Speaking to kids as though they are idiots is a terrible approach, and people really shouldn't do that. Even as young as six or so, most of them are much more intelligent and thoughtful than they're usually given credit for.

Granted, I wouldn't want to dictate the way other people raise their kids, but the years I spent volunteering with children taught me that they will be a lot more open, honest and comfortable with you if you converse with them with all the seriousness and respect that you would an important adult, but of course all the while understanding and having empathy for their necessarily limited set of experiences, egocentricity and smaller view of the world. For example, "my best friend hates me" seems trivial to an adult ("make new friends"), but could be a kid's whole world crashing down.

Even though the people in this video are doing an admirable job (even those who screwed up earlier by inventing a fairy tales to avoid a brief moment of embarrassment), the underlying subtext that the kids are likely picking up from their parents obvious uncomfortableness is that sex is a shameful thing and that discussing it (such as if they have questions in the future) will be painful and is best avoided.

Bingo. It's not uncomfortable or strange AT ALL for the children. They have no context whatsoever. They pick up the sentiments from the parents.

But, I did love the parent's discomfort in the video. (the real humor here)
it's often the parents that feel more uncomfortable talking about this stuff, than the kids. Unless you wait too long and the kids are just rolling their eyes at you, because they pretty much know what your saying before you get it all out.....

@A10anis
i do not understand why chomsky confuses you so easily.you pretty much have the same criticism on every video you watch of him.

his premise is fairly consistent and self evident:he is critical of power.

while i do not disagree with your assertions on personal responsibility and i suspect most people would agree with you on that point.i do not see chomsky making an argument against personal responsibility.so your point in that regard is moot.but to ignore massive monied and powerfully influential political and corporate institutions and their affects on society is naive' at best and venal at worst.

you appear to be made uncomfortable by the criticizing of the power structure and institutions of the west (i do not know where "here" is for you).which suggests to me that you have confused ideology with reality,made clearer by your suggestions:
1.taking advantage of an education system that more and more translates to debt peonage and a high percentage of not even working in the field utilizing that education.
2.free thought.
ok i have to admit this one made me giggle.
everybody has free thought but the irony here is relevant to the very video on how that thought is manipulated and your comment reveals in ironic delicousness.
3.certain rights.
yes we do have certain rights.rights that have been systematically chipped away at due to abstract wars on:terror,drugs,immigrants etc etc.rights are becoming more a suggestion than actual rights.

your conclusion has the suggested flavor that since chomsky benefited in this society that he should just shut up,sit down and behave like a good little boy,and that those who admire his courage to criticize the most powerful country on the planet are "followers".

since you do watch the videos of chomsky( you do watch them dont you?),yet have the exact same criticism every time,maybe it is time you actually read one of his books?
just an idea...
you may find much of your confusion in regards to chomsky will be clarified.

To the religious, we are alone and we are it, and many are quite happy to drive nothing other than a stake through further human accomplishment by putting limits on those who would try. I think the discovery that we're alone would make that worse, but that's nothing to worry about because you can't prove that.... otherwise we'd have proof God doesn't exist. (Merry Christmas!)

There's another alternative that sits so uncomfortably with me, and that's if light speed is the limit and there's no circumventing it. The reason it doesn't sit well with me is that it means effectively intelligent life will always exist in isolation, the only hope being that civilisations pick up ancient transmissions from other civilisations. It is inevitable in my mind that there is life out there of some kind, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be tangible to us. I feel like that would be a tragedy beyond shakespeare.. inevitable cosmic loneliness.

rule of law?
really?
you mean the law that ignores the lying liars on wall street?
the law that criminalizes the poor?
you mean THAT law?
a criminalized elite that legislates laws that benefit them and their cronies while crushing the working class.
wrong side bob.
thats ok..seems @ant agrees with you.

i find it hypocrisy of the highest order those who claim to be christian and follow the teachings of jesus,who will abandon his teachings when it becomes uncomfortable and inconvenient.

nevermind that many of the laws and rights you so enjoy nowadays were hard won by the sacrifices,and sometimes deaths of those who think and feel exactly as this video portrays.

hypocrites......the lot of ya.

@newtboy
told ya he was pissed.
i admire this mans passion.
in fact,i applaud it.

while i do not agree with his attack therapy tactics and do not subscribe to his over-all conclusions.i absolutely ADORE how he calls out the cognitive dissonance of the american voter.

because he is right.

how can you subscribe to a law that makes prostitution illegal,yet porn legal?
or the guy who deals crack or meth as being a criminal? yet opiates are,by far,the leading cause of death in regards to controlled substances.so who is the bigger criminal?

and what,exactly,IS a criminal?is it because the state says so?if you subscribe to that,then i am a criminal.

i found his condemnation of the christian church to be the most delicious.
jesus christ was an insurrectionist,a radical,a dissident and a dissenter.a zealot in the face of the powered elite.

so how can you fight a war of aggression in jesus christs name?
how can you state that god blesses america with over 2.4 million people incarcerated?or to categorize and demonize those who may be different i.e:gay,lesbian or atheist and yet still call yourself a christian?

i giggled with delight when he pointed out that the very same people who are championing those insurrectionists,dissidents and agitators of the past as somehow being representative of their morals and ethics,are the very same people they are demonizing today for breaking the rules.

this man is so pissed off and i love it.
he says things that will make conformists extremely uncomfortable,and we NEED to be a bit uncomfortable.if only to shake off the apathy and lethargy.

as for the taxes argument..meh..i dont subscribe to the "privatize everything" ,because some things should not be profit driven,but i also do not subscribe to the 'taxes pay for essential services",unless wars of aggression,corporate welfare and big-agribusiness subsidies are considered "essential".

our democracy is broken,our government dysfunctional and serves only to keep the balance of the status quo on top..and fuck the regular dude.

can you REALLY say your government represents you?
ok,go ahead and vote.here are your choices:chocolate or vanilla but both are made by hagen daaz.

you really should watch to the end..he just gets madder and madder.
truths can often be uncomfortable,but that never changes the fact that they are truths.

and goddamn i love your optimism! just cant share it on this issue,though if you could bottle it up i am betting you would make a fortune.

ill have three bottles of newt please...to go.

At least originally, I think that was the point of Dredd. He was never meant to be the good guy, he was a cautionary tale.

As the character became more popular, they had to justify his actions more and more until he eventually became the good guy, even if only in comparison to his enemies.

I liked that about him though. The writers weren't heavy handed. Dredd could do something incredibly cool one minute, and then they would remind you that, yeah, this guy's a one man personification of the police state. It made for uncomfortable reading.

While the movie didn't really capture that, it was still a great flick and it's a shame they never made a sequel

Thank you for pointing out the linked article.

Let me expand on my thoughts here.

I have no sympathy for the officer in this video after the actions shown. I imagine that the best defence he could muster would be to show what happened leading up to the video we see here. I also highly doubt that such a “best defence” would come anywhere close to justifying how he (mis)handled this recorded interaction. The suspension is absolutely warranted. And I hope it isn’t short.

In regards to police use of cameras, I don’t doubt that some will behave unprofessionally in spite of a camera being present. But knowing that a camera is recording does deter some bad poor behaviour. This jerk cop even says that if he knew he was being recorded that he would have acted differently.


I have been concerned about how many police officers view cameras in general as a threat. I’ve seen so many videos where an officer lashes out about being recorded...

Recording should be viewed favourably. Dashcams are already common on police cars in some areas. They provide evidence, which can and should be used to back up the story filed on any police report. Ideally this recording should show how well the situation was handled by the officer involved. (Gold star for Mr. Officer Good Cop!)

If an officer is uncomfortable getting recorded, or feels threatened by the presence of cameras, they probably shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, and if they do much of it, they should probably find other work.

If a cop behaves atrociously on a police camera and gets away with it, then the corruption lies deeper than just a cop out of line. And the consequences of that should reach into the administration until anyone involved in such a coverup is removed from public duty. They are no longer fit for the role, if they ever were. There is no room for fraud in an organization that is founded on the principles of upholding the law and protecting the public.

this made me uncomfortable

Well, OK....if you live(d) there you DO know it better than I. I have family near by, and have driven through many times. It always seemed far more 'conservative' than you say, but again, I never lived there, I'm just going by fleeting impressions and second hand info.
What set me off was 2 part...first that you didn't bother to watch the video but still commented on it as if you had (not so bad a thing, but odd), and second the implication that anti-homeless laws were a 'LIBERAL' thing and not a 'CONSERVATIVE' thing, because the videos shown/seen have clearly shown the opposite. Apologies if I went overboard.
The one's on film saying 'feeding them is keeping them homeless' or 'we don't want homeless people here, period, and anything that removes them or makes them uncomfortable is what we want' have all been republican/tea party elderly white people. It may be they're the outliers and it really IS a 'liberal' plan, but I ask you, which 'party' does the chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust belong to (I honestly don't know)? (I must admit I was really surprised to see the mayor is a Democrat).
So, while you seem to be at least partially correct (maybe totally), I hope you understand why I was (apparently) mistaken, since all the vocal people out there promoting starving the homeless are conservatives.
Where I live, it's a 'liberal' bastion, and we DO feed the homeless here along with other services they're offered, and we have a very vocal 'conservative' population that wants to do exactly what Ft Lauderdale did, make feeding them or offering ANY service illegal, including police and medical services. They're pretty hard core about it.

Yes, I think it was about 'starve the poor' as a method of removing them from sight, either by death or (more likely) displacement. It's not so much they want them dead, it's just they don't care if that's what it takes to remove them. That in itself SEEMS to be a 'conservative' mindset, not 'liberal'.
...but perhaps a Florida 'liberal democrat' is more right wing than a West coast 'conservative republican'?

Ahh, and we all live in a cesspool of retards and liars. Never forget! ;-)

Some would argue 1868... But the courts didn't even begin seeing it that way until 1971. If you're talking about the ERA then I think you have your tense wrong. Don't go yammering about Scalia either. He's a fossilized troll, little more.

People aren't sick of women wanting to be treated with some respect. They are sick of it being elevated above all other issues for transparent political reasons. It's a "get out the base" strategy just like race baiting is for the right. Hyperbolic concern over cat calling falls squarely in the politics of fear and division. "Don't go outside or the evil men (read: your republican husbands) will make you feel uncomfortable." I'd like to think the democratic leadership could move past that.

But seriously, it has to suck to feel like a piece of zebra meat walking through a lion's den all the time.

It's obviously a cultural thing that makes that behavior acceptable. It's human nature for men to have obscene thoughts about what looks to them like a hot piece of ass, but it's an unspoken agreement among "those people" that it's okay to actually act on those thoughts.

My wife has often been the target of strangers' attention, but I think neither she nor I would consider it harassment per se, though she has many times felt uncomfortable, ignored people, and tried to get away from them.

Is it harassment if the pretty girl on the bus catches you staring at her reflection in the window, like, 3 times in a row?

The most awkward interaction with women is at night, when they are walking alone in the dark, and you are behind them and they can see your shadow from the street lights and your footsteps getting nearer. I can't slow down and just keep distance because then I am a stalker. I can't speed up because then I am chasing her. So now I am trying to do all the things I think a rapist wouldn't do, which is exactly how I imagine a rapist would think, so I try to stop thinking like that. Tension mounts until I am within striking distance, when she takes a quick glance over my shoulder and sees my grimace (a poor attempt to produce a friendly smile), and accelerates to the maximum possible walking pace without offending british insensibilities. Her max is my medium, so we continue onwards into the darkness in silence, a couple of feet apart, air full of tension, neither willing to deescalate by crossing the road. Awkward. But maybe that's just me.

Unwanted attention is pretty uncomfortable. To me, harassment suggests sustained unwanted attention. I guess the problem is for the guy it's not sustained, but for the woman it is. If she is getting it from every corner, then the net result is harassment. Catcalling is just plain rude and disrespectful tho, no excuse for that.

Hah. Oh yeah. Ancient history now.

I got to be very uncomfortable with a personalized license plate because I felt like I became an obvious target for everyone I'd pissed off on the road every day.