by Gene Veith on February 8, 2010
in Personal
OK, as I said before, I enjoyed getting snowed in. But I had failed to factor into my delight the necessity of shoveling off our driveway. When we moved down South, I let my snowblower go with the house in Wisconsin. Our driveway is about 130 feet long and 10 feet wide, and we had 2 feet of snow. Multiply that out and it comes to 2600 cubic feet of snow that had to be removed. An internet search revealed that a cubic foot of normal snow weights about 15 pounds. So that comes to 39,000 pounds of the white fluffy stuff. That’s 19.5 tons. Call it 20 (or more) since the driveway is wider when it cuts over to the garage. We had to move 20 tons of snow to get the car out! Coal miners in the Merl Travis/Tennessee Ernie Ford song only had to dig 16 tons! And a ton of snow weighs just as much as a ton of coal. I say “we,” but, while I took a couple turns, my son-in-law did virtually all of that work. That’s another good reason to have one.
Well, I was surprised. Comment here on the game, the commercials, the half-time show, or what it all means.
by Gene Veith on February 8, 2010
in Politics
Gerard Alexander, associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, has studied the phenomenon of how the left has a habit of simply dismissing conservatives–not taking their ideas seriously even when they are presented with factual evidence, condescending to non-liberal voters, and refusing to learn from conservative successes. He found that the liberal worldview is governed by four narratives that determine their assumptions and rhetoric about conservatives
The first is the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics. A dense network of professional political strategists such as Karl Rove, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and industry groups allegedly manipulate information and mislead the public. . . .
But, if conservative leaders are crass manipulators, then the rank-and-file Americans who support them must be manipulated at best, or stupid at worst. This is the second variety of liberal condescension, exemplified in Thomas Frank’s best-selling 2004 book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Frank argued that working-class voters were so distracted by issues such as abortion that they were induced into voting against their own economic interests. Then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, later chairman of the Democratic National Committee, echoed that theme in his 2004 presidential run, when he said Republicans had succeeded in getting Southern whites to focus on “guns, God and gays” instead of economic redistribution. . . .
The third version of liberal condescension points to something more sinister. In his 2008 book, “Nixonland,” progressive writer Rick Perlstein argued that Richard Nixon created an enduring Republican strategy of mobilizing the ethnic and other resentments of some Americans against others. Similarly, in their 1992 book, “Chain Reaction,” Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall argued that Nixon and Reagan talked up crime control, low taxes and welfare reform to cloak racial animus and help make it mainstream. It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants. . . .
Finally, liberals condescend to the rest of us when they say conservatives are driven purely by emotion and anxiety — including fear of change — whereas liberals have the harder task of appealing to evidence and logic. Former vice president Al Gore made this case in his 2007 book, “The Assault on Reason,” in which he expressed fear that American politics was under siege from a coalition of religious fundamentalists, foreign policy extremists and industry groups opposed to “any reasoning process that threatens their economic goals.” This right-wing politics involves a gradual “abandonment of concern for reason or evidence” and relies on propaganda to maintain public support, he wrote.
Read the whole article, which details and accounts for each of these paradigms. Watch for them. They even show up in our discussions on this blog.
via Why are liberals so condescending? – washingtonpost.com.
The military will start making available the morning-after pill, which prevents the fertilized egg from attaching to the womb, thus killing the embryo:
The Department of Defense will begin making the morning-after pill Plan B available at all of its hospitals and health clinics around the world, officials announced Thursday.
The decision came after a recommendation by the Pentagon’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, an advisory panel that voted in November to include Plan B and the generic Next Choice on the list of drugs all military facilities should stock. The Pentagon accepted the recommendation Feb. 3, a spokeswoman said.
The decision is the latest the Obama administration has made reversing politically sensitive policies involving women’s health that were implemented during President George W. Bush’s administration. Previously, the Obama administration has announced that it was rescinding a federal regulation that would have expanded the ability of health-care workers to refuse to provide medical care they found morally objectionable, including abortion and Plan B; has lifted federal restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research; and has restored funding to international family-planning groups.
via Pentagon to stock health facilities with morning-after pill – washingtonpost.com.
Snowed in this weekend. Again. We are supposed to get from 20 to 30 or more inches here around your nation’s capital. Last weekend we had 6 inches or so, and a few weeks before that we had 12 inches. Just before it hit, a book I had ordered came in from Amazon. We are all stocked with provisions. We brought in a big supply of wood for the fireplace. We are all set. I will do nothing and not feel guilty about it because I can’t even get out of the house.
I blame President Obama for all of this winter weather. Once he got elected, the oceans stopped rising and global warming ground to a halt. Actually, though, I should give him credit, since I consider the snow a good thing, as long as I’m not shoveling it or driving in it.
Normally, at this blog we talk about the two things that we are warned to NOT talk about, namely, politics and religion. So in our new Saturday edition today we will try to be more social. The safe topic, in contradistinction to those bad ones, is the weather. Is it possible to carry on an interesting conversation about the weather? Let’s try.
Do you have any weather stories? What was the hottest you’ve ever been? Has anyone drug through a desert under the hot sun as you were running out of water? What was the coldest? Has anyone endured anything like what Laura Ingalls Wilder’s father did in “The Long Winter,” where he went outside in a blizzard, got lost, couldn’t find the house, fell into a drift, and survived on the oyster crackers he had brought the family for Christmas? (If I’m remembering that right.) Have you tried to drive on the highway during an ice storm and spun out of control, barely escaping with your life? (I’ve done that.) Was the weather worse or better when you were a kid? Tell us your meteorology tales.
The family secret that reduced the star of the Colbert Report to tears:
Oh, the horrors!
Uber-Catholic Stephen Colbert had an emotional upset after finding out that – wait for it – his family descends from Lutherans.
The funny guy got the oh-so-shocking news while filming an episode of PBS’s upcoming “Faces of America,” a four-part documentary that focuses on the lineage of celebrities.
“This one was kind of unexpected, but when the big bad Catholic Stephen Colbert found out he was actually descended from Lutherans, he got extremely emotional,” the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., told us at Monday night's Lincoln Center premiere of the series.
The episode, which airs on Feb. 10, will show the entire ordeal. “We didn’t stop the cameras. Obviously we wanted to capture that moment,” Gates confirmed.
He later added: “There were tears.”
And while a rep for PBS wouldn’t comment, a network insider says Colbert was indeed shocked by his family tree.
“It was really very intense,” says the source.
“He had a very candid reaction, and it definitely made it in the final cut of the show. He was very surprised and overwhelmed.”
Perhaps that was the point. The source added that each celeb’s personal history uncovered on the show is bound to elicit emotion.
Given that Colbert is a master at faux sincerity, what about this revelation might be cry-worthy? Do you see any evidence of his Lutheran blood?
via Reality isn’t funny for Stephen Colbert; ‘Faces of America’ reveals his family history.
HT: Mary Moerbe
by Gene Veith on February 5, 2010
in Family
Joe Carter discusses a New York Times article on a particular characteristic of gay marriages: they tend to not require fidelity to one partner. From
Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret – NYTimes.com:
As the trial phase of the constitutional battle to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that, according to groundbreaking new research.
A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.
New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.
That consent is key. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” said Colleen Hoff, the study’s principal investigator, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.”
The study also found open gay couples just as happy in their relationships as pairs in sexually exclusive unions, Dr. Hoff said. A different study, published in 1985, concluded that open gay relationships actually lasted longer.
None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.
So what is marriage in this mindset, if it does not involve exclusivity and faithfulness? And this is described as “an evolution in marriage” that will change the institution also for heterosexual couples.
A new study has found that many comatose patients dismissed as “vegetables” have active minds:
In a study certain to rekindle debate over life-sustaining care for those with grievous brain injuries, researchers report that five patients thought to be in a persistent vegetative state showed brain activity indicating awareness, intent and, in at least one case, a wish to communicate.
Of 54 unresponsive patients whose brains were scanned at medical centers in England and Belgium, those five appeared able, when prompted by researchers, to imagine themselves playing tennis, and four of them demonstrated the ability to imagine themselves walking through the rooms of their homes.
One of those patients — a 22-year-old man who had been unresponsive for five years after an automobile crash — went on to respond to a series of simple questions with brain activity that clearly indicated yes or no answers, researchers said.
Their work is the first to give physicians and families the prospect of a biological test to determine whether a patient who shows no response to his or her surroundings is conscious and aware of them.
via Brains of vegetative patients show life – latimes.com.
A heavy-duty study published in the peer-reviewed Archive of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine has determined that, contrary to the latest conventional wisdom, abstinence education IS effective in reducing sexual activity in adolescents, more so than other approaches to sex education. HT to Webmonk for pointing me to the original study, which some news reports are not quite understanding. Here is the study, which gives this overview:
Objective To evaluate the efficacy of an abstinence-only intervention in preventing sexual involvement in young adolescents.
Design Randomized controlled trial.
Setting Urban public schools.
Participants A total of 662 African American students in grades 6 and 7.
Interventions An 8-hour abstinence-only intervention targeted reduced sexual intercourse; an 8-hour safer sex–only intervention targeted increased condom use; 8-hour and 12-hour comprehensive interventions targeted sexual intercourse and condom use; and an 8-hour health-promotion control intervention targeted health issues unrelated to sexual behavior. Participants also were randomized to receive or not receive an intervention maintenance program to extend intervention efficacy.
Outcome Measures The primary outcome was self-report of ever having sexual intercourse by the 24-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes were other sexual behaviors.
Results The participants’ mean age was 12.2 years; 53.5% were girls; and 84.4% were still enrolled at 24 months. Abstinence-only intervention reduced sexual initiation (risk ratio [RR], 0.67; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.48-0.96). The model-estimated probability of ever having sexual intercourse by the 24-month follow-up was 33.5% in the abstinence-only intervention and 48.5% in the control group. Fewer abstinence-only intervention participants (20.6%) than control participants (29.0%) reported having coitus in the previous 3 months during the follow-up period (RR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.90-0.99). Abstinence-only intervention did not affect condom use. The 8-hour (RR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.92-1.00) and 12-hour comprehensive (RR, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.91-0.99) interventions reduced reports of having multiple partners compared with the control group. No other differences between interventions and controls were significant.
Conclusion Theory-based abstinence-only interventions may have an important role in preventing adolescent sexual involvement.
President Obama has said that he will base policies on science. So I suppose that means his administration will start championing abstinence-only education.
by Gene Veith on February 4, 2010
in terrorism
by Gene Veith on February 4, 2010
in Ethics, Law
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, following the lead of his Commander-in-Chief, has come out against the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and is saying gays should serve openly:
The nation’s top military officer said Tuesday that he supported allowing gays to openly serve — adding a powerful voice to the deeply controversial issue as the Pentagon announced steps to prepare for possibly ending its 17-year ban on homosexuality.
Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military would follow the 1993 law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Nonetheless, he said, his personal views were firm.
“Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do,” Mullen said.
via Joint Chiefs chair says gays and lesbians should serve military openly – latimes.com.
This follows Defense Secretary Gates’ similar declaration. Other top Pentagon brass are saying the same thing. The issue is under review. A change in policy, though, would require Congressional action. See this. What effect do you think this policy shift would have on our military, if any?
