lagarthaaz

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  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    Australia
  • Religion
    Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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  1. Reading your post made me feel woozy - I had vertigo once for about three days and it was the worst so I can empathize! I was hoping to read how others have coped with it as a sister from my ward suffers with it regularly but her doctors don't seem to have figured out a cause. She is often so out of kilter that it's too dangerous for her to walk or stay at home on her own because she can't even fetch a glass of water or prepare food. Family members have to come and stay with her until the episode passes. I would love to know how to help her!
  2. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas now mine is past and yours is just beginning! :)
  3. For the first time in decades, I decided to try a laid back Aussie Christmas dinner. Usually I spend half the day cooking and baking and carrying on, but this time we fired up the barbecue and made hamburgers served on rolls with salad and beetroot. It was great! Not sure I'll do it again though, I realized I kind of like the traditional trimmings :)
  4. No, of course we aren't teaching our children that sexual violence is acceptable - I don't, and I'm sure no-one else on this board does either. While I empathize with anyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse and can see how the quote above might make you feel, I do not believe that President Kimball would have ever intended his words to be interpreted as blaming a victim for the sins of their attacker. The key part of the quote for me is this: "There is no condemnation when there is no voluntary participation.". Having read many of his talks and listened to him in various conferences, I know that President Kimball greatly valued and loved women in the church and he had compassion for the struggles that many women face. Yes, some of his comments were reflective of his time (and therefore may seem old-fashioned today), but I do not for one minute believe he would have ever condemned a victim of sexual abuse. As a convert when Pres. Kimball was prophet of the church, I recall reading the "Miracle of Forgiveness" and took from it a powerful message of Christ's atonement and forgiveness for each of us. I too was abused as a child, and did not take from the book that I was somehow unworthy because of what happened to me, I just thought the message was beautiful in that each of us can become clean and pure through Christ's atonement, no matter what we have done. What's most important to remember about the issue of sexual abuse, is that the church today most definitely does not blame victims of abuse or assault. The church website states:"Victims of abuse should be assured that they are not to blame for the harmful behavior of others. They do not need to feel guilt. If they have been a victim of rape or other sexual abuse, whether they have been abused by an acquaintance, a stranger, or even a family member, victims of sexual abuse are not guilty of sexual sin." Elder Richard G. Scott reinforced this: "I solemnly testify that when another’s acts of violence, perversion, or incest hurt you terribly, against your will, you are not responsible and you must not feel guilty."
  5. I'm the same, I don't like going to the temple much either. I'm not comfortable with large groups of people, or with repeated ritual, and all the hustle and bustle moving around from one thing to the other leaves me feeling bothered every single time I go. I've tried to like the experience, but really, if I'm honest, I just don't.
  6. Well, in Australia that's who you would see most of working at soup kitchens - the Lefties are the bleeding hearts, the ones who will get involved in causes for the underdog. My son-in-law is an atheist and he wouldn't lift a finger to help anyone down and out - but that doesn't mean we can tar all atheists with the same brush. I know plenty of caring and compassionate atheists, particularly those who work in the science industry. If we don't like being negatively stereotyped and labeled, we should try and avoid doing it to others. even those 'Lefties'.
  7. Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! And with the focus on getting the budget back into surplus, I thought it’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do — babysit! Let’s be honest, parents can get that for less than minimum wage. But I guess they do have some kind of qualification, so we really can’t offer less than the minimum. That’s right. Let’s give them AU$16.37 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be AU$65.48 a day (9-3 but I’ve taken an hour off for lunch, 15mins for recess and another 45mins for the odd free period they might get – let’s just call their working day 4hrs.) So each parent should pay $65.48 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children (My 3yo’s daycare is about AU$90 per day… so pretty good value!). Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? But I’m not counting those kids who just sit there and do what they’re told… seriously monkeys could do that… so let’s just say only about about 15 or so kids really need ‘looking after’. So that’s AU$65.48 x 15(kids) = AU$982.20 a day. I’m sure we can work it out so the costs are spread evenly across parents. Sounds like a lot, but don’t worry… these bludgers only work 40 weeks a year! I ain’t paying for them to go on their luxury yachting holidays I can tell you that! And just to be on the safe side, we’ll knock off another week or two to cover public holidays and sick days… sod it… I’m taking off another month! So rounding it down to 36 weeks, these jokers are only working 180 days a year! Let’s see if my primary school math teacher did anything right… That’s AU$982.20 X 180= $176,796 per year. Erm… hang on… what’s happened here? A classroom teacher of 8 years experience at the top of the scale earns around 90 grand. AU$90,000/180 days =AU $500 per day ÷ 30 students = $16.67 (just over minimum wage) ÷ 4 (working) hours = AU$4.17 per hour per student (and that’s before tax!) — a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!! http://danhaesler.com/2014/06/02/we-pay-teachers-waaaay-too-much/
  8. But aren't high school teachers expected to be specialists in their subject areas?
  9. Same here - I get in trouble from both sides, so maybe we are more libertarian than anything. One example - I remember at university getting into heated arguments over the topic of abortion (pardon me, I am supposed to say 'termination of pregnancy'). The same people who were in favor of elective abortion would drive around with pro-animal rights stickers on their cars saying "Meat is Murder". Hello - killing a human fetus is ok, but killing a cow isn't? Having said that, I also agree with the church's compassionate stance on abortion in 'rare cases'. This gets me in trouble with friends who are both pro-choice and anti-abortion... can't win either way
  10. Vort, I appreciate your articulate response to my limited understanding of the concept of "rights" as its been discussed in this thread. After reading your comments I did some reading on the origin of the Declaration of Independence, which took me on a trip through the the Age of Enlightenment, and the concept of 'natural rights' espoused by Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers. That's all helped me understand what you were trying to explain about the difference between natural rights and government protected rights. I also read up on what other posters said about the 'unalienable/inalienable' rights referred to as well. So, bearing all that in mind, when I say that 'healthcare is a basic human right' as outlined by international agreements that a country may be signatory to, I am not referring to 'natural' human rights, but to social rights decided on by citizens that the government is then obligated to protect. Does that make sense or am I still not getting it? Having lived in a society for most of my life where services like healthcare and education are taken for granted and always referred to as a 'basic human right', my ideas have very much been entrenched in this understanding. Australia, like the USA, is signatory to various international agreements on human rights, and citizens' rights are further protected by federal and state laws. And yet, for a country with cultural sense of entitlement to 'rights', we don't even have the concept enshrined in our Constitution (and we don't have a Bill of Rights). Rather, rights for individuals may be necessarily implied by the language and structure of the Constitution. That's where I've been coming from, hopefully it gives some perspective about how we've been viewing the concept of 'rights' in very different contexts. There is a difference between a government protecting rights, a government defining responsibilities, and a government doing its duties. Rights have to do with allowable actions, exercise of conscience, and human interaction, never about possessions. In no case is health care a human right to be protected, any more than education is a "right" or property is a "right". We have a right to possess such things, but you have no right to demand that I give you such things. Yes, I understand that. A simple and pretty good way to test if something is a "right" is to ask: "Can I reasonably demand my neighbor to supply me with this?" If the answer is "yes", then the thing under consideration might be a right. If the answer is "no", then it is not a right. Examples: In general, can I reasonably demand that my neighbor give me: My exercise of religion, without interference? Yes.An automobile? No.The freedom to speak my mind about politics, even if he doesn't like them? Yes.Health care insurance? NoSo exercise of religion and freedom of political speech are true rights; cars and health insurance are not. If the UN doesn't understand that, that just goes to show that we should not take our legislative understanding from the UN. One question here - do you know if the idea of universal 'natural rights' as determined by Enlightenment thinkers and then enshrined in the Declaration of Independence - are considered to be culturally variable - or, do they only subscribe to a European construct of 'true rights'? [Edited to add - never mind, I just read this site and read that the issue was not clear cut even in the 17th century!) Maybe you can add to this? A government has a few primary responsibilities. Foremost among those is defending the rights of its citizens. What other things a government takes responsibility for is up to those who establish the government. In the case of US and western democracies, that means it's up to the people, since it is the people who establish the government. But people must then be wise about what they demand of their government, because government is a huge and immensely powerful tool. It is a genie that, once out of the bottle, won't go back. Americans have traditionally understood this, and many Americans have thus argued forcefully for a very limited government. Thus we have the apocryphal quote, supposedly from Thomas Jefferson, "That government is best which governs least." If the people get together and decide they want their government to tax people and use the money to pave roads, then that becomes a duty of that government. But "paved roads" do not magically become a human right. There is no human right to paved roads, any more than there is a human right to automobiles or health care. Similarly, people might decide they want their government to tax everyone and use the proceeds to fund public health care. If they so decide and legislate -- and that is a foolish choice, in my estimation -- then that becomes a duty of the government. But never confuse that with a right. it is no right. A good, righteous government might very well do away with publicly funded health care, publicly funded child support, publicly funded education, publicly funded welfare payments -- heck, even publicly funded roads. But by definition, a good, righteous government can never do away with defending the rights of its citizens. Thanks for the insights!
  11. Erm, no,it wasn't me who said that. Our system doesn't even work that way. And I'm a she, not a he.
  12. What prestige? What pedestal? Oh, you mean in discussions like this one? I typed a lengthy response to many of the things you have said, but your comments about teachers are so unpalatable that I don't even want to engage. It is good to know that someone with a whole ONE year of experience as a substitute teacher can tell the rest of the profession about what "really" goes on in schools.