to society if women's energy can be channeled into jobs they can do. Having large numbers of idle women could be as bad for society as having large numbers of idle men.

So, there is a constant sense of trying to strike the right balance in society......

Pierre - you didn't read any of what i wrote, did you?
I didn't say he didn't have a valid question. I said he should do what FEMALE journalists do: research and create and publish the content.

You seem to want us to always do the heavy lifting for you.

Paul. I don't want to get my slapping hand out but what the heck are you on about.

Women should be raising larger families? "fair to society if women's energy can be channeled into jobs they can do" "large numbers of idle women"?

Women ARE already doing most of the heavy lifting in families, ARE already going out to work (and being hindered from realising their full potential because the world is a sexist pile of dung, frankly).

I'm leaving this conversation now because having been enticed in by Pierre posing an ostensibly good question (clue: it's not) and hearing the reply i gave chose to ignore everything and bleat "but what about teh menz?" and you, Paul, who are a lovely chap and all just compounded the sexist twaddle.

Happy Thanksgiving.

"you didn't read any of what i wrote, did you?"
Funny, I was this close to ask you the same question

"You seem to want us to always do the heavy lifting for you."
No! Definitely not! He is "doing heavy lifting" by confronting the (male dominated) media. And I salute him for it.

Here's a young man - in his early 20's, I guess - doing exactly what you have numerous times asked for. And you are coming down on him like the proverbial ton of bricks?
What man I not getting here?

Women used to raise large families. Then things changed. Things are always changing, and unfortunately we always lag in changing with them.

I *know* that women do the heavy lifting.

As a single male who lives alone, I don't see these things firsthand. Neither do single women who live alone. I'm sorry, Sho, for what it's worth.

My two cents' worth are probably useless here.

I'm not clear about what the original post means - your colleague wrote a piece on social media about how the wider media was not covering International Men's Day in Denmark? Is your colleague a member of the group? http://www.internationalmensday.dk

I once met a man who enjoyed doing laundry, cooking, and housework. Maybe his wife didn't want to do those things. It was between the two of them. I don't know how many of the younger husbands have expanded their involvement with child-rearing and housework. I suspect that many have.

Pierce and Sho and I don't belong to that generation. Is change happening?

I didn't marry, partly because here was a strong message that the world was overpopulated. I didn't raise children, but I helped with children's programs at libraries and churches. I used what abilities I had.

re post 16:

SashaQ, I do not know this Markus Valentin Jakobsen (who from what I can see started studying at a Danish School of Journalism this year) and I have no idea if he is a member of internationalmensday.dk. (However, I have my doubts after reading the link you gave me. I do not know this organization, but I do not think you will be elected vice president of all journalism students in this country if you are a member of IMD.)
I only read his post in my union membership magazine where he praises the women's movement and its achievements and tries to shake up men to do likewise because - as he points out - there are things that should be done and it is up to men to do them.
He does this by taking on the media bosses which he will one day have to ask for a job. I did not have that kind of courage when I was his age.

At least that's how I read it, but maybe I'm just naive and misunderstood all this. And in a completely wrong way no less.
If that is the case, I ask for forgiveness

" he praises the women's movement and its achievements and tries to shake up men to do likewise" [Pierre]

I should probably go back and check this out to be certain, but did Sho realize this?

By the way, SashaQ, I found another link about IMD and read the history about it:

https://internationalmensday.com/founders-statement/