Hopefully, things will be better from hereonin:

People like to take stabs at random stuff on Facebook. Capitalism is one of them:

I propose, that as we're now in the early 21st century, we get beyond Marxism and Capitalism, who in many cases are remarkably similar in their view of man as just an economic animal motivated by greed or material concerns. Capitalism can be dynamic and has its positive attributes, but unfettered and taken out of a communal (national) context, it is a recipe for disaster, not to mention the fact that growth, development, and expansion of markets cannot go on for infinity. There are limits to growth, resources, and the abilities of societies to sustain these, socially and ecologically. What is the solution? Quite frankly, a synthesis of the better elements of capitalism and socialism.

I've covered this before, but let's rewind:

1. Capitalism in itself doesn't carry any intrinsic values. It's all about how you implement the system. The values of X nation will then guide that process. You can have a nation worshiping Hindu gods and still have a free market economy.

2. Where do you think concern for material standard is the highest? In a country where people are pretty well-off, or when people struggle just to get food for the day? Trust me, you'd be pretty concerned about money and material things if you lived in a shit hole.

3. Why would a synthesis of capitalism and socialism be superior to capitalism, when socialism has a terrible historical track record? It failed, everywhere, and is still failing in those European countries where it's blended with capitalism.

Let me repeat that: we are consuming ourselves to death, not because of capitalism, which is only a method of managing an economy, but because our values conflict with reality. If you hammer yourself on the finger every time you try to build a house, would you blame the hammer, or your own damn incompetence? It's so 20st Century to rail against capitalism, a superior economic system that triumphed all of its rivals, and came out as the most sensible way of maintaining competition and personal liberties.

You don't want the government to own your property, and you don't want it to own almost everything you produce. Be glad that you're living in a capitalist society, promote sensible values, and make the best of life. You'll be happier that way. Or, move to North Korea. Good luck!

Someone criticizingly mentioned that Corrupt was "anti-nerd" in the comments section. This seems to a point of recurring misinterpretation: generally taken as an espousal of empty machismo. Based on my cursory understanding of Corrupt's take on "nerd culture," I have to venture that it comes under attack for being a perfect demonstration of deflecting individual responsibility -- a continuing consequence of liberalism.

Nerds, to me - and this just might be a semantic point - in addition to being intellectual, bask in their social victimhood status. I study on a campus of 60 000 people who mostly identify as nerds. They all have a quest to be different and they wear their social defects as a badge of pride. Being socially isolated, or awkward, is no longer a mark of distinction when 59 999 other people suffer from the same issues.

Being a nerd isn't even a form of social rebellion so much as it is a form of social acceptance. It is a perverse source of happiness only found in relation to society at large. If nerds were able to re-structure the world as they saw fit, a world where sitting in basements and playing computer games all day were the societal norm (even though I would argue it already is), they would invent new ways to further differentiate themselves, more cripples to rely upon as a personality crutch.

The few intellectuals here in Toronto who seem to be well-adjusted, happy individuals - and I suspect elsewhere also - are often accused of being intellectual populists, as if their happiness was a bad thing. I fail to understand why perpetuating, or worse yet, creating, social weakness is positive. It certainly is not inherent to being intellectual, which I think is an important form of personal development!

Note that being socially awkward is often used as a funny replacement for being actually intelligent. It's as if playing particular computer games, wearing certain clothing brands, enjoying certain technologies are substitutions for the essence of being a nerd -- being smart.

I saw Alex's recent column touching on feminism and was reminded of some of my recent interactions with mothers. I know these women through work and have to talk to them for work-related material, but being a new father the subject of children always comes up.

I'm aware of social boundaries, particularly in the work place, so when I get started on a topic I feel passionately about I'm always very careful what I say at work. A couple of women talked about how they hate the idea of day care but really need their job. One told me "feminism sucks" when I finally eased the conversation toward the idea that we're stuck in a conundrum of two incomes being necessary to maintain our modern standard of living. Our entire economy is built on the idea now that both parents will work full time and contribute to the economic pie, even if part of that contribution is day care for children who would otherwise be at home. Who wouldn't see this as completely backwards?

I used the example of student loans. Way back when, before student loans, colleges were selective but even private universities weren't insanely expensive. Since everyone paid their own way or borrowed money from the school at very low interest rates, say 1%, if they needed to, colleges & universities focused on learning instead of money. Once you involve student loans to give people the "opportunity to learn", even though that opportunity always existed, it artificially inflates the cost of education. Down the road, you have insanely high tuition rates and people end up having to borrow money to pay it off with future income, another symptom of our debt culture. Never mind the fact that now everyone goes to school for a bachelor's, watering down the meaning for those who truly belonged in an advanced academic environment after grade school.

The same is true for the women's movement. If you inject a ton of new people into the work force, a few years later you'll have a spike in economic growth because family incomes on average have increased but prices haven't caught up yet. When companies finally realized they could charge more for services like day care and school, and credit card companies realized they could get more people to borrow more money, prices climbed. Now day care is barely worth the tradeoff to go to work for many women. Who would want to pay a good salary for someone making $10/hour to raise their child for 8 hours/day?

No wonder even women tell me that feminism sucks.

I don't blame women for slowly taking over society through feminist policies. Western men are getting weak compared to their counterparts in other parts of the world. They've been domesticated by the welfare State, demonized by Marxism, and confused by post-Modernism. Since we at Corrupt represent a New Right movement that rejects all three of these Western diseases, we refuse to be instilled by feelings of guilt, fear and paranoia.

Guilt

Psychological pattern: Self-imposed ideas and principles keeping you from acting out urges, desires and will power.

Stereotypical comment: "I'm sorry man, I can't do it, because X won't let me!"

While he rags on guys, what about the girls? Many guys are turned into pussies because young women are just inhuman in their cruelty towards guys. Christian females today are certainly not very Christian I can tell you that for certain from all the easy lays I've had from those "good girls", good girls are some of the most repressed, and hence the most kinky they are just brimming with all that pent up sexual energy, many christian females are among the MOST likely to give it up as quickly as possible.

So men should remain passive and not strive for virtues because women won't let us? That's not a justification, that's an excuse to remain on the bottom. Of course women will tramp on you, and of course Christian women will screw you over; you're weak. People around you will sense it and take advantage of you. Grow up, take charge of your life. Do you want to end up as some kind of pussy hippie with an ugly, whiny bitch to wife who'll harass you until you die?

Fear

Psychological pattern: Self-insecurity, and as a result, inherent pessimism to any form of self-assertive action. Often leads to defensive behavior.

Stereotypical comment: "Wow, that's a confident person with opinions, and I'm not, so let's gang up and hate her for it!"

Now I know where my opinions come from, some chick in university with no credentials who thinks she is unique cause she writes for CORRUPT and clearly has a personality complex due to the way she dresses and acts.

You have no class. Why would you let someone control your opinions? You control them, unless you're a retard. Obviously Sofia's got academic credentials--what do you got, more than beauty talk? I expect you've got a psychology degree at minimum, since you're playing Freud based on how someone dresses and acts. The truth is that you're another feeble guy who don't know what you want, what you believe in, or what you should fight for. Because if you did, you wouldn't waste time throwing monkey shit around here, right?

Paranoia

Psychological pattern: The idea that people constantly try to hurt you and make you feel bad, which in turn ends up hurting you and making you feel bad.

Stereotypical comment: "I really would like to save our culture, but it's basically hopeless, because the Jews control my people!"

Read the Talmud sometime, you cretin. Read Jews, in their own words.

It's safe to throw conspiracy theories around, because what you in fact do is casting the blame on a group without stating any facts whatsoever. It's a rhetorical move, but it doesn't impress me, nor anyone else whose IQ is equal to or above Western European standard. Instead of taking a handful of positive visions and at least making some of them reality, paranoid men regard themselves as victims of a group more successful than them. It's a mind-game: I can't beat X, so I'll keep saying X keeps me from doing good, therefore I have a moral argument against why I'm not doing good. Don't be fooled by this; it is laziness camouflaged as insight. Powerless people are sometimes sad, but powerless people who try to convert others to their cause is a societal problem. Cut them off.

I don't have a problem with taking a stab at psychological types manifested among our readership now and then. I don't hate anybody, I just believe in exposing negative behavior, calling it out in public, and giving examples of it. I don't believe people who manifest bad behavior are completely lost. They grew up in a decadent society that offers them too much safety, protection and propaganda. They need to learn to stand on their own. When you can manage a full time job, a family, a house, and at least push one civil movement forward, you won't even have the time to waste your life on guilt, fear or paranoia. You'll be too lucky to be alive as a man, as a Western citizen, and as a human being of the 21st Century.

I met an old Iranian friend this evening, and in passing by, he mentioned that it's hard to get in touch with me since I'm "anti-Facebook." I'm not really against Facebook (find my public account here). In fact, I see a lot of people using it to keep in touch with old friends, which is awesome, but we all know the pitfalls of social networking. You end up spending five hours a day blurting out stuff like: "I am now taking a dump," "These are my 999 favorite groups" or "I just broke up with my girlfriend, can someone send me funny YouTube videos?."

See me, talk to me, confirm me. WASTE - OF - TIME people, and you know it.

I'm quite baffled by the whole social networking deal, because I've always preferred dealing with people personally in real life than to send them lots of online messages. I believe young people spend too much time commenting each others personalities instead of getting involved with civil organizations. Start up a football club for kids, learn to play folk music with elder people, join a cooking school, support your local church, or help homeless cats find a home. Do something with your lives. In 50 years you'll be half-way dead and ready to be conserved by the welfare program for elderly.

If you need Facebook, keep it, it's not evil, but don't use it as an excuse to disconnect from society. Life is here and now. No one is going to save the world in a lifetime, so we need to look at our communities and help each other out as best as we can. That can't be done with a majority of people too busy farting around online. We need to meet new people, learn new things, challenge ourselves, harvest skills, find jobs and form families. Facebook is like HTML and genitals. They're tools, made to be used sensibly. I know you can spam the hell out of my account whenever I piss you off. But can you produce something of worth to someone other than yourself? Prove it; change your life.

It seems to me that most political groups in Europe are based on the principle of working against anyone and anything successful. If you have a lot of resentment and hate inside, here's a brief summary of historically successful groups you can direct your hate against:

- Whites
- Heterosexuals
- Middle class
- Christians
- Muslims
- Neoconservatives
- Americans
- Israelis
- Capitalists
- Rich people

Wait, did I just create a new movement for Communists and Neo-Nazis? Well, since they're so marginalized on their own, why not create a common party and simply declare war against successful people? It could become the most successful movement in Europe.

This always beats me about white nationalists: white people are expected to be in top positions of society because they've got high IQ. This is cheered and seen as one reason to why one should become a white nationalist. But when someone points out that Ashkenazi Jews also are leading within science, economics and politics because they've got a general IQ of 112-115, which is 0.75 to 1.0 standard deviations above the European average, it's supposedly because Jews are evil and are trying to take over the world. Yeah, right.

Why don't we just face the scientific facts? Eastern European Jews are highly intelligent, as a group even smarter than East Asians, and have a culture of intellectual discipline and excellence. They're supposed to be on the top. White nationalists additionally suggest Jews are on top to destroy Europe. But if you take a second look, white Europeans are generally leftist-oriented, vote for liberal socialism, believe in some soft form of multiculturalism, and love American Hollywood culture. Europeans believe in self-destruction, because that's been the dominant paradigm since WWII. All of our current leaders praise this development. Since Western Jews, both American and European, are liberal-oriented, they're going along with that meme, just like the average whitey is.

European white nationalism is an expression of how deep we're in this shit now. We're so neurotic that we blame a small "Jewish" (Israel is almost as multicultural as Russia) island for our own problems, and call it nationalism. The truth is that Israel, apart from American support, is completely alone in its struggle for survival and couldn't be in worse condition. That's why it breaches UN agreements and vote in extremists in office. In Europe many Jews don't dare to go out in public, in case a leftist gang accuses them of being Nazis or a group of Arab Muslims harass them for...well, being Jewish.

Whitey, your problem is not a Jew, but self-destructive behavior and a lack of civil confidence. Clean your house or shut the hell up.

If addictions are pathological, why aren't there more or equal cases of people getting addicted to things that don't feel as good as say, sex, alcohol, smoking, food, etc.? Why don't more people get addicted to health food over junk food? Why don't more people get addicted to non-sexual behaviours over sexual behaviours? Because many addictions are just liberal sterilizations of poor or indulgent character.

Liberalism actively seeks excuses for individual responsibility in order to justify large bureaucracy. If I desired to cheat on my boyfriend, I could claim I was addicted to sex. Moreover, if I wanted to indulge my appetites as much possible, I could claim to be addicted to food -- only fatty food, of course. Naturally, he would be expected to forgive me for either offense because, by definition, addictions deflects responsibility from the subject.

I don't see why it is necessary to attach psychobabble to every person with character flaws. It is important to accept that humans will act in fallible ways, without seeking ways to sanitize normal behaviours, otherwise we just grow to hate ourselves. We develop pathologies as a result of this self-hatred.

Man will always fuck, eat & sleep as natural conditions of his person, no matter how much we develop as a civilization.

It's very easy for those of you across the Atlantic to glorify American Conservatism, and for us in North America to espouse the wonders of blanket "Europeanism." I fancy that I don't belong to singular category, as most of my political views are still confused, but I warn of a stereotype steeped in painful truth:

Free market economies lead to self-entitlement complexes: a not inherently bad thing, but extremely grating for those of us that have to deal with it, even peripherally, in North America. The nature of capitalism is that you pay out of your pocket to get what you want, but this cultivates a constant desire to be immediately gratified with one wants. Enter the whiny, fat American.

As a lifelong resident of Toronto, I'm used to the unending patience of dealing with big bureaucracy, and therefore easily embarrassed and disgusted by the demanding entitlement I witness in many Can-Americans. Quite frankly, it turns into outright rudeness & ignorance very quickly.

Vacationing abroad is a perfect out-of-context environment to highlight the dissonance of one country's behaviour to another. What I hate most is that the American demand exists even in poor countries. The cultural insensitivity is shocking: demand versus need.

I used to work at a museum in Toronto, the sort popular amongst international tourists. 8 out of 10 Americans found something negligible to complain about, usually in a way that appeared like they were talking to themselves loudly about something, seeking some outlet, any outlet to vent their frustrations.

As yet, there's no viable alternative to capitalism, but be wary, it does have its pitfalls, mostly centered around obnoxiousness in its many forms.

This was sent to me by a reader. If you can overlook the Christian dogmatism, it really hits it home about the futility of adolescence:

People know that I am against sex education in school. To me it's simple: sexuality and sexual values should be taught to children by parents and their communal culture, not by public messengers of the government. The rest is up to individuals when they're experimenting in their teens. The biological aspect of sexuality should be taught in biology class based on scientific facts, but there shouldn't be any lessons concerning values, politics or lifestyle based upon those facts.

What happens when the government teaches our children about sexuality? They indoctrinate them with whatever ideological trend is popular at the moment. In Sweden it's been ultra-liberalism since the late 60's. It's a fact that gay and queer lobby groups are co-writing the biology books to suit their propaganda. Our teachers even hand out condoms from those lobby groups in class. And you say public education is not politically biased? When I went through sex education in school, I learned the following:

• "Here, have a condom!" (this indirectly suggests it's normal for 14-year-olds to have sex, as long as they're protected).
• "Can anyone here give suggestions on how to spice up sex life?" (this not only suggests the above, but really excludes a majority of the teens in the class room who haven't yet had any such experience).
• Homosexuality is just as morally acceptable as heterosexuality.
• Abortion is an important human right for women.

Read carefully: I'm not saying either of these suggestions are right or wrong. I'm saying it shouldn't be up to our education system to teach our children about them. Just as I teach my children certain values, certain lifestyle choices, certain moral behavior and certain cultural ideals, I have the right to be a dominant influence in how they perceive sexuality. I don't trust teachers or politicians to ensure that my future daughter avoids whoring like her friends and my future boy avoids ending up paying alimony to some dumb lay he screwed over when he was drunk.

Most young people, especially teenagers, are not capable of thinking for themselves or withstanding peer and teacher pressure. If an authority they trust say heterosexuality is oppressive or that whoring is good, they're gonna buy it. I remember gay lobby groups coming to college and trying to persuade us to convert to liberal sexuality. Most of my friends were brought up traditionally; they called the teacher a fag and ran him out. Some were immigrants and were taught to not even accept homosexuality.

Critics will say there are Christian families who profess extreme forms of chastity, or extremists who rally against homosexuals. So? Let them do it. Who are you, or the government, to say what they ought to teach their children? If the attitudes have no place in society as a whole, or if they're simply not in line with reality, chances are the children will grow up to dismiss them later on. Either way it's not any central power's job to babysit parents nor their children about this. The government's incapable of being unbiased on these issues, and regardless if what it teaches ought to be perceived as "good," it's brainwashing and has no place in public education.

What bothers me as a philosophy specialist is that too many non-philosophers read Nietzsche, thinking they've struck gold without sitting down to properly digest his ideas in context. For one, Nietzsche isn't a systematic philosopher and therefore people read him like literature. Then, unfortunately, because those readers have never been trained to read philosophically, fail to connect his problems with the solutions that can be found in complementary philosophers!

This is a pity, because one of the reasons I love Nietzsche is his essential connectedness to thinkers like Jung, Freud, or Heidegger. When someone thinks of the illness of society, particularly the problems associated with the ascetic ideal and the current ramifications of liberalism, the immediate conclusion is an active brand of nihilism.

But, the Hegelian interpretation of history tells us that there is a missing link between the ascetic ideal and the historical transition to active nihilism. A reading of Freud would indicate the same shift from pre-modern, psychically whole times versus the era of bad conscience, heralded by the advent of Christianity.

Jung would say that the shift is inherently psychic. Something psychic in us must have changed to mark the shift between tribalism and modernity -- whatever that means.

This is just another variation of Hegel vs. Marx on dialectic. Our society is ill, it is not denied, but the solution remains unclear, and will probably continue to remain a very hazy possibility until man has evolved psychologically.

I have decided to give up writing for Corrupt because of "other commitments". Specifically, marketing one of my bands is becoming more time-consuming and taking up just about all my "fart around on the Internet" time. Such marketing is really pretty boring, but attractive young women really like this particular band, so that's not a hard decision, is it?

I can already hear the cheers, but before you get too far in your celebrations - I'm not planning to disappear completely, I'm probably still going to make the odd post every few months or something. It'll probably be about sports, "the arts community" or nerds.

I thought about finishing this post with Trae's track "Asshole", but I'm too much of an optimistic and happy guy to really want to depart on such a note. Sure, I'm an asshole by nature, but a happy one. So, instead, here is something positive and inspiring.

I baffled a sociologist at the university today with this piece of news:

Scientists sometimes like to portray what they do as divorced from the everyday jealousies, rivalries and tribalism of human relationships. What makes science special is that data and results that can be replicated are what matters and the scientific truth will out in the end.

The cornerstone of maintaining the quality of scientific papers is the peer review system. Under this, papers submitted to scientific journals are reviewed anonymously by experts in the field. Conducting reviews is seen as part of the job for academics, who are generally not paid for the work.

Cracks in the system have been obvious for years. Yesterday it emerged that 14 leading researchers in a different field – stem cell research – have written an open letter to journal editors to highlight their dissatisfaction with the process. They allege that a small scientific clique is using peer review to block papers from other researchers.

She was baffled, because yet again we see the flaws of the European education system, which otherwise is so highly praised. The idea behind peer review was to let academics self-manage each other to ensure quality, but since much of the research today is politicized and most people act like monkeys when they're not checked, academics have begun using the system to self-promote political motifs.

This is one problem the whole Western scientific community needs to ponder. But there's a European-specific factor to note here. Most European universities are government-managed. This means that politicians are enforcing quality checks like the peer review system to be certain that tax money actually produces results. This system is now being manipulated and questioned.

America, only introducing similar systems with the GPRA act in '93, has escaped much of this dilemma since about a third of its universities are privately owned, funded by private and philanthropic resources. It also happens that those universities are ranked as the world's best. Do we see a pattern here? The government's quality systems have failed. Private investors are looking for results and seem to have created an academic environment unparalleled by any public system. Yawn, what's new?

Every blog needs an Englishman. Corrupt's got Alfred, a curious satirist who makes it a passion to mock the European Union and any people ill-spirited against transvestites, homosexuals and other minorities. Alfred's philosophy is a mix of evolutionary hedonism and free market competition, but stays clear of both the moralizing of the Right and the masochism of the Left. He doesn't need to stand anywhere--he's a bloody Englishman!

At what point in life did you realize you wanted to become a transvestite?

When I was younger, and when my dad was frequently out at the weekend working on some important reports with his secretary, my mother always had last night’s clothes scattered all over her room by every morning. I don’t know why she kept taking them off and throwing them everywhere! Our weekend cleaner, Brian, didn’t even clean them up but just left very early every morning. When mum went out that night to play poker I would sometimes put these clothes on and look at myself in the mirror. Later on I started trying out her makeup. I guess that’s how it started.

You describe life as ”a constant struggle between boredom and entertainment.” According to this view, is boredom something you're trying to avoid, or something you're trying to cope with and learn to appreciate?

When there is a struggle between two opposing forces, you can either root for one side or the other that tugs on you, or you can transcend the two entirely. Humans are hedonists by instinct. I think that condition affects most great apes.

How would you describe your political orientation?

The less politics the better.

You often mock the bureaucratic nature behind the European Union. Why do you regard EU as problematic?

Daniel Hannan explains the problems of the EU better than most. Some aspects of the EU are positive - certain regulation on unfair business practices, for example. Energy cooperation. But on the whole it’s a sterile, gargantuan, and creeping monolith of an empire-state that is making us less free, less powerful, and less democratic whilst costing us more money.

What is the attraction and benefits with a free market opposed to a socialist, government-regulated economic system?

I can do whatever the hell I want without some socialite tosser in power throwing my money around and lining his own pockets.

Can the free market idea be applied in other sectors of society?

Probably; competition tends to expose both the good and the bad. Both are positive outcomes.

If European governments have gone too far in controlling the lives of their citizens, what should the ideal role of a government be?

Europe, not including Great Britain, has always had an obsession with government power. English people are born intrinsically free, and are then subject to government limitations. Most Europeans, if they take a look at their relevant constitutions, will find that it is their government that grants them their freedom, not their birthright. The task of government should be to consign itself to irrelevance as much as it possibly can, whilst providing only the most necessary services.

You've been traveling around in Europe a lot. What is it about European culture that fascinates you?

Every culture on Earth fascinates me. Had I been born in the 1800’s I would have been the archetypal aristocratic colonist, faring all over the world, mating with the various locals and discovering plenty of treasure, both cultural and physical. I cannot explain this urge. Maybe it’s that hedonist instinct within me. I am curious by nature.

You are known as a skilled satirist in the blogosphere, not shying away from being offensive. What is it with Brits, who are otherwise fairly conservative, and their perverse humour?

We live in a fairly dull and physically isolated part of the world. We’ve had a fairly stable historic civilisation for almost a thousand years. No longer can we entertain ourselves with our empire building or defending ourselves against the Germans, French or Spanish. There’s a comfy settee in every home. What else to do, then, except try to make each other laugh?

The Irish. If you were king of Britain today, how would you deal with them?

Let them ruin their own country in peace.

We've written before that good-looking people are better singers and musicians than the rest of you, and now we also have scientific evidence that handsome guys are also superior athletes, even when rating the attractiveness of their faces alone (so, unfortunately for the girls participating in this research, they didn't get to check out their muscular bodies). We already know that guys with certain kinds of face shapes are stronger and more aggressive, but I was still somewhat surprised that this even works in not-so-aggressive sports like tennis.

So, there you go. Equality not just for the weak and stupid, but for the weak, stupid and ugly.

Humanists could get in a frenzy after research shows that people in a vegetative state can communicate just like normal people, except without the talking or moving parts and with a brain scanner attached. "We can't let these people die!" they will say, after such subjects exhibit the bare minimum of what can constitute being truly alive.

If I was in such a situation, I know what I'd be screaming on the inside:

"What's he saying?"
"Kill me. Over and over again."

The past month or so has been a bit crazy. We were asking for it when we wanted to do a house closing the day before New Year's Eve - crazy time of year usually followed by a lull turns into crazy time of year ramping up into an even crazier time.

It dawned on me recently that this is it. There may be other children, and our first child will be less needy (but likely still a handful) when we get further into his childhood. But once the house is organized to our liking, there will always be a project here, an errand there to do. Houses keep you busy, kids keep you busy. And of course, work keeps you busy.

It's unfortunate that people get lost in this busy-ness - it allows some of us ready-made excuses to disconnect from reality. In the midst of the busier times lately, it's not signing the documents to buy the house we'll remember, but rather the first night we spent in the house. It's not signing the checks or being able to borrow against the equity that you strive for, but rather building a good environment for one's family and sustaining it over time.

So we've paid particular attention to documenting some of the milestones we've seen our son experience during his fast growth. Still not quite six months old, this is what many parents are telling us is the "fun time": he's not quite mobile enough to realize there's more than just wiggling and kicking his legs, so he's content most times just to sit on someone's lap and smile, laugh, giggle. Now that he can fully support his head for a couple of minutes instead of just a few seconds, we're more comfortable taking him out on errands and to restaurants. He can even sit in a high chair for a bit and is eating solids. We've found this is a good time to continue giving a child lots of attention, showing him that he has loving parents. Giving them attention gives them confidence; not giving your child attention while you're in the same room as them can be detrimental to developing good social skills and social confidence. It all starts in the home, as they say. So whenever my son is in the same room as me, even if I have my work laptop open, I make it a point to make him laugh and give him some affection. Hearing him giggle, knowing he's fully content when he's in my arms, is one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced.

My wife has also forged ahead with feeding the baby solids after we got the okay from our pediatrician. There's no shame in buying ready made baby food, but there is a cheaper alternative that is also more natural. Try buying some frozen vegetables - squash, peas, etc., always asking a pediatrician. You can use a food processor to process the food, then put it into ice cube trays and freeze it. The food is good this way for months; we just put the cubes into freezer bags and use it as we need to.

These are the types of milestones to document. When people told us, "take lots of pictures", I thought they were joking - of course we would take lots of pictures. It's easy to get wrapped up in what people call "real life" but ignore reality and not make time for the little things. We have a camera and can record video, so we make it a point to use them. Our parents did, and having those albums and videos around three or so decades later really does help make that connection to one's roots and upbringing stronger.