Third Friday: the new world order issue

This Friday I thought I'd take a break from the baby and childhood related issues and go with a political one. As you may or may not know I've been studying International politics this spring so I am all read up on globalization, regionalism, nationalism and terrorism. The topic of the new world order has come up at several points during my studies specifically in the form of Mary Kaldor's "New and Old Wars" and excerpts from Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" and Fukuyama's "The End of History".
These three all give different perspectives on the new world order Kaldor for example argues for a cosmopolitan approach where the UN will take the role of world police and the focus will be on humans and humanitarian issues.
Huntington on the other hand believes that the world will be divided along the lines of the eight main civilizations: Western, Latin America, Islamic, African, Hindu, Sinic, Orthodox and Japanese. The world will then be clashing along the lines of these.
Fukuyama argues that the end of history is that the liberal capitalist democracy has won. Communism is no longer an option and the end of history is therefor the end of the humans ideological evolution.
Now personally I don't agree fully with either of these since Kaldor is way to optimistic and utopian in her world view and Huntington divisions are too rough and don't account for all the different kinds of cultures within the great eight. Fukuyama has a point when he says that the liberal capitalist democracy is the new leading form of governance but I can't agree with his belief that this is the end of history. One might even argue that it is in fact the continuation of history after the dead lock between communism and liberal democracy that was going on during the cold war.
I would hope that the future world order would include some shape or form or higher international government since that is a good way to keep peace and ensure that we don't destroy our planet too much. But I am not optimistic that this will in fact happen. Sovreignty is too important to the individual states.

What do you believe? Please share your realistic and unrealistic ideas about the new world order!

Second Friday: The testing issue

I am taking a distance course from a University in Sweden and on Monday I have my first proper exam. It's a bit of a hassle since I had to find a place to write it and then file a request with my school to be allowed to write it there. The more I study for this test and the more I look at old exams it just strikes me as odd how the testing system works. I understand why they have to do tests but for the life of me I can't think of any time where I will actually have to know all the causes for the beginning and end of the Cold War without being allowed to look it up.
I understand that certain thing you just have to know like the grammatical rules for a language, or how to install things if you're an electrician or something, but exact dates for wars... I don't think so.
Now testing throughout school is necessary but the importance we put on the test should be much less. I read this thing on Babble this week about a woman who's child had done well on pre-k exams and how her friend who's child didn't do so well had to scramble to find a preschool because the test scores were not high enough. To me the idea of testing 4 year olds to get the "gifted" or "brightest" ones to attend a certain school just seems plain wrong.
I personally believe in evaluating someones ability to find information as well as analyze it. That's what should be tested, not my ability to memorize dates and causes just so I can forget them as soon as the test is done.

Please feel free to share your opinion on the topic, or any other topic you think I should bring up for discussion!
I know this post isn't as long as it should be but I do have a test on Monday and not enough time left to cram all those dates into my head!

First Friday: The circumcision issue.

I read a lot of blogs that really touches me like this one for example, and they inspire me to write these long and awesome posts about things like the perfectness of W's wrists or the way his hair falls. But I also read a lot about other things like circumcision or natural birth advocates and the whole breast vs. formula debate, which inspires me to write about these issues. Unfortunately it turns out I am not only inspired but also lazy so all these posts I write in my head tend to stay in my head and never see the light of day.
In order to better myself and be less lazy and more motivated and proactive I have now decided to do at least one proper post a week, every Friday about something inspiring with the appropriate links to the person who inspired me of course.

Today's topic will be circumcision.

I read a few days or weeks ago (who keeps track of time anyway) about this doctor in the USA who is specialized in circumcisions and who has taken it as his personal quest to ensure that all little boys in the US gets circumcised. He points to all these benefits of circumcision as better hygiene, reduced risk of STD:s, reduced risk of penile cancer and so on and so forth. I have read about these benefits before and maybe it's true but I think that the marginal difference it makes is redundant in comparison to the fact that you are in fact surgically removing a fully functional piece of your son's body. (Now you know where I stand) I understand the benefits of circumcision if you live somewhere where there is no access to condoms or clean water to clean yourself, but on the other hand if you have no clean water to clean yourself with then you probably won't have any better hygiene down there than an uncut fella.
Circumcision is still somewhat the norm for little boys in the US which is strange since it's the only place in the world who uses the procedure for non-religious reasons. In Europe where I'm from the norm is the opposite, and in all honesty I don't think that European men are stinky, disease ridden people just because they still possess their foreskin.
When my son was born we did not even have a conversation about it because it was never an option for us. I think my reasons and opinions are stronger and more emotional than J's but he never considered it either. For me the thought of cutting a piece of my newborns penis off just seemed barbaric. And besides who am I to chose for him weather he keeps his foreskin or not. At least like this he can chose to cut if off himself in the future, the other way around is way harder.
I watched this thing on TLC a while back about a boy who was turned into a girl after a doctor botched his circumcision and subsequently burned most of his penis off. It didn't turn out great and he eventually reassigned himself back into a boy and later in 2004 killed himself. Watching that reinforced my belief that we should not cut fully functional pieces off our bodies because you just never know if there are going to be complications. The fact that circumcision for the longest time took place without any anaesthetic, mind you that still happens today, is just scary. Did you know that before the 1970's surgery was performed on infants without anaesthetic because it was believed that they could feel no pain. Crazy!

Well that's all for me on this subject, feel free to post your own beliefs on the subject.