I carry two pocket knives: one Swiss Army type for all sorts of uses, and a small two-bladed pen knife which I have carried since 1964. One blade and a nail file. Both come in handy.
They should be registered ,they are an obvious danger.
So true. I’ve lost count of how many times a co-worker was in need of a blade…to cut packaging etc…and I pulled out my RAT Model 1 only to hear my co-workers testicles recede into his belly. Always followed by a, “What the hell are you gonna do with a knife like THAT?” Followed by, “What ever needs doin.” It really blows their mind when I tell them I could gut a deer…or whatever else needs disembowelment…and then shave with it.
“Who are these adult-sized children, and what turned them into such cowards?”
I got a couple of thoughts on that. As brave young men go off to successive wars and don’t come back, the reproducing is done by the cowards who stayed home…and there’s not much chance they’re going to pass on bravery to their kids. So in the last one hundred years, the ratio of those with guts to the gutless has to have swung in favour of the latter – and the cowardice has affected (infected?) all sections of society: schools, churches, etc.
The other thing that contributes is the increasing urbanization of the population. Although this probably doesn’t apply to the same extent that it once did, I think that kids who grow up in the country are exposed to more tough decisions at an earlier age – and with that comes a sense of responsibility and more fortitude.
And as for knives, the last few times I was re-entering Canada from attending Outdoors Shows in the US, the CBSA officer asked if we had any kinives in the truck. When we said that we did, he demanded to see them. After the little tell and show sessions, I asked him/her why the questions about knives. “Just wanted to see if they were legal…why are you asking?” “Because I’ve been crossing this border for more than 40 years and I’m just curious why, out of the blue, the last two times you’re asking me about knives.” I just got a shrug and got waved on.
I think we have a peek at the next witch-hunt.
“[who] turned them into such cowards?”
Their parents. The most recent example (in a long, long list) I have now had confirmed to me is that parents are not letting their daughters go to sleepovers at their friend’s house unless there are no males in the house. So, now if you have a daughter and she wants a sleepover, apparently all the men have to go stay at a motel. All so that upper middle class, white women don’t get the vapors….
HG Wells understood how and why. There’s the Eloi of course but the predecessor of The Time Machine, The Sleeper Awakens, might also yield clues. It’s fiction but the idea of an upper class who is disconnected from reality and working class, blue collar jobs and people isn’t far from the truth. Their unicorn thinking about food and energy production is just one example of many. These are the people who actually believe that the agricultural and industrial revolutions were a tragedy.
I’d like to think Wells was wrong about capitalism but it has morphed into a spoils and reward system between politicians and crony capitalists at the expense of taxpayers. It’s probably why they push for an EU-like style of government – it streamlines the bribery process.
Children should be weaned before entering college.
We may have to check with Dr. Spock for more details.
In a class on electricity and magnetism I once asked a student to connect up a 1.5 volt battery to a circuit. He was afraid to do it! even my placing my thumb on one pole and my index finger across the other didn’t convince him that he wouldn’t disappear in a puff of smoke.
Wars? If Canada and the US had lost 1/3 of the males in one generation, as the French did in WWI likely, but in demographic terms our losses have not been significant.
Every day, people trade freedom for the mirage of security. Western nations now more resemble cattle herds than free born citizens. When you concede that the state can regulate ownership of guns, it then follows that anything construed as a potential weapon will follow. Similarly, conceding to socialized health care brings on the nanny state than can regulate all behavior which could potentially affect ones health. Same with energy, resource ownership, culture………….
Part of the reason for this change is the fact that the public school teaching profession, primary and secondary, is over 70% women. No disrespect to the distaff side of the human race, but just as they claim men don’t understand women, the same is true for women, that they don’t understand what it is or means to be male. The reason for the skewed numbers is war. It started in North America with the losses in the Civil War, then followed up with the First, Second, Korean, and Vietnam wars. A woman cannot teach a young man what it means to be male. We are and will always see the world differently because of the differences in hormones, and neural wiring, as a start. In some African tribes, when a young man reaches puberty, he is removed (to great wailing from mother and female kin) completely from the female side of the tribe and spends all of his time only with the men until he is considered of age and marries. Perhaps we need to bring that back and teach young men to be men. A quotation that is important is “As iron sharpens iron, so men sharpen men”.
I’m reminded of a meme I saw on a different website a while ago.
It consisted of two pictures. On the left was a copy of a famous photo about D-Day, in which the photographer was on board an American landing craft as it came into shore. On the right were two wimpy-looking young men, complete with earrings and coloured hair.
The caption on the left was something like: “In 1944, 18-year-olds were storming beaches, jumping out of airplanes, and facing certain danger.”
The caption on the right: “In 2015, 18-year-olds need safe spaces because words can hurt.”
Funny. I hope it wasn’t a student engineer.
I remember my first day of work at an industrial facility : I was given safety glasses, a hard hat, ear protection, overalls and a Gerber multi tool (but BYOB – buy your own boots). A knife was considered a standard part of basic equipment, even for laboratory staff. There’s a world of difference between young tradespeople and the squeamish, fearful children that’s typical of today’s non-STEM university student.
Nature or nurture?
So, basically, university is now a place where parents and students spend thousands of dollars per year to have their kids financially, intellectually and emotionally crippled in the hopes the graduates can get a job that pays more than minimum wage but probably less than a plumber. Great deal.
PS. But they’ll have critical thinking skills and a broad understanding of the world….or so we’re repeatedly told. Meh. Prove it.
Trump will fix that too.
A couple years ago I brought a sgian dubh (“skeean doo”), a small Scottish dagger slipped into a sock of a kilted lad, over from the old country. Blade on it about 3″ long and it fits in decorative sheath, when worn. Looks basically like a fancy kitchen paring knife. Sat in Customs for ages while they figured out whether they could release it to me or not. Had I had them label it a kirpan before shipping, the CBSA inspector would have delivered it to my home personally.
In Tony blair’s England, it’s apparently illegal to carry a folding pocket knife at all. Not on your person, in your bag, briefcase, purse, wallet.
They will have to pry my BEAUTIFUL Laguiole En Aubrac folding Sommeliers knife out of my COLD DEAD HANDS. It is capable of MORE than just looking beautiful opening a picnic bottle of Bordeaux … it will definitely trigger a microaggression on your ass !
When I was working on my master’s degree in electrical engineering, I took some background courses, including some in digital logic. (That was over 20 years ago when it wasn’t unusual to see discrete components on circuit boards, as opposed to surface-mounted devices, which are commonplace today.)
We were required to build logic circuits and that included wiring all of the connections. It astonished me to see just how many *electrical* engineering students didn’t have a clue about how to use a wire stripper.
Maybe I had the “wrong” sort of upbringing. Both of my parents were journeymen in their respective trades and had an idea of how to use certain hand tools. Even as a schoolboy, I did a lot of tinkering as I took apart clocks and radios.
I get the impression that today’s engineering students are so accustomed to having things done by computer that they have no idea about actual hardware.
Small correction: *I* had an idea of how to use certain hand tools. My parents, by virtue of having completed their respective apprenticeships, already knew.
By the way, considering that society nowadays seems to have a visible disdain for tinkering, how many of today’s youth understand the significance of websites such as this: http://hackaday.com/
How and where you’re raised is a big factor. Every adult man I knew had a garage with tools in it and could fix things around the house and yard. Quite a few also had welders and air compressors. Growing up around tradesmen and in industrial settings is very different than growing up in a home where everything from house cleaning to basic handyman jobs are done by others. At the extreme end are the people pride themselves on being ignorant about tools and labor. Weird.
I had a similar upbringing, in a family of auto mechanics and a brother who liked to build his own audiophile tube amplifiers. Oh yeah, I’ve stripped some wire, and twisted on a few wire nuts in my time. And I spent a fair amount of time under an automobile rolling around on my creeper, trying not to bust my knuckles on every frozen-rusted exhaust manifold bolt.
My kids like to quote Spicoli whenever their friends saw our garage … My old man is a television repairman, he’s got this ultimate set of tools … !
Sadly, we have produced generations of metrosexual men who don’t have the slightest clue how to fix a leaky faucet. They have to ask Butch, down the street to help them … so long as she isn’t … “in a mood”.
“cowards who stayed home”
well Mr McMaster, have YOU been in a firefight? heard the whump whump of ordnance landing just a little too close? seen a head without a body and a body without a head? have you? it is NOT ‘cowardice’ to shy away from deadly violence. it is self preservation in face of the warmongering dubya class leadershit who think nothing of meddle meddle meddle at the cost of 10s of thousands of brave service personnel in the interests of the oil lobby.
funny thing how back when ‘Nam was full boil how kids of congressmen managed to find a loophole. according to you, ALL cowards every jackdaw gutless wusses.
what we need is leadershit that is more selective in picking fights and then fully totally supporting those that CHOOSE to engage. and then fully and unconditionally support those that come back damaged, and the families and survivors of those that come back in a flag draped box. I don’t see that, ANYWHERE, esp. here in Canuckistan. today’s skill testing Q: under the uber control freak Harper, did the feds spend MILLIONS in lawyers’ fees fighting the class action suit brought by our veterans for better benefits? yup !!!
so, again, are YOU a veteran? tell the truth now.
No
Yes
Yes/Yes
No
Hope that helps.
I notice that every time I go to The Source. Even a generation ago, when it was still the now-defunct Radio Shack, people not only built and repaired things, they knew what parts you needed. Nowadays, I find that TS is run by kids who know all about smartphones and tablet computers, but they wouldn’t know what a banana plug is.
I was reminded about how bad it is nowadays when the local Active Electronics outlet closed last year after being in the city for at least a quarter century. Unless I want to order parts on-line, and pay the associated shipping fees, there are two places in town where I can get electrical and electronic components, neither of which is oriented towards amateur radio or computing.
I wouldn’t be so sure about Butch being able to fix things, either.
A few years ago, I was at the checkout in a home improvement store and I noticed that the clerk was wearing a sweater that had a tear near the end of one sleeve. She fixed it by–get this–*stapling* it together. I remarked that my mother taught me how to repair such things and the clerk gave me the strangest look.
I guess women don’t learn how to sew any more. Then again, is home economics even taught in school nowadays?
My sister taught at Hutterite and private schools. One thing the boys learned was to always carry a knife. When packages arrived they were delighted to be called on for assistance. Because that’s how life was when she was a student.
With free tuition looming in Ontario for the under $50K crowd; there’ll be no future shortage of adult-sized liberal arts cowards.
re the class action suit: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-don-t-have-social-contract-ottawa-says-in-lawsuit-response-1.2577053
note the date. 2014. aaaaaaand who was in a majority gubbamint at that time? Mr Harper.
hiring a phalanx of lawyers to fight the veterans’ class action suit against the CONSERVATIVES ‘one-off-and=screw=you’ changes to veterans benefits, ie lump sum (as in like-it-or-lump-it) payment vs ongoing disability payments.
that last ‘no’, does that apply to my Q regarding the law suit or, the last Q i.e. are you a veteran? you ran out of answers. feel free to clarify.
while you’re at it, feel really free to defend the privileged elites who find ways to keep young Thurston Howard the 3rd OUT of the military. apparently when Joe Citoyen does that for HIS kid they get labelled coward.
60something My father-in-law was a veteran of WW2. His benefits we’re amazing. Along with a generous veterans pension which his widow still gets he received regular visits plus all kinds of free stuff like bathtub grab bars and home repairs.
You answered one question yourself. So there wasn’t much sense of me answering it.
that, Salsa, is exactly why the lawsuit. the CONservatives under Harper the control freak, wanted to turn those lifetime benefits into single lump sum payments. not good enough !! HOW could it be accurately predicted the money needed to provide care for the new generation of disabled vets? my guess is the pencil necks parceling out the funds would constantly underestimate the needs and adopt a take-it-or-leave-it approach.
yet those that balk at such despicable GUBBAMINT policy and refuse to serve get labeled ‘cowards’.
the lieberals have been crapping on vets since way back. seems the CONservatives recently caught on with this expensive and very telling fight against the lawsuit.
I carry a folding Buck,have forever, comes in handy a hundred times a year for dozens of legitimate uses. But then I was born and raised in the country, Dad was a trapper and commercial fisherman, always carried a pocket knife,so did almost everyone else.
My Son also carries a folding pocket knife,for the same reasons I do. One night he was stopped by the RCMP as he walked to the corner store,they were looking for a guy who had broken into a car in the area.
They asked if he had any “weapons” on him, he took out the folded knife and showed it to them. The cops asked what it was used for,and my Son replied that it was a utility knife,used for cutting string, opening envelopes,etc.
He then asked the cop why he had asked that question. The cop replied,”because if you had said you carried it for self-defence, we would have confiscated it”.
A very high priority for our Minster of Defence should be the development of a testing process that can weed out aspiring armed forces recruits who would be prone to developing PTSD.
… suffice to say that my wife is wholly incapable of properly ironing a shirt, pants, skirt … anything. I have to do it for myself, and for her. And yet, I am still secure in my Tim Allen manliness … I’ll measure the size of my deck against his … any day of the week.
Studies of PTSD are starting to show a correlation to TBI.(Traumatic Brain Injury)
In short, soldiers who experience concussion to the head(happens a lot from overpressure due to proximity to explosions) are very often people who have PTSD too.
I doubt they can weed these people out if there is a relationship between the two disorders and that relationship turns out to be TBI in the causal role.
“what turned them into such cowards?”
Parents willing to let state raise their children.
Because it is easier
Because nanny state narcotic is so convenient.
Because since we are already paying taxes to support the apparatus we may as well rip the benefits. Right?
Wrong.
My eight year old who goes to a public school knows well that whenever fun is forbidden it is “because liberals”. He knows that it is the sole reason he cannot bring a nerf gun to school, or make a make belief pistol with his fingers. He also knows that daddy always carries a knife in his pocket which comes in handy every time something needs opening. But he knows never to ask daddy to pull that knife out in public “because liberals”.
Funny thing is: when I was growing up behind the iron curtain my parents made it very clear to me what I can and cannot say outside the walls of our house. They also taught me what school was good for and what it wasn’t. These are the lessons I am recycling these days to my son. The more things change…
“I doubt they can weed these people out…”
The stuff I’ve read says that PTSD is sort of a relapse from a traumatic event suffered in childhood.
The incidence of reported PTSD over the past few years is fast approaching epidemic proportions. Unfortunately, it has become the modern version of the bad back. Lead-swingers and sore-arses get in line with the genuine sufferers.
I should have explained something in my earlier comment.
When I was in high school, which many millennials figure was back in the Jurassic Era, all the girls had to take home economics while the boys took shop. There were certain things that we were expected to know and do when we became adults.
That isn’t to say that all girls were excellent cooks and seamstresses or all the boys were great at filing metal or sawing wood. I’m sure that there were girls who were so inept that they would burn water and some boys who shouldn’t have been let anywhere near power tools.
Unfortunately, I believe much of that went by the wayside courtesy of feminism. Learning to cook and sew for a girl was a sign of being “oppressed” or some such thing, which makes me wonder just how they were expected to survive on their own. As for me, I’ve got no problem with doing my own sewing or ironing. Since I live by myself, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done. My mother understood that when she taught me how to sew on a button.
As well, I don’t have any problem walking into a fabric shop and, say, buying a spool of thread, which I did a few months ago. Some of the women there looked at me in bewilderment but, when I got to the checkout, I struck up a conversation with one of the clerks who, at the time, was sorting through some dress patterns. I grew up around that stuff and spent many hours in such establishments, so I started dropping names. Brands like Lightning, Coats, and Butterick were as familiar to me as Dodge, Ford, and Chevy or, for that matter, Black & Decker, Stanley, and Snap-On.
I’m sure that when I left, a few of the women there were smiling. I not only knew what I was talking about, I wasn’t in the least bit embarrassed.
For brain injury (concussion) related PTSD, hyperbaric oxygen (over a period of months or more) can be a very effective therapy.
in all seriousness, and a prime example of the difference between the ‘traditional male’ approach to building projects, after the 2nd deck I built I perfected a method of getting the posts precisely located 100% of the time with NONE of the guesswork and ‘nail biting’ I always saw up till then.
the trick was to pound temporary 2X4s into the ground and hang the outermost beams on them. it gave the clients, some of whom lacked the ability to properly visualize the end result, an opportunity to see far more exactly the shape and dimensions they were going to get. a few had the ‘oh my I didn’t realize’ moments. getting the deck level happened at this point, nothing ‘in the way’ eyeballing them. flat and level, *every time*. I then proceeded to hang the main support beams underneath those using extra long screws. and additional TEMPORARY supporting 2X4s if needed. they didn’t need to go in very deep, it was one of the fastest steps in my method of building decks. I then proceeded to drill the post holes within 1/8th of an inch of the main support beams and the stairs etc. precise and sufficient *every time*. then come time to cement the posts, I would get the longest ones I could, drop, cut, drop, cut, drop, cut thus minimum waste as opposed to lopping off waste with every one. only one pc of waste for multiple posts that way. I would then attach the posts to the beams with more screws, and drill and install the bolts in one quick operation. zip zip zip zip done. then the concrete and only then proceed to lay in all remaining secondary beams and finally the deck proper.
this approach was much faster because it eliminated a huge amount of guess work. naturally any time I suggested it the rest of the crew stuck on their single-train-of-thought methods would balk and find all kinds of ways to contradict.
the bottom line, the customers without fail appreciated the chance to be able to actually see what was in store and the fact I could get to the point of getting the posts into the ground on the first day. all of them, exactly where they needed to be within a fraction of an inch. I could even make use of ‘twisty’ posts by positioning the side flat against the beam regardless of the angle at the bottom. and if a main beam had a ‘bow’ in it, no problem, just see how much it could be pushed into proper position and locate the post hole there. any minor warping was immaterial because they were hidden underneath the deck.
but of course, control freak type males would react with derision and sarcasm when confronted with something new. meh. their loss.
“The incidence of reported PTSD over the past few years is fast approaching epidemic proportions.”
That wouldn’t be surprising if it is related to TBI.
Have you ever sat down and watched all those young guys on YouTube riding those little circus bikes and jumping over stuff or watched them riding skateboards etc.?
Down stairways and stair rails and concrete stub walls etc.?
Plenty of impacts to the head, elbows, and testicles.
We’ll be seeing epidemic reports of elbow/knee injuries and impotency as well as back and brain injuries.
I’ll be 57 this year and I’m starting to regret the foolhardy things I did in my callow youth that led to the many broken bones + knee and ankle injuries that I got in my salad days.
I too have had to mail my small multi tool with a one inch blade, back to myself a couple of times from the security area at the airport.
Several years ago at a Calgary C-Train station, a young kid got his scarf caught in an escalator setting up the likelihood that he might choke. A youngish fellow stepped forward, whipped out (sorry, JT joke – couldn’t resist) his pocket knife and cut the scarf away from the kid’s neck. Maybe saved his life.
I remember wondering then what a transit cop would have done if the fellow were merely cleaning his fingernails or peeling an orange. The answer becomes more clear every year.
The cop replied,”because if you had said you carried it for self-defence, we would have confiscated it”.
And that is probably the scariest summary of the times we are living in. Jackbooted thugs one and all.
“We’ll be seeing epidemic reports of elbow/knee injuries and impotency as well as back and brain injuries.”
Well thankfully due to the mentioned by you impotency, the problem may correct itself within a generation or two… 😛 Circle of life Simba, and all that.
PTSD is largely related to “social” norms, rather than injury inflicted. Past injuries may play a part in some cases, butt if you’v ever “employed” some of the modern nit witts, you’ll understand were I’m coming from
BTW: did you ever get rid of your couch by nanny stating, or did you become a real man and dispose of it yourself????
When I was in high school, which many millennials figure was back in the Jurassic Era, all the girls had to take home economics while the boys took shop.
I’m from that same era. All guys carried a pocket knife, and geeks wore sliderules on their belt. In our school boys and girls took shop and home ec. in classes that were all male or all female. Basic shop and cooking skills were seen as a necessary part of ‘well rounded’ learning, just like math science and language skills.
Yup. Unfortunately, I get the impression that the kiddies aren’t learning such things in high school any more.
I’m often reminded of that if I go to a store and pay for my purchase with, say, a $50 bill. I might, say, “Here’s a picture of Mr. King, which should be enough,” and it’s not unusual to receive a blank stare. “Who’s this Mr. King?” I’m sure they were asking themselves.
Knowing that sort of thing was expected of us 45 years ago.
And, by the way, I not only learned to use a slide rule back then, I can still use mine today. (I started doing so frequently when I was studying for a certain exam in which programmable calculators weren’t allowed. I passed, so I must have done something right with it.) It’s nice to see that there are some things that I can still do at my age.
I have always carried this under the front seat,
guess I better not drive on campus..
http://www.naijaloaded.com.ng/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/matchet_NL.jpg
I carry two pocket knives: one Swiss Army type for all sorts of uses, and a small two-bladed pen knife which I have carried since 1964. One blade and a nail file. Both come in handy.
They should be registered ,they are an obvious danger.
So true. I’ve lost count of how many times a co-worker was in need of a blade…to cut packaging etc…and I pulled out my RAT Model 1 only to hear my co-workers testicles recede into his belly. Always followed by a, “What the hell are you gonna do with a knife like THAT?” Followed by, “What ever needs doin.” It really blows their mind when I tell them I could gut a deer…or whatever else needs disembowelment…and then shave with it.
“Who are these adult-sized children, and what turned them into such cowards?”
I got a couple of thoughts on that. As brave young men go off to successive wars and don’t come back, the reproducing is done by the cowards who stayed home…and there’s not much chance they’re going to pass on bravery to their kids. So in the last one hundred years, the ratio of those with guts to the gutless has to have swung in favour of the latter – and the cowardice has affected (infected?) all sections of society: schools, churches, etc.
The other thing that contributes is the increasing urbanization of the population. Although this probably doesn’t apply to the same extent that it once did, I think that kids who grow up in the country are exposed to more tough decisions at an earlier age – and with that comes a sense of responsibility and more fortitude.
And as for knives, the last few times I was re-entering Canada from attending Outdoors Shows in the US, the CBSA officer asked if we had any kinives in the truck. When we said that we did, he demanded to see them. After the little tell and show sessions, I asked him/her why the questions about knives. “Just wanted to see if they were legal…why are you asking?” “Because I’ve been crossing this border for more than 40 years and I’m just curious why, out of the blue, the last two times you’re asking me about knives.” I just got a shrug and got waved on.
I think we have a peek at the next witch-hunt.
“[who] turned them into such cowards?”
Their parents. The most recent example (in a long, long list) I have now had confirmed to me is that parents are not letting their daughters go to sleepovers at their friend’s house unless there are no males in the house. So, now if you have a daughter and she wants a sleepover, apparently all the men have to go stay at a motel. All so that upper middle class, white women don’t get the vapors….
HG Wells understood how and why. There’s the Eloi of course but the predecessor of The Time Machine, The Sleeper Awakens, might also yield clues. It’s fiction but the idea of an upper class who is disconnected from reality and working class, blue collar jobs and people isn’t far from the truth. Their unicorn thinking about food and energy production is just one example of many. These are the people who actually believe that the agricultural and industrial revolutions were a tragedy.
I’d like to think Wells was wrong about capitalism but it has morphed into a spoils and reward system between politicians and crony capitalists at the expense of taxpayers. It’s probably why they push for an EU-like style of government – it streamlines the bribery process.
Children should be weaned before entering college.
We may have to check with Dr. Spock for more details.
In a class on electricity and magnetism I once asked a student to connect up a 1.5 volt battery to a circuit. He was afraid to do it! even my placing my thumb on one pole and my index finger across the other didn’t convince him that he wouldn’t disappear in a puff of smoke.
Wars? If Canada and the US had lost 1/3 of the males in one generation, as the French did in WWI likely, but in demographic terms our losses have not been significant.
Every day, people trade freedom for the mirage of security. Western nations now more resemble cattle herds than free born citizens. When you concede that the state can regulate ownership of guns, it then follows that anything construed as a potential weapon will follow. Similarly, conceding to socialized health care brings on the nanny state than can regulate all behavior which could potentially affect ones health. Same with energy, resource ownership, culture………….
Part of the reason for this change is the fact that the public school teaching profession, primary and secondary, is over 70% women. No disrespect to the distaff side of the human race, but just as they claim men don’t understand women, the same is true for women, that they don’t understand what it is or means to be male. The reason for the skewed numbers is war. It started in North America with the losses in the Civil War, then followed up with the First, Second, Korean, and Vietnam wars. A woman cannot teach a young man what it means to be male. We are and will always see the world differently because of the differences in hormones, and neural wiring, as a start. In some African tribes, when a young man reaches puberty, he is removed (to great wailing from mother and female kin) completely from the female side of the tribe and spends all of his time only with the men until he is considered of age and marries. Perhaps we need to bring that back and teach young men to be men. A quotation that is important is “As iron sharpens iron, so men sharpen men”.
Knives are out – heels are in
————————————————
Male servers to wear dresses against discrimination
http://www.ottawasun.com/2016/03/07/male-servers-to-wear-dresses-against-descrimination
I’m reminded of a meme I saw on a different website a while ago.
It consisted of two pictures. On the left was a copy of a famous photo about D-Day, in which the photographer was on board an American landing craft as it came into shore. On the right were two wimpy-looking young men, complete with earrings and coloured hair.
The caption on the left was something like: “In 1944, 18-year-olds were storming beaches, jumping out of airplanes, and facing certain danger.”
The caption on the right: “In 2015, 18-year-olds need safe spaces because words can hurt.”
Funny. I hope it wasn’t a student engineer.
I remember my first day of work at an industrial facility : I was given safety glasses, a hard hat, ear protection, overalls and a Gerber multi tool (but BYOB – buy your own boots). A knife was considered a standard part of basic equipment, even for laboratory staff. There’s a world of difference between young tradespeople and the squeamish, fearful children that’s typical of today’s non-STEM university student.
Nature or nurture?
So, basically, university is now a place where parents and students spend thousands of dollars per year to have their kids financially, intellectually and emotionally crippled in the hopes the graduates can get a job that pays more than minimum wage but probably less than a plumber. Great deal.
PS. But they’ll have critical thinking skills and a broad understanding of the world….or so we’re repeatedly told. Meh. Prove it.
Trump will fix that too.
A couple years ago I brought a sgian dubh (“skeean doo”), a small Scottish dagger slipped into a sock of a kilted lad, over from the old country. Blade on it about 3″ long and it fits in decorative sheath, when worn. Looks basically like a fancy kitchen paring knife. Sat in Customs for ages while they figured out whether they could release it to me or not. Had I had them label it a kirpan before shipping, the CBSA inspector would have delivered it to my home personally.
In Tony blair’s England, it’s apparently illegal to carry a folding pocket knife at all. Not on your person, in your bag, briefcase, purse, wallet.
They will have to pry my BEAUTIFUL Laguiole En Aubrac folding Sommeliers knife out of my COLD DEAD HANDS. It is capable of MORE than just looking beautiful opening a picnic bottle of Bordeaux … it will definitely trigger a microaggression on your ass !
When I was working on my master’s degree in electrical engineering, I took some background courses, including some in digital logic. (That was over 20 years ago when it wasn’t unusual to see discrete components on circuit boards, as opposed to surface-mounted devices, which are commonplace today.)
We were required to build logic circuits and that included wiring all of the connections. It astonished me to see just how many *electrical* engineering students didn’t have a clue about how to use a wire stripper.
Maybe I had the “wrong” sort of upbringing. Both of my parents were journeymen in their respective trades and had an idea of how to use certain hand tools. Even as a schoolboy, I did a lot of tinkering as I took apart clocks and radios.
I get the impression that today’s engineering students are so accustomed to having things done by computer that they have no idea about actual hardware.
Small correction: *I* had an idea of how to use certain hand tools. My parents, by virtue of having completed their respective apprenticeships, already knew.
By the way, considering that society nowadays seems to have a visible disdain for tinkering, how many of today’s youth understand the significance of websites such as this:
http://hackaday.com/
How and where you’re raised is a big factor. Every adult man I knew had a garage with tools in it and could fix things around the house and yard. Quite a few also had welders and air compressors. Growing up around tradesmen and in industrial settings is very different than growing up in a home where everything from house cleaning to basic handyman jobs are done by others. At the extreme end are the people pride themselves on being ignorant about tools and labor. Weird.
I had a similar upbringing, in a family of auto mechanics and a brother who liked to build his own audiophile tube amplifiers. Oh yeah, I’ve stripped some wire, and twisted on a few wire nuts in my time. And I spent a fair amount of time under an automobile rolling around on my creeper, trying not to bust my knuckles on every frozen-rusted exhaust manifold bolt.
My kids like to quote Spicoli whenever their friends saw our garage … My old man is a television repairman, he’s got this ultimate set of tools … !
Sadly, we have produced generations of metrosexual men who don’t have the slightest clue how to fix a leaky faucet. They have to ask Butch, down the street to help them … so long as she isn’t … “in a mood”.
“cowards who stayed home”
well Mr McMaster, have YOU been in a firefight? heard the whump whump of ordnance landing just a little too close? seen a head without a body and a body without a head? have you? it is NOT ‘cowardice’ to shy away from deadly violence. it is self preservation in face of the warmongering dubya class leadershit who think nothing of meddle meddle meddle at the cost of 10s of thousands of brave service personnel in the interests of the oil lobby.
funny thing how back when ‘Nam was full boil how kids of congressmen managed to find a loophole. according to you, ALL cowards every jackdaw gutless wusses.
what we need is leadershit that is more selective in picking fights and then fully totally supporting those that CHOOSE to engage. and then fully and unconditionally support those that come back damaged, and the families and survivors of those that come back in a flag draped box. I don’t see that, ANYWHERE, esp. here in Canuckistan. today’s skill testing Q: under the uber control freak Harper, did the feds spend MILLIONS in lawyers’ fees fighting the class action suit brought by our veterans for better benefits? yup !!!
so, again, are YOU a veteran? tell the truth now.
No
Yes
Yes/Yes
No
Hope that helps.
I notice that every time I go to The Source. Even a generation ago, when it was still the now-defunct Radio Shack, people not only built and repaired things, they knew what parts you needed. Nowadays, I find that TS is run by kids who know all about smartphones and tablet computers, but they wouldn’t know what a banana plug is.
I was reminded about how bad it is nowadays when the local Active Electronics outlet closed last year after being in the city for at least a quarter century. Unless I want to order parts on-line, and pay the associated shipping fees, there are two places in town where I can get electrical and electronic components, neither of which is oriented towards amateur radio or computing.
I wouldn’t be so sure about Butch being able to fix things, either.
A few years ago, I was at the checkout in a home improvement store and I noticed that the clerk was wearing a sweater that had a tear near the end of one sleeve. She fixed it by–get this–*stapling* it together. I remarked that my mother taught me how to repair such things and the clerk gave me the strangest look.
I guess women don’t learn how to sew any more. Then again, is home economics even taught in school nowadays?
My sister taught at Hutterite and private schools. One thing the boys learned was to always carry a knife. When packages arrived they were delighted to be called on for assistance. Because that’s how life was when she was a student.
With free tuition looming in Ontario for the under $50K crowd; there’ll be no future shortage of adult-sized liberal arts cowards.
re the class action suit:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-don-t-have-social-contract-ottawa-says-in-lawsuit-response-1.2577053
note the date. 2014. aaaaaaand who was in a majority gubbamint at that time? Mr Harper.
hiring a phalanx of lawyers to fight the veterans’ class action suit against the CONSERVATIVES ‘one-off-and=screw=you’ changes to veterans benefits, ie lump sum (as in like-it-or-lump-it) payment vs ongoing disability payments.
that last ‘no’, does that apply to my Q regarding the law suit or, the last Q i.e. are you a veteran? you ran out of answers. feel free to clarify.
while you’re at it, feel really free to defend the privileged elites who find ways to keep young Thurston Howard the 3rd OUT of the military. apparently when Joe Citoyen does that for HIS kid they get labelled coward.
60something My father-in-law was a veteran of WW2. His benefits we’re amazing. Along with a generous veterans pension which his widow still gets he received regular visits plus all kinds of free stuff like bathtub grab bars and home repairs.
You answered one question yourself. So there wasn’t much sense of me answering it.
that, Salsa, is exactly why the lawsuit. the CONservatives under Harper the control freak, wanted to turn those lifetime benefits into single lump sum payments. not good enough !! HOW could it be accurately predicted the money needed to provide care for the new generation of disabled vets? my guess is the pencil necks parceling out the funds would constantly underestimate the needs and adopt a take-it-or-leave-it approach.
yet those that balk at such despicable GUBBAMINT policy and refuse to serve get labeled ‘cowards’.
the lieberals have been crapping on vets since way back. seems the CONservatives recently caught on with this expensive and very telling fight against the lawsuit.
I carry a folding Buck,have forever, comes in handy a hundred times a year for dozens of legitimate uses. But then I was born and raised in the country, Dad was a trapper and commercial fisherman, always carried a pocket knife,so did almost everyone else.
My Son also carries a folding pocket knife,for the same reasons I do. One night he was stopped by the RCMP as he walked to the corner store,they were looking for a guy who had broken into a car in the area.
They asked if he had any “weapons” on him, he took out the folded knife and showed it to them. The cops asked what it was used for,and my Son replied that it was a utility knife,used for cutting string, opening envelopes,etc.
He then asked the cop why he had asked that question. The cop replied,”because if you had said you carried it for self-defence, we would have confiscated it”.
A very high priority for our Minster of Defence should be the development of a testing process that can weed out aspiring armed forces recruits who would be prone to developing PTSD.
… suffice to say that my wife is wholly incapable of properly ironing a shirt, pants, skirt … anything. I have to do it for myself, and for her. And yet, I am still secure in my Tim Allen manliness … I’ll measure the size of my deck against his … any day of the week.
Studies of PTSD are starting to show a correlation to TBI.(Traumatic Brain Injury)
In short, soldiers who experience concussion to the head(happens a lot from overpressure due to proximity to explosions) are very often people who have PTSD too.
I doubt they can weed these people out if there is a relationship between the two disorders and that relationship turns out to be TBI in the causal role.
“what turned them into such cowards?”
Parents willing to let state raise their children.
Because it is easier
Because nanny state narcotic is so convenient.
Because since we are already paying taxes to support the apparatus we may as well rip the benefits. Right?
Wrong.
My eight year old who goes to a public school knows well that whenever fun is forbidden it is “because liberals”. He knows that it is the sole reason he cannot bring a nerf gun to school, or make a make belief pistol with his fingers. He also knows that daddy always carries a knife in his pocket which comes in handy every time something needs opening. But he knows never to ask daddy to pull that knife out in public “because liberals”.
Funny thing is: when I was growing up behind the iron curtain my parents made it very clear to me what I can and cannot say outside the walls of our house. They also taught me what school was good for and what it wasn’t. These are the lessons I am recycling these days to my son. The more things change…
“I doubt they can weed these people out…”
The stuff I’ve read says that PTSD is sort of a relapse from a traumatic event suffered in childhood.
The incidence of reported PTSD over the past few years is fast approaching epidemic proportions. Unfortunately, it has become the modern version of the bad back. Lead-swingers and sore-arses get in line with the genuine sufferers.
I should have explained something in my earlier comment.
When I was in high school, which many millennials figure was back in the Jurassic Era, all the girls had to take home economics while the boys took shop. There were certain things that we were expected to know and do when we became adults.
That isn’t to say that all girls were excellent cooks and seamstresses or all the boys were great at filing metal or sawing wood. I’m sure that there were girls who were so inept that they would burn water and some boys who shouldn’t have been let anywhere near power tools.
Unfortunately, I believe much of that went by the wayside courtesy of feminism. Learning to cook and sew for a girl was a sign of being “oppressed” or some such thing, which makes me wonder just how they were expected to survive on their own. As for me, I’ve got no problem with doing my own sewing or ironing. Since I live by myself, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done. My mother understood that when she taught me how to sew on a button.
As well, I don’t have any problem walking into a fabric shop and, say, buying a spool of thread, which I did a few months ago. Some of the women there looked at me in bewilderment but, when I got to the checkout, I struck up a conversation with one of the clerks who, at the time, was sorting through some dress patterns. I grew up around that stuff and spent many hours in such establishments, so I started dropping names. Brands like Lightning, Coats, and Butterick were as familiar to me as Dodge, Ford, and Chevy or, for that matter, Black & Decker, Stanley, and Snap-On.
I’m sure that when I left, a few of the women there were smiling. I not only knew what I was talking about, I wasn’t in the least bit embarrassed.
For brain injury (concussion) related PTSD, hyperbaric oxygen (over a period of months or more) can be a very effective therapy.
in all seriousness, and a prime example of the difference between the ‘traditional male’ approach to building projects, after the 2nd deck I built I perfected a method of getting the posts precisely located 100% of the time with NONE of the guesswork and ‘nail biting’ I always saw up till then.
the trick was to pound temporary 2X4s into the ground and hang the outermost beams on them. it gave the clients, some of whom lacked the ability to properly visualize the end result, an opportunity to see far more exactly the shape and dimensions they were going to get. a few had the ‘oh my I didn’t realize’ moments. getting the deck level happened at this point, nothing ‘in the way’ eyeballing them. flat and level, *every time*. I then proceeded to hang the main support beams underneath those using extra long screws. and additional TEMPORARY supporting 2X4s if needed. they didn’t need to go in very deep, it was one of the fastest steps in my method of building decks. I then proceeded to drill the post holes within 1/8th of an inch of the main support beams and the stairs etc. precise and sufficient *every time*. then come time to cement the posts, I would get the longest ones I could, drop, cut, drop, cut, drop, cut thus minimum waste as opposed to lopping off waste with every one. only one pc of waste for multiple posts that way. I would then attach the posts to the beams with more screws, and drill and install the bolts in one quick operation. zip zip zip zip done. then the concrete and only then proceed to lay in all remaining secondary beams and finally the deck proper.
this approach was much faster because it eliminated a huge amount of guess work. naturally any time I suggested it the rest of the crew stuck on their single-train-of-thought methods would balk and find all kinds of ways to contradict.
the bottom line, the customers without fail appreciated the chance to be able to actually see what was in store and the fact I could get to the point of getting the posts into the ground on the first day. all of them, exactly where they needed to be within a fraction of an inch. I could even make use of ‘twisty’ posts by positioning the side flat against the beam regardless of the angle at the bottom. and if a main beam had a ‘bow’ in it, no problem, just see how much it could be pushed into proper position and locate the post hole there. any minor warping was immaterial because they were hidden underneath the deck.
but of course, control freak type males would react with derision and sarcasm when confronted with something new. meh. their loss.
“The incidence of reported PTSD over the past few years is fast approaching epidemic proportions.”
That wouldn’t be surprising if it is related to TBI.
Have you ever sat down and watched all those young guys on YouTube riding those little circus bikes and jumping over stuff or watched them riding skateboards etc.?
Down stairways and stair rails and concrete stub walls etc.?
Plenty of impacts to the head, elbows, and testicles.
We’ll be seeing epidemic reports of elbow/knee injuries and impotency as well as back and brain injuries.
I’ll be 57 this year and I’m starting to regret the foolhardy things I did in my callow youth that led to the many broken bones + knee and ankle injuries that I got in my salad days.
I too have had to mail my small multi tool with a one inch blade, back to myself a couple of times from the security area at the airport.
Several years ago at a Calgary C-Train station, a young kid got his scarf caught in an escalator setting up the likelihood that he might choke. A youngish fellow stepped forward, whipped out (sorry, JT joke – couldn’t resist) his pocket knife and cut the scarf away from the kid’s neck. Maybe saved his life.
I remember wondering then what a transit cop would have done if the fellow were merely cleaning his fingernails or peeling an orange. The answer becomes more clear every year.
Kate
O/T
Sounds like an experiment coming close to you
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/helicopter-money-comes-to-canada-ontario-pledges-basic-income-experiment/
The cop replied,”because if you had said you carried it for self-defence, we would have confiscated it”.
And that is probably the scariest summary of the times we are living in. Jackbooted thugs one and all.
“We’ll be seeing epidemic reports of elbow/knee injuries and impotency as well as back and brain injuries.”
Well thankfully due to the mentioned by you impotency, the problem may correct itself within a generation or two… 😛 Circle of life Simba, and all that.
PTSD is largely related to “social” norms, rather than injury inflicted. Past injuries may play a part in some cases, butt if you’v ever “employed” some of the modern nit witts, you’ll understand were I’m coming from
BTW: did you ever get rid of your couch by nanny stating, or did you become a real man and dispose of it yourself????
When I was in high school, which many millennials figure was back in the Jurassic Era, all the girls had to take home economics while the boys took shop.
I’m from that same era. All guys carried a pocket knife, and geeks wore sliderules on their belt. In our school boys and girls took shop and home ec. in classes that were all male or all female. Basic shop and cooking skills were seen as a necessary part of ‘well rounded’ learning, just like math science and language skills.
Yup. Unfortunately, I get the impression that the kiddies aren’t learning such things in high school any more.
I’m often reminded of that if I go to a store and pay for my purchase with, say, a $50 bill. I might, say, “Here’s a picture of Mr. King, which should be enough,” and it’s not unusual to receive a blank stare. “Who’s this Mr. King?” I’m sure they were asking themselves.
Knowing that sort of thing was expected of us 45 years ago.
And, by the way, I not only learned to use a slide rule back then, I can still use mine today. (I started doing so frequently when I was studying for a certain exam in which programmable calculators weren’t allowed. I passed, so I must have done something right with it.) It’s nice to see that there are some things that I can still do at my age.