Even males of goodwill are likely to underestimate the horror of rape. Renee Devesty describes her rape and the aftermath:
I was mentally, emotionally and spiritually broken, and the thought of what had resulted from this vile act took my self-hatred into another dimension. I wanted no memory of that night, would do anything possible to erase it in the hope that it would somehow ease the sick, disgusting feeling I got every time I looked in the mirror. I realized that in order to maintain what little sanity I had left, I had to terminate the pregnancy.
Six months after the rape, I dropped out of college and developed an eating disorder. I collapsed into alcohol abuse and had abusive relationships. It took me 12 years of trying to kill myself before I could actually verbalize to a trusted counselor what happened to me. I spent the next eight years trying to reverse the damage that was done.
Twenty years of serving time for a crime I didn’t commit.
h/t: The Dish
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Michael Sandel Encore
Michael Sandel talks to Tony Harris of Talk to Al Jazeera about justice, its meaning and its context within the Arab Spring demonstrations and protest. What is justice? From Tunisia to Egypt to Irag, youth are particularly active in this revolution, but what is it that they want? Democracy? Employment? Rights? Sandel discusses these issues and more in this interview.
Plato's Cave
If you've read any philosophy, you probably have some notion of Plato's cave (from The Republic) in the back of your head, and even a vague recollection of an illustration in the text provided by a translator. H/t for this clip to The Dish, which also provides some comments on Plato as a sci-fi author.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The Cardinal & the Sexy Gurl
A friend writes about my alma mater:
Cardinal Hayes HS is doing well. They got a tremendous donation from Helen Gurley Brown of Cosmopolitan magazine who recently died. She wrote Sex and the Single Girl back in the ‘60’s. Cardinal Dolan gave her a big hug when he got the loot. Money conquers all!
From the Times:
By VIVIAN YEE
Cardinal Hayes HS is doing well. They got a tremendous donation from Helen Gurley Brown of Cosmopolitan magazine who recently died. She wrote Sex and the Single Girl back in the ‘60’s. Cardinal Dolan gave her a big hug when he got the loot. Money conquers all!
From the Times:
By VIVIAN YEE
Of all the men Helen Gurley Brown charmed in her many years of selling sex, beauty and diet tips to the modern woman (and taking full advantage of them herself), Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan - the country's most influential Roman Catholic bishop - might rank among the most unlikely.
But picture this: the burly, 6-foot-3 archbishop, clad in his clerical robe, embracing the frail, 5-foot-4, 88-year-old editor of Cosmopolitan magazine in a tender waltz on the steps of Cardinal Hayes High School, a prominent Catholic boys' school in the Bronx.
It was Oct. 20, 2010, about eight months after Ms. Brown's husband of 51 years, David Brown, had died. Ms. Brown, who died on Monday at age 90, had donated $1 million to the Cardinal Hayes foundation, endowing a slew of student scholarships and establishing a permanent fund for the school's annual play in honor of her husband, a longtime producer for Hollywood and Broadway. Ms. Brown, Archbishop Dolan, who was elevated to cardinal in February, and Regis Philbin, one of Cardinal Hayes' best-known alumni, had converged on the high school for a special Mass and ceremony celebrating Mr. Philbin, a frequent donor.
Mr. Philbin, his wife, Joy, and Ms. Brown were waiting on the school steps, Ms. Brown was leaning on a cane and being supported by an aide when Archbishop Dolan pulled up in his car. As Kevin Meenan, the school's fund-raising director, recalled on Tuesday, Archbishop Dolan had never been to the school, and he walked slowly toward the building to take in its elegant brick-and-stone facade.
Ms. Brown tried to walk forward to greet him, but she started tottering. Archbishop Dolan spotted her and jogged up the steps to help. Meanwhile, the school's marching band burst into the Cardinal Hayes marching song, inspiring the archbishop to take Ms. Brown in his arms and twirl her around.
The dancing lasted only for a minute or so, Mr. Meenan said, but he will not soon forget the image of the bearlike archbishop squiring Ms. Brown. He wore his black bishop's garment and a pink cap; she wore a drop-waist dress, black fur and lace-topped stockings.
"Everybody's clapping, everybody's amazed," he said.
Ms. Brown, Cosmopolitan's editor from 1965 until 1997, decided to donate to Cardinal Hayes after a senior attorney at the Hearst Corporation, which owns Cosmopolitan, told Ms. Brown about the school. Ms. Brown had a history of donating to educational and other causes, and her husband's death may have made her even more eager to donate to the arts, said her biographer, Jennifer Scanlon.
But in other respects, Cardinal Hayes was an odd choice for the woman who spent years teaching women to enjoy sex - premarital, marital and extramarital - and embrace Catholic taboos like birth control. Though her family was Protestant, she was not religious as an adult, Ms. Scanlon said.
"She didn't have much use, actually, for organized religion," Ms. Scanlon said. In fact, when Ms. Brown was marketing "Sex and the Single Girl," her best-selling 1962 book, she tried to bring it to the Catholic Church's attention in the hopes that church leaders would decide to censor it. (She thought it would be good for sales; they ignored her attempt.)
Almost a half-century later, however, she was pledging $1 million to a bastion of Catholic education -- and dancing in the archbishop's arms.
But picture this: the burly, 6-foot-3 archbishop, clad in his clerical robe, embracing the frail, 5-foot-4, 88-year-old editor of Cosmopolitan magazine in a tender waltz on the steps of Cardinal Hayes High School, a prominent Catholic boys' school in the Bronx.
It was Oct. 20, 2010, about eight months after Ms. Brown's husband of 51 years, David Brown, had died. Ms. Brown, who died on Monday at age 90, had donated $1 million to the Cardinal Hayes foundation, endowing a slew of student scholarships and establishing a permanent fund for the school's annual play in honor of her husband, a longtime producer for Hollywood and Broadway. Ms. Brown, Archbishop Dolan, who was elevated to cardinal in February, and Regis Philbin, one of Cardinal Hayes' best-known alumni, had converged on the high school for a special Mass and ceremony celebrating Mr. Philbin, a frequent donor.
Mr. Philbin, his wife, Joy, and Ms. Brown were waiting on the school steps, Ms. Brown was leaning on a cane and being supported by an aide when Archbishop Dolan pulled up in his car. As Kevin Meenan, the school's fund-raising director, recalled on Tuesday, Archbishop Dolan had never been to the school, and he walked slowly toward the building to take in its elegant brick-and-stone facade.
Ms. Brown tried to walk forward to greet him, but she started tottering. Archbishop Dolan spotted her and jogged up the steps to help. Meanwhile, the school's marching band burst into the Cardinal Hayes marching song, inspiring the archbishop to take Ms. Brown in his arms and twirl her around.
The dancing lasted only for a minute or so, Mr. Meenan said, but he will not soon forget the image of the bearlike archbishop squiring Ms. Brown. He wore his black bishop's garment and a pink cap; she wore a drop-waist dress, black fur and lace-topped stockings.
"Everybody's clapping, everybody's amazed," he said.
Ms. Brown, Cosmopolitan's editor from 1965 until 1997, decided to donate to Cardinal Hayes after a senior attorney at the Hearst Corporation, which owns Cosmopolitan, told Ms. Brown about the school. Ms. Brown had a history of donating to educational and other causes, and her husband's death may have made her even more eager to donate to the arts, said her biographer, Jennifer Scanlon.
But in other respects, Cardinal Hayes was an odd choice for the woman who spent years teaching women to enjoy sex - premarital, marital and extramarital - and embrace Catholic taboos like birth control. Though her family was Protestant, she was not religious as an adult, Ms. Scanlon said.
"She didn't have much use, actually, for organized religion," Ms. Scanlon said. In fact, when Ms. Brown was marketing "Sex and the Single Girl," her best-selling 1962 book, she tried to bring it to the Catholic Church's attention in the hopes that church leaders would decide to censor it. (She thought it would be good for sales; they ignored her attempt.)
Almost a half-century later, however, she was pledging $1 million to a bastion of Catholic education -- and dancing in the archbishop's arms.
What I Built — with Government Help
By James C. Roumell
I was born in Detroit in 1961 and grew up in a working-class neighborhood just south of the famed 8 Mile Road. My block was stable; most of the fathers of my friends worked in the auto plants. In 1968 my parents divorced and my mother, armed with a high school degree, was thrust into the workforce. We were taken out of our Catholic school and moved into public schools. Dinner was often breakfast foods, which was fine with us. Mom is still a great cook.
Today, I own a small business, an asset management firm with $300 million in assets. Last year we launched the Roumell Opportunistic Value Fund (RAMSX) and hired three more people. We’re growing and creating jobs. I suppose I could pound my chest and take credit for my journey from Detroit to Chevy Chase, from working class to professional. I could say I built it myself. But this wouldn’t be true.
I was born in Detroit in 1961 and grew up in a working-class neighborhood just south of the famed 8 Mile Road. My block was stable; most of the fathers of my friends worked in the auto plants. In 1968 my parents divorced and my mother, armed with a high school degree, was thrust into the workforce. We were taken out of our Catholic school and moved into public schools. Dinner was often breakfast foods, which was fine with us. Mom is still a great cook.
Today, I own a small business, an asset management firm with $300 million in assets. Last year we launched the Roumell Opportunistic Value Fund (RAMSX) and hired three more people. We’re growing and creating jobs. I suppose I could pound my chest and take credit for my journey from Detroit to Chevy Chase, from working class to professional. I could say I built it myself. But this wouldn’t be true.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Boys Who Want to Wear Dresses
A fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine
and a wonderful French-made movie (with subtitles) on the same topic
Monday, August 13, 2012
A John Rawls Primer
The Veil of Opulence
By BENJAMIN HALE
More than 40 years ago the philosopher John Rawls, in his influential political work "A Theory of Justice," implored the people of the world to shed themselves of their selfish predispositions and to assume, for the sake of argument, that they were ignorant. He imposed this unwelcome constraint not so that his readers - mostly intellectuals, but also students, politicians and policy makers - would find themselves in a position of moribund stupidity but rather so they could get a grip on fairness.
Rawls charged his readers to design a society from the ground up, from an original position, and he imposed the ignorance constraint so that readers would abandon any foreknowledge of their particular social status - their wealth, their health, their natural talents, their opportunities or any other goodies that the cosmos may have thrown their way. In doing so, he hoped to identify principles of justice that would best help individuals maximize their potential, fulfill their objectives (whatever they may happen to be) and live a good life. He called this presumption the "veil of ignorance."
The idea behind the veil of ignorance is relatively simple: to force us to think outside of our parochial personal concerns in order that we consider others. What Rawls saw clearly is that it is not easy for us to put ourselves in the position of others. We tend to think about others always from our own personal vantage; we tend to equate another person's predicament with our own. Imagining what it must be like to be poor, for instance, we import presumptions about available resources, talents and opportunities - encouraging, say, the homeless to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and to just get a job, any job, as if getting a job is as simple as filling out an application. Meanwhile, we give little thought to how challenging this can be for those who suffer from chronic illnesses or disabling conditions. What Rawls also saw clearly was that other classic principles of justice, like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to distortion precisely because we tend to do this.
more
Rawls charged his readers to design a society from the ground up, from an original position, and he imposed the ignorance constraint so that readers would abandon any foreknowledge of their particular social status - their wealth, their health, their natural talents, their opportunities or any other goodies that the cosmos may have thrown their way. In doing so, he hoped to identify principles of justice that would best help individuals maximize their potential, fulfill their objectives (whatever they may happen to be) and live a good life. He called this presumption the "veil of ignorance."
The idea behind the veil of ignorance is relatively simple: to force us to think outside of our parochial personal concerns in order that we consider others. What Rawls saw clearly is that it is not easy for us to put ourselves in the position of others. We tend to think about others always from our own personal vantage; we tend to equate another person's predicament with our own. Imagining what it must be like to be poor, for instance, we import presumptions about available resources, talents and opportunities - encouraging, say, the homeless to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and to just get a job, any job, as if getting a job is as simple as filling out an application. Meanwhile, we give little thought to how challenging this can be for those who suffer from chronic illnesses or disabling conditions. What Rawls also saw clearly was that other classic principles of justice, like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to distortion precisely because we tend to do this.
more
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Romney Picks Ryan
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Recent Reading
Benefactors Take Note
No need for you to agonize once again over what to buy me for Christmas . . .
The Woolworth Building is about to have another defining moment. The uppermost floors of the neo-Gothic tower that once stood as the world’s tallest skyscraper will be turned into about 40 luxury apartments. . . .
A five-level penthouse of around 8,000 square feet will be housed in the copper-clad cupola that tops out at 792 feet. Originally designed as a public observation area, the cupola has a wraparound outdoor deck reached by a private elevator.
I'll have to share this with the other tenants, I suppose:
The Woolworth Building is about to have another defining moment. The uppermost floors of the neo-Gothic tower that once stood as the world’s tallest skyscraper will be turned into about 40 luxury apartments. . . .
A five-level penthouse of around 8,000 square feet will be housed in the copper-clad cupola that tops out at 792 feet. Originally designed as a public observation area, the cupola has a wraparound outdoor deck reached by a private elevator.
I'll have to share this with the other tenants, I suppose:
An abandoned 55-foot-long basement swimming pool, once part of a health club said to be used by Woolworth himself, will be restored as an amenity for residents.
Separate and Unequal
Thomas B. Edsall reviews The Price of Inequality, a new book by Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, who argues:
“Inequality leads to lower growth and less efficiency. Lack of opportunity means that its most valuable asset — its people — is not being fully used. Many at the bottom, or even in the middle, are not living up to their potential, because the rich, needing few public services and worried that a strong government might redistribute income, use their political influence to cut taxes and curtail government spending. This leads to underinvestment in infrastructure, education and technology, impeding the engines of growth."
“Inequality leads to lower growth and less efficiency. Lack of opportunity means that its most valuable asset — its people — is not being fully used. Many at the bottom, or even in the middle, are not living up to their potential, because the rich, needing few public services and worried that a strong government might redistribute income, use their political influence to cut taxes and curtail government spending. This leads to underinvestment in infrastructure, education and technology, impeding the engines of growth."
Monday, August 6, 2012
Arithmetically Challenged
Jared Bernstein’s highly readable critique of the Ryan budget -- with assists from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities* -- concludes that the "numbers just don’t add up."
*For example:
*For example:
"The CBO report, prepared at Chairman Ryan’s request, shows that Ryan’s budget path would shrink federal expenditures for everything other than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and interest payments to just 3¾ percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050. Since, as CBO notes, 'spending for defense alone has not been lower than 3 percent of GDP in any year [since World War II]' and Ryan seeks a high level of defense spending — he increases defense funding by $228 billion over the next ten years above the pre-sequestration baseline — the rest of government would largely have to disappear. That includes everything from veterans’ programs to medical and scientific research, highways, education, nearly all programs for low-income families and individuals other than Medicaid, national parks, border patrols, protection of food safety and the water supply, law enforcement, and the like." [my bold]
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
A Quote for the Day
"Mr. Lincoln . . . has been denounced as a despot, as a usurper, as a man who arbitrarily annulled the Constitution, as a magistrate under whose administration all the securities of liberty, property, and even life, were deliberately disregarded and imperiled. . . . If there was a military despotism in this country, as was declared, he was the despot. If there were a tyranny, he was the tyrant. Is it surprising that somebody should have believed all this, that somebody should have said, if there is a tyranny it can not be very criminal to slay the tyrant?"
Harper's Weekly, April 29, 1865
Headline of the Day
Ann Romney's horse fails to win dressage but avoids offending British
Rafalca, owned by Mrs Mitt Romney, was impeccably behaved and well received by Olympic equestrians in Greenwich.
Never for a second during her seven-minute performance did a hoof stray dangerously mouthwards, nor did she do anything at all to offend or upset the host nation. From the moment she entered the Greenwich Park equestrian arena at 12.15 on Thursday afternoon, the most famous political horse since Caligula toyed with making a consul of Incitatus seemed in her element.
She bowed her neatly plaited head on cue, trotted diagonally across the sand, did the jogging-on-the-spot thing, the skipping thing, the rhythmic boogying thing, the controlled trotting thing: in short, Rafalca did everything that the occasion and the peculiar rules of the dressage demanded of her.
At one point, she appeared to give a snort of exhilarated delight, although, to be fair, it's not easy to say precisely what emotion a huge horse is aiming to convey; it could equally have been a snort of ennui or a snort of frustration at the Obama administration's glee over Mitt's gaffe-spree. Perhaps it was just her way of telling the predominantly British crowd that, like the Romneys, she was just happy to be in the UK.
Her part-owner seemed equally delighted. Ann Romney, who was in the VIP section of the equestrian arena, rose to give Rafalca a standing ovation and a wave. "She was consistent and elegant," said Mrs Romney. "She did not disappoint. She thrilled me to death."
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
A Quote for the Day
“There is not one human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”
Gore Vidal, 1925 - 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Quote for the Day
You should be a Keynesian, too. The experience of the past few years — above all, the spectacular failure of austerity policies in Europe — has been a dramatic demonstration of Keynes’s basic point: slashing spending in a depressed economy depresses that economy further.
Paul Krugman in the Times
George W. Bush’s Greatest Legacy
By Eugene Robinson
This is a moment for all Americans to be proud of the best thing George W. Bush did as president: launching an initiative to combat AIDS in Africa that has saved millions of lives.All week, more than 20,000 delegates from around the world have been attending the 19th International AIDS Conference here in Washington. They look like any other group of conventioneers, laden with satchels and garlanded with name tags. But some of these men and women would be dead if not for Bush’s foresight and compassion.
Those are not words I frequently use to describe Bush or his presidency. But credit and praise must be given where they are due, and Bush’s accomplishment — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR — deserves accolades. It is a reminder that the United States can still be both great and good.
When the Bush administration inaugurated the program in 2003, fewer than 50,000 HIV-infected people on the African continent were receiving the antiretroviral drugs that keep the virus in check and halt the progression toward full-blown AIDS. By the time Bush left office, the number had increased to nearly 2 million. Today, the United States is directly supporting antiretroviral treatment for more than 4 million men, women and children worldwide, primarily in Africa.
more
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Worth Repeating
The good life for man
is the life spent in seeking for the good life
for man,
and the virtues necessary for the seeking
are those which will enable
us to understand
what more and what else the good life for man
is.
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Why Our Elites Stink
David Brooks:
The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service.
The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service.
Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Our Workingman's Constitution
William E. Forbath reminds us that our constitutional tradition and our history don't support a dog-eat-dog, laissez-faire model of society:
In much the same way that the conservative court of the 1930s forced Franklin D. Roosevelt and his allies to construct the constitutional foundations of the New Deal state, today’s court challenges the White House, the Democrats and the liberal legal community to reassert a constitutional vision of a national government empowered “to promote the general Welfare” and — in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’s terse formula — “to regulate the national economy in the interest of those who labor to sustain it.”
Read "Workingman's Constitution"
In much the same way that the conservative court of the 1930s forced
Read "Workingman's Constitution"
Seduced by Magic Mike
Magic Mike turned me gay!
I swing both ways at the cinema. The big screen – and all its heat, lust and longing – is an equal opportunity seducer.
by Tom Shone
Me: Look at this, honey! Magic Mike is getting great reviews.
My wife: I'm not going to see that.
Me: Why not?
My wife: OK. One: waxed chests. Two: the state of Florida. Three: Channing Tatum. And four: it's about male stripping.
Me [a little startled by her precision]: I think that's a great idea for a movie. Have you ever seen a film about male strippers before?
My wife: The Full Monty. That I liked. That was a comedy.
Me [picking up the newspaper]: Don't you think it should be taken seriously? Soderbergh's film is all about "deferred dreams" … "the hawkers and hustlers on capitalism's lowest rung" … "The pathos behind the glitter and thongs".
My wife: Not my thing.
Me [grumpily]: OK, OK. I'll find a friend to go with. Maybe Ian would like it.
Friday, July 6, 2012
National Kissing Day
From Huffington Post:
Pucker up, readers, it's National Kissing Day! The holiday actually originated in the UK to bring back the simple pleasure of kissing for kissing's sake, and then migrated over to the U.S. and Canada. So make sure to plant a big wet one on the special people in your life -- whether your lover, your mother, your barista or that guy who seems so grumpy on the subway.
In the meantime we have compiled some of the sweetest and steamiest lip-locks in art history. We're not quite sure if anyone can beat Gustav Klimt when it comes to crafting that perfect cinematic smooch but these other contenders get pretty close. Take a look and let us know your favorite kisses that we missed.
Happy National Kissing Day everyone!
The 10 Best Kisses In Art
In the meantime we have compiled some of the sweetest and steamiest lip-locks in art history. We're not quite sure if anyone can beat Gustav Klimt when it comes to crafting that perfect cinematic smooch but these other contenders get pretty close. Take a look and let us know your favorite kisses that we missed.
Happy National Kissing Day everyone!
The 10 Best Kisses In Art
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Mark Thiessen Is Mad
He's very angry:
That is the kind of sophistry we expect from liberals. The left sees the law as a tool of social justice — so they start with the desired outcome and then come up with legal reasoning to justify it. That is what Roberts did last week. He decided he wanted to uphold Obamacare and rewrote the statute to fit that outcome.
more
That is the kind of sophistry we expect from liberals. The left sees the law as a tool of social justice — so they start with the desired outcome and then come up with legal reasoning to justify it. That is what Roberts did last week. He decided he wanted to uphold Obamacare and rewrote the statute to fit that outcome.
more
Recent Reading
Monday, July 2, 2012
The First Elite Conservative to Say Enough
Andrew Sullivan at The Dish:
Mulling over the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Obamacare this weekend, it occurred to me why this remains a BFD. It's not that we now have a reprieve for the idea of universal healthcare in the US. Or even that we have an interpretation of the Commerce Clause that could eventually mean some non-trivial ratcheting back of the federal government's powers vis-a-vis the states. It is that a creature of the conservative movement, one of its youngest and most intelligent stars, saw the radicalism of the four dissenters ... and balked.
He balked, it appears, because of his attachment to the court as an institution, because he was unwilling to trash its reputation by embroiling it in a deep and bitter partisan grudge-match in the middle of a presidential campaign - when there was a plausible way out. He was also applying the logic of judicial restraint with respect to legislative wishes, interpreting the law to be as constitutional as it could possibly be deemed (i.e.in this case, viewing the mandate as part of the Congress's tax power). In these two ways, Roberts upheld a form of conservatism that is not synonymous with the interests of the Republican party at any given moment. Which is so unusual these days one wants (pathetically) to stand up and cheer.
One of the most strikingly anti-conservative aspects of today's allegedly conservative movement, after all, is its contempt for institutions, especially elite institutions that in any way limit the scope of fundamentalist ideology. And so Newt Gingrich's crucial innovation was throwing out the politeness and manners and decorum and rules and traditions of the House of Representatives in order to gain power by populist demagoguery. You can see his legacy in Tom DeLay's implementation of the Medicare D entitlement under Bush, an essentially lawless and rule-free process that made a mockery of parliamentary procedure. You saw this contempt for the rule of law, if it got in the way of desired policy, in the torture policy under Bush, cynically making the patently illegal "legal" through cynicism and double-speak.
Similarly, McConnell's use of the filibuster is essentially a display of contempt for the American constitutional system, rigging the system to nullify legislative majorities and to conduct politics as a zero-sum war for power, rather than as a means to debate, discuss and implement necessary changes in an evolving society. The give-and-take of American constitutionalism has been essentially reduced by the GOP in the last two decades to take-and-take-some-more. They impeached one successful president, in an act so disproportionate to the offense (and the offense was real; Clinton was a shameless perjurer) that it helped gut any bipartisan functioning of an institution designed for deal-making across the aisles or within them. They treated the 2000 election, when Bush lost the popular vote, as a landslide mandate election - again with no deference to the other side or sense of governing as one nation.
After Bush vs Gore and then Citizens United, I think Roberts saw the full political and constitutional consequences of a radical Court vote to gut the key legislative achievement of a duly elected president and Congress. In other words, he put the institutions of American government before the demands of partisan power-mongering. And he deftly nudged the issue back into the democratic process, where it more comfortably belongs.
I cannot say this is the moment the fever broke. The "movement right" is still furious at Roberts, pushing Romney as the principle-free instrument of their next round of institution-smashing (Medicare). But that a conservative placed the country's institutional stability before ideological fervor is so rare at this point it deserves some kind of praise. It's a start. If the GOP is beaten this fall, it may even be seen as the moment the tide began to turn, and conservatism began to reach back toward its less feral traditions and ideas. But I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here.
But at some point, conservatism must re-emerge, if only because we so desperately need it.
Conservatism is, after all, a philosophy that tends to argue that less equals more, that restraint is sometimes more powerful than action, that delay is often wiser than headlong revolution. It reveres traditional rules and existing institutions, especially endangered elite institutions that the Founders designed to check and cool the popular will. Roberts took a small step toward resuscitating that tradition last week.
It's the first seagull spotted after a decade or two on the open seas.
(Photo: John Roberts at the age of 29, associate counsel at Fielding and Co, by Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images. And Edmund Burke.)
Mulling over the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Obamacare this weekend, it occurred to me why this remains a BFD. It's not that we now have a reprieve for the idea of universal healthcare in the US. Or even that we have an interpretation of the Commerce Clause that could eventually mean some non-trivial ratcheting back of the federal government's powers vis-a-vis the states. It is that a creature of the conservative movement, one of its youngest and most intelligent stars, saw the radicalism of the four dissenters ... and balked.
He balked, it appears, because of his attachment to the court as an institution, because he was unwilling to trash its reputation by embroiling it in a deep and bitter partisan grudge-match in the middle of a presidential campaign - when there was a plausible way out. He was also applying the logic of judicial restraint with respect to legislative wishes, interpreting the law to be as constitutional as it could possibly be deemed (i.e.in this case, viewing the mandate as part of the Congress's tax power). In these two ways, Roberts upheld a form of conservatism that is not synonymous with the interests of the Republican party at any given moment. Which is so unusual these days one wants (pathetically) to stand up and cheer.
One of the most strikingly anti-conservative aspects of today's allegedly conservative movement, after all, is its contempt for institutions, especially elite institutions that in any way limit the scope of fundamentalist ideology. And so Newt Gingrich's crucial innovation was throwing out the politeness and manners and decorum and rules and traditions of the House of Representatives in order to gain power by populist demagoguery. You can see his legacy in Tom DeLay's implementation of the Medicare D entitlement under Bush, an essentially lawless and rule-free process that made a mockery of parliamentary procedure. You saw this contempt for the rule of law, if it got in the way of desired policy, in the torture policy under Bush, cynically making the patently illegal "legal" through cynicism and double-speak.
Similarly, McConnell's use of the filibuster is essentially a display of contempt for the American constitutional system, rigging the system to nullify legislative majorities and to conduct politics as a zero-sum war for power, rather than as a means to debate, discuss and implement necessary changes in an evolving society. The give-and-take of American constitutionalism has been essentially reduced by the GOP in the last two decades to take-and-take-some-more. They impeached one successful president, in an act so disproportionate to the offense (and the offense was real; Clinton was a shameless perjurer) that it helped gut any bipartisan functioning of an institution designed for deal-making across the aisles or within them. They treated the 2000 election, when Bush lost the popular vote, as a landslide mandate election - again with no deference to the other side or sense of governing as one nation.
After Bush vs Gore and then Citizens United, I think Roberts saw the full political and constitutional consequences of a radical Court vote to gut the key legislative achievement of a duly elected president and Congress. In other words, he put the institutions of American government before the demands of partisan power-mongering. And he deftly nudged the issue back into the democratic process, where it more comfortably belongs.
I cannot say this is the moment the fever broke. The "movement right" is still furious at Roberts, pushing Romney as the principle-free instrument of their next round of institution-smashing (Medicare). But that a conservative placed the country's institutional stability before ideological fervor is so rare at this point it deserves some kind of praise. It's a start. If the GOP is beaten this fall, it may even be seen as the moment the tide began to turn, and conservatism began to reach back toward its less feral traditions and ideas. But I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here.
But at some point, conservatism must re-emerge, if only because we so desperately need it.
Conservatism is, after all, a philosophy that tends to argue that less equals more, that restraint is sometimes more powerful than action, that delay is often wiser than headlong revolution. It reveres traditional rules and existing institutions, especially endangered elite institutions that the Founders designed to check and cool the popular will. Roberts took a small step toward resuscitating that tradition last week.
It's the first seagull spotted after a decade or two on the open seas.
(Photo: John Roberts at the age of 29, associate counsel at Fielding and Co, by Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images. And Edmund Burke.)
Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?
Excerpted from Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?… And Other Reflections on Being Human by Jesse Bering. Copyright © 2012 by Jesse Bering.
Read it here.
Read it here.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Bishop Sheen: "Venerable"
From Whispers in the Loggia:
In an audience this morning with his chief Saintmaker, Cardinal Angelo Amato SDB, the Pope assented to several decrees of canonization, beatification and the heroic virtue of souls on the path to sainthood.
Of them all, however, none are as likely to resonate among this crowd more than the declaration as "Venerable" of the figure who's arguably the most celebrated and effective evangelist in the history of the faith on these shores, once the nation's most-watched TV personality -- the epic, great and beloved "Bishop Sheen"....
The declaration of Fulton Sheen's heroic virtue marks the Vatican's affirmation of a process concluded by his native diocese of Peoria in early 2008. A miraculous healing attributed to his intercession has already been presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
In an audience this morning with his chief Saintmaker, Cardinal Angelo Amato SDB, the Pope assented to several decrees of canonization, beatification and the heroic virtue of souls on the path to sainthood.
Of them all, however, none are as likely to resonate among this crowd more than the declaration as "Venerable" of the figure who's arguably the most celebrated and effective evangelist in the history of the faith on these shores, once the nation's most-watched TV personality -- the epic, great and beloved "Bishop Sheen"....
The declaration of Fulton Sheen's heroic virtue marks the Vatican's affirmation of a process concluded by his native diocese of Peoria in early 2008. A miraculous healing attributed to his intercession has already been presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Quote for the Day
Presidential historian Robert Dallek on the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision:
“This is another step in humanizing the American industrial system.”
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
An Untold Story
Review of Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans After the Second World War by R.M. Douglas
AT THE END of World War II, between twelve and fourteen million people, ethnic Germans, were forcibly expelled from Eastern Europe, or, if they had already fled, were prevented from going back to their homes. Many of them were simply bundled on to cattle trucks of the sort previously used to take Europe’s Jews to their fate in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka, and sent westward to Germany without food, water, or adequate winter clothing. Others were detained in appalling conditions in concentration camps for weeks, suffering from disease, starvation, and maltreatment, before they were brutally pushed out to the west. Long lines trudged towards Germany, with the weak succumbing to hypothermia and malnutrition. Altogether probably half a million and perhaps as many as a million perished in what was the largest action of what later came to be known as “ethnic cleansing” in history.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Does Porn Cause Rape?
Dan Savage quotes Melinda Wenner Moyer writing in Scientific American:
Perhaps the most serious accusation against pornography is that it incites sexual aggression. But not only do rape statistics suggest otherwise, some experts believe the consumption of pornography may actually reduce the desire to rape by offering a safe, private outlet for deviant sexual desires.
“Rates of rapes and sexual assault in the U.S. are at their lowest levels since the 1960s,” says Christopher J. Ferguson, a professor of psychology and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University. The same goes for other countries: as access to pornography grew in once restrictive Japan, China and Denmark in the past 40 years, rape statistics plummeted. Within the U.S., the states with the least Internet access between 1980 and 2000—and therefore the least access to Internet pornography—experienced a 53 percent increase in rape incidence, whereas the states with the most access experienced a 27 percent drop in the number of reported rapes, according to a paper published in 2006 by Anthony D’Amato, a law professor at Northwestern University.
It is important to note that these associations are just that—associations. They do not prove that pornography is the cause of the observed crime reductions. Nevertheless, the trends “just don’t fit with the theory that rape and sexual assault are in part influenced by pornography,” Ferguson explains. “At this point I think we can say the evidence just isn’t there, and it is time to retire this belief.”
Perhaps the most serious accusation against pornography is that it incites sexual aggression. But not only do rape statistics suggest otherwise, some experts believe the consumption of pornography may actually reduce the desire to rape by offering a safe, private outlet for deviant sexual desires.
“Rates of rapes and sexual assault in the U.S. are at their lowest levels since the 1960s,” says Christopher J. Ferguson, a professor of psychology and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University. The same goes for other countries: as access to pornography grew in once restrictive Japan, China and Denmark in the past 40 years, rape statistics plummeted. Within the U.S., the states with the least Internet access between 1980 and 2000—and therefore the least access to Internet pornography—experienced a 53 percent increase in rape incidence, whereas the states with the most access experienced a 27 percent drop in the number of reported rapes, according to a paper published in 2006 by Anthony D’Amato, a law professor at Northwestern University.
It is important to note that these associations are just that—associations. They do not prove that pornography is the cause of the observed crime reductions. Nevertheless, the trends “just don’t fit with the theory that rape and sexual assault are in part influenced by pornography,” Ferguson explains. “At this point I think we can say the evidence just isn’t there, and it is time to retire this belief.”
Friday, June 22, 2012
A Kind Word for Pedophiles?
Dr. James Cantor tries to draw a distinction between nonoffending pedophiles (who deserve our sympathy) and child molesters (who don't) in an op-ed today for CNN:
The science suggests that [pedophiles] are people who, through no fault of their own, were born with a sex drive that they must continuously resist, without exception, throughout their entire lives. Little if any assistance is ever available for them.
They are often unable to consult mental health professionals (because of mandatory reporting rules); their families will often disown rather than support them; and despite the openness of the Internet, there are few options for coming out and joining communities of other pedophiles for mutual support.
Having encountered thousands of cases, it is my experience that the pedophiles who do go on to become actual child molesters do so when they feel the most desperate. Yet, much of what society does has been to increase rather than decrease their desperation.
ht: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/06/21/do-pedophiles-deserve-our-sympathy
The science suggests that [pedophiles] are people who, through no fault of their own, were born with a sex drive that they must continuously resist, without exception, throughout their entire lives. Little if any assistance is ever available for them.
They are often unable to consult mental health professionals (because of mandatory reporting rules); their families will often disown rather than support them; and despite the openness of the Internet, there are few options for coming out and joining communities of other pedophiles for mutual support.
Having encountered thousands of cases, it is my experience that the pedophiles who do go on to become actual child molesters do so when they feel the most desperate. Yet, much of what society does has been to increase rather than decrease their desperation.
ht: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/06/21/do-pedophiles-deserve-our-sympathy
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