Houellie,

You're the one that keeps trying to label me as someone who thinks they are a cut above the rest.
It's not about being "above" anything - it's about being aware of the options that are available.
I'm not necessarily doing an "Adrian Mole". Intellectuality is all very well, as far as it goes, but it can only take you so far.

I've loved being a mum and caring for my kids.I like cooking and gardening and all the stuff that goes with "home". I breastfed my last for yonks - simply because that's the way it worked out - no planning, it just happened that way. (no doubt, you'll accuse me next of trying to be some mother goddess).

You're the one who wants to make me out as a person who thinks they're superior.
It's your thing - not mine.
Like Pelican said, we all have to work out the way that suits us best individually from within the constraints around us.

*That commitment must include our capacity to love each other as human beings, to remember we are brothers/sisters on this planet. Without a spiritual basis, every system disintegrates.*

Lexi, your Kumbayah philosophies are all very sweet, but all this
stuff is in fact quite predicatable, no need for gurus, just
tune in to a few David Attenborough documentaries to understand it.

We are not above the laws of nature, but kid yourself otherwise.

If the crunch came, you wouild follow the same laws of nature.
First would come defence of your kids, plus the rest of your
family. You would look after their surival above all else, to
the death.

So you can see us a bit like that fat and contented pack of lions.
There is plenty for all and they all get along just fine, relying
on each other for company, amusement and resource provision.
They even schmooze with one another, mainly its males squabbling
with one another, to see who gets the sex.

Its only when the resources start to run low, animals start dying
and it all changes, to be about survival.

Human society is no different really. The veneer is thin, the
Kumbaya is great and no doubt fills the hearts of many. But
when the crap hits the fan, its back to survival of the fittest.

We are generous and caring, when we can afford to be. Evolutionary
psychology has done this stuff to death.

Houllie, I love my big screen tv too! But I bought an LED.
It was my electrician who pointed out that it only uses 140W
of power. Most likely that would be less then the old one which
Poirot drags out to watch the odd show.

I actually find it amusing that Poirot's ilk love reading books
and take it all as gospel, but if the same information is on tv,
then its frowned on. Real intellectual snobbery IMHO.

Okey Houellie and Yabby,

The game is obviously up...

You two come across as a pair of smart-arsed know-it-all adolescent schoolboys each clamouring to take the top mantle of working-class hero. (that's me being superior)

Obviously you're both harbouring a secret crush on me - but that's understandable, after all... (that's me being superior AND egotistical).

Sorry though, I have to decline as neither of you come up to scratch. (that's me being superior, egotistical and choosy).

(P.S. I'm thrilled that you love your big screen T.V., Houellie, - I hope you'll both be very happy together.)

i resent the resentment
the rebutting of an inherant goodness
[re the kumbeya comment]

i have seen many nature documentries
and while they occasionally show murder
ie meat/eaters killing to eat..it mostly is not a cruelty

a snake may bite..then wrap arround its next meal
but its holding firmly...killing fast and sure
ditto the lion holding the windpipe of its future kill
its fast and as clean as possable..

[not of spite or intent to hurt]

humans even in their most civilised best do their best
yet prolong suffering..in being kind they often prevent others from dying fast..

many long deaths are reported..
long painfull prolonged deaths

[often doped to the eyeballs
so much so that many spirits remain unaware they even died]

its to easy to rationalise us as civilised
and nature as survival of the fittest

but watch how even the most cruel 'beast'
loves and nurtures its young

or stays loyal to its mate

it might be 'creative'
to use creative licence

but its hardly constructive
to say our way is better

when that is only opinion at best

even a kitten ..accidentally killing its first mouse
mourns it...actually misses its plaything
it didnt have murder in its heart

*Obviously you're both harbouring a secret crush on me*

I doubt it, Poirot, for if I really wanted to chat you up,
I would be telling you how wonderful and clever you are,
boost your confidence and tell you all the schmalz that you
want to hear. It works like a charm most times.

Sadly you don't even own a car, so could not even come to the
wheatbelt to seduce me, even if you chose to :)

To me you come across as a typical new ager. If you
were any older, the Rashneeshees would have been your calling.
Because you've done a bit of reading, you're sure that you
are on the path to discover the so called enlightenend truth.

So some kind of snob value sets in, you consider yourself
above the bogans who don't homeschool or watch tv regularly.

Personally I feel a bit sorry for the kids of mums who swear
by homeschoooling. I went to school to be with my mates,
home was simply where the washing was done and the food was
provided. I would have hated a doting mother who wanted
to teach me as well, denying me all that contact with
friends, some of whom I still in contact with, to this day.

But doting mothers generally don't examine things from
that kind of perspective.

Dear Yabby,

Our physical adaptations and the behavioral flexibility offered by our huge and complex brains have made us the most creative species in the planet's history. "Homo sapiens" have spread to every continent, frequently driving other animal species to extinction in the process. We have become the most widely dispersed species on the planet,yet always finding some specialized means of living in these widely differing environments.

What accounts for this unprecedented success that our species has enjoyed thus far? The answer in a word - is culture.

We make our own social environment, inventing and sharing the patterns of behaviour that shape our lives, and we use our learned knowledge to modify the natural environment. Our shared culture is what makes social life possible. Without a culture transmitted from the past, each new generation would have to solve the most elementary problems of human existence over again. It would be obliged to devise a family system, to invent a language, to discover fire, to create the wheel, and so on.

Clearly, the contents of culture cannot be genetically transmitted. There is no gene that tells us to believe in a particular god (or not), to get married (or not), to drive on the right or left, to build homes, or to write computer programs. Everything in culture is
learned.

Culture is a substitute for "instinct" as a means of responding to the environment, and it provides a vastly superior way of doing so. Culture frees us from reliance on the slow, random, accidental process of physical evolution by offering us a purposive and efficient means of adapting to changing conditions. If we waited for natural selection to enable us to live at the North Pole, to fly, or to live under the sea, we would wait forever. Cultural inventions enable us to be insulated from the cold of the arctic, to travel through air, and to live in submarines - all without any recourse to physical evolution. The emergence of a species that depends for its survival on a learned culture is perhaps the greatest breakthrough in evolutionary history.