All About McCain

[Tenigma]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

As I read that, this means that sex ed taught to kindergarteners SHALL include what followed.

What's wrong with teaching kindergarteners about age-appropriate information regarding sex, relationships, and reproduction?

Dr. Laura started talking to her son, Derek, about sex-related things VERY early on, just as part of his growing up. As a really young kid, when he was learning about body parts and about his normal bodily functions, she didn't mask words related to certain body parts, she just used normal words. And as he grew up she helped explain to him about how babies are created, and what happens during pregnancy, etc. and I believe he was probably only around 7 or 8 when he learned that some women have their pregnancies terminated (she let him come to his own realization that a woman ending a pregnancy meant she was having the "baby inside the mother" killed)... learning about sex and reproduction as part of life and growing up, as part of a whole, and understanding how integral relationships are to sex, was the way she chose to teach her son.

So no, if it's age-appropriate I don't have any problem with teaching kids early.

Seriously, if we are thinking of teaching kids "sex ed" for the first time when they are 14, it is often too late for many of them. Same with drug education. These things need to be introduced very early on while they are still forming their opinion about life.

[scaeagles]

Age appropriate? Nothing wrong at all. My kids were well versed in the "these are my privates and you don't mess with them" very early on.

I am at fault for not reading the whole text of the bill. I read the first paragraph and not the rest. I do believe there is a deliberate attempt to mislead the electorate by not citing the rest of the bill.

Mousepod, I do not claim to know everything, and come here in part to learn from many, many intelligent people with opposiing viewpoints. It is not my desire to simply associate with lie minded individuals. I hadn't heard much about the whole thing, and a Google search on SB0099 (easy enough to find the number) allowed me to find and read the first portion in about 2 mins. I am glad I know now that there was more to the bill than what I read, and also do agree that there is an attempt to deceive.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

I'm not sure what link started the sex-ed topic but this story is covering an ad McCain's campaign is running.

I am curious why Obama is called Mr. Obama while McCain is called Senator McCain.

They're both called "Senator" at the beginning of the article and both are called "Mr." for the rest of the article...

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Tenigma

What's wrong with teaching kindergarteners about age-appropriate information regarding sex, relationships, and reproduction?

The problem is who decides "age appropirate information"


My experince, as a parent with kids this age, is that school administrators almost always take the path of least resistance for them. At our local high school there is a "zero tolerance" for alcohol. It takes away any discretion the staff might use and the responsibility that comes along with it. For example, someone who brings a bottle of NyQuil to school would receive the same punishment as someone that brings a half dozen bottles of Jack Daniels to pass out on the school bus during an extracurricular event. (Note: That is a real example not a hypothetical).

So allowing these same administrators to determine "age appropriateness" is troublesome to me. If they make a decision on what to teach and not to teach based on age they are opening themselves up to criticism for teaching the wrong thing. If they ignore the issue and just teach everyone whatever the bill says no matter how wrong it is for a given age group they feel safer because they can sidestep responsibility by saying "It's in the mandate".

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I don't get it. What's more to say about it?

"Abstinence is not having sex until you get married. It's the only guaranteed safe choice. 100% guarantee you will not get pregnant and 100% guarantee you will not catch a disease from having sex. The decision to have sex is an important one not to be taken lightly and will have lifelong consequences no matter how safely you do it."

That's what I remember from my sex ed classes. What else is there? Do you need a textbook to illustrate how not to have sex? A scientific analysis of exactly why not having sex prevents pregnancy? Discussion of clinical trials that measure the likelihood of contracting an STD while not having sex?

They seemed to not be shy about showing scary movies about what happens if you don't use protection.....why not show some scary movies about what happens to some kids who did use protection but somehow it failed? That could ballance out things a bit......plus, they didn't seem to mind repeating themselves over and over again about safe sex, why not repeat themselves over and over again about abstinence?

My point is....the way it was presented made it pretty clear that the adult world pretty much expected us to be having sex and that the whole "abstinence" speil might as well have been told with a wink wink.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

It is not my desire to simply associate with lie minded individuals.

Freudian slip?

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

They're both called "Senator" at the beginning of the article and both are called "Mr." for the rest of the article...

Thanks. My eyes must have missed that.

[Betty]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

From what I recall of my 10th grade sex ed classes they pretty much did hide the concept of abstinence.....yeah, they told us about it; they did say it was the best way to avoid pregnancy etc; but they spent all of two minutes(or about 1/20 the time they spent explaining how to buy a condom) on the idea.

Two minutes on abstinence out of a total of 9 weeks of sex ed to me might as well have been hiding the concept; but that's just my 2 cents.

You had 9 WEEKS of sex ed? Wow. We had a 1/2 session I think twice - once in elementry and once in jr. high.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

My point is....the way it was presented made it pretty clear that the adult world pretty much expected us to be having sex and that the whole "abstinence" speil might as well have been told with a wink wink.

While the message I got out of sex ed was, "Promiscuous sex is risky. It's really risky. My god it's risky. So risky that we're going to spend hours and hours explaining what you'd need to do to protect yourself. Look, here's some horrific pictures of what happens if you fail to protect yourself. If you have sex, no matter how hard you try to be safe, this will always be a risk."

What better promotion of abstinence can there be?

[Alex]

They were both first referred to as Senator on first mention and then Mr. on all later mentions (of the individual, when talking about the campaign of either no title is used).

It is standard Times style.

For example, this sentence:

In another part of the advertisement, Mr. McCain maintains that Mr. Obama’s sole achievement in education was the sex-education bill.

ETA: Whoops, missed the next page.