Quick Notes
Since our new kitten decided that my head looked like a good landing-pad to try out his new claws-first leaps on, I've been up since 3am. Thankfully, since I only have the capacity for a few minutes of coherent thought at any given time, it's time for Quick Notes:
-- Question: With what beverage does a proper conservative toast the Conservative victory in Canada?
Answer: Why, with a Labatt's Blue, of course.
-- This, aside from the cat, may go some distance to explaining today's fog.
-- Unlike many on the Right, I was pleased with Senator Clinton's "plantation" speech on MLK Day, for it proved once again that the Democrats are beholden to a worn-out ideology that they are unable to shed. Every time she opens her mouth, a new Republican is born. Some of them are even rumored to be Black.
-- The crisis in boy's and men's education in America is starting to be noticed among the commentariat. Long a staple headache of our education administrators, the fact that our universities are home to an ever-decreasing number of young men and the implications of that fact are beginning to hammer home. Simply put: there is a crisis in modern American masculinity. I think it likely that this crisis will come to define the culture wars for the next 10 or 20 years in the way the crisis over what it meant to be a women defined the 70's. Given the young men I see around me daily in Portland, this national discussion will come not a day too soon.
-- There is no avoiding it for much longer. Russia is reverting to form. More and more hysterically anti-Western and anti-American statements fly out of the Kremlin every week. And now a shrinking Russia is flailing its energy weapon around, harming Ukraine, Moldova and, now, Georgia. The tragedy that is Russia, it seems, will always be with us.
-- Of all the criticisms I've seen levied at Israel's security wall, the one that I find the most unconvincing is that heard most often from learned commentators: that by erecting the wall the Israelis are unilaterally deciding the border of a future Palestinian state.
The world changes, events happen and leaders rise and fall, but some unyielding principles of human affairs never change. Chief among those principles is that when a people reject a compromise solution, wage war and lose, wage another war and lose again, wage yet another war and lose yet again, and then reject another generous compromise solution offered on much better terms than their bargaining position warranted, it's a safe bet they won't be consulted on the final terms. Offered the choice between getting 75% of what they wanted or holding out the hope of obtaining 100% through war, the Palestinian people overwhelmingly and freely chose the latter. Losing parties rarely, if ever, draw borders. Victorious parties do.
-- You're the man now, dog. See if you can spot all the pop culture references in this masterpiece.
-- Here's a joke from Iraq: A new policeman, fresh out of training, reports to his superior, a police captain, for the first time. Tired of dealing with rookies, the Captain decides to go easy on the new guy.
"Your only job is to enforce the curfew. The curfew is at 8pm. You go on duty at 6pm and walk the streets and remind the people of the coming curfew. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Captain"
"Before 8pm, the people are to be left alone. After 8pm, don't wait for orders, you shoot anyone you see on the street. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Captain"
"Repeat my orders"
"I am to enforce the curfew. Before 8pm, they live. After 8pm, if they are there, I shoot them and they die."
"Right. Get to work."
Later that evening, the Captain is working at his desk when he hears a gunshot ring out from the streets near his office. He looks at his watch. It's 7:50pm. He rushes outside to find his new recruit standing over the body of a man.
"What is the matter with you?!? Didn't you understand my orders? Do you know what time it is?"
"Yes, Captain, it is 7:50pm."
"Then why did you shoot this guy?"
"Well, Captain, I know this guy and he lives a half an hour from here."
-- Just for the record, I'd like it known that I am solidly of the opinion that The Simpsons is the best television show of all time, hands down.
-- Am I the only one torn by reading Lileks? One the one hand, it's always a treat. One the other, it also always induces depression over one's own writing skills.
-- On C-SPAN the other night, I saw a panel discussion with Pamela Paul, author of Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. The blurb at Amazon describes the book's thesis as follows:
Paul seemed to me to be a very solid thinker on this subject, noting some of the unintended consequences of the radical reinterpretation of "free speech" to include what had, until then, been thought of as outside that categorization. I cannot but agree with her assessment that porn represents a public health problem that already, I think, has seriously and adversely affected the sexual development of many a young man.
On the blurb itself, it always amuses me when people trot out Justice Stewart's famous line on pornography. It is always presented, especially by liberal law professors, as some sort of pearl of deep wisdom. Like we're supposed to believe, as a matter of course, that the First Amendment prohibits the Sierra Club from airing an ad on television during an election campaign urging a vote against Congressman Limbaugh because he's a danger to our forests while, at the same time, it absolutely allows a business man to charge money to view 18-year old girls with shaved vaginas, knee-socks, pigtails and a school-girl backpack being ejaculated on.
-- One of things I think sunk Star Trek in the post-Roddenberry era was Rick Berman's obsessiveness with time travel plots. Had I the power to take over the franchise, I would erect a banner in the writer's offices that says something to the effect of "No Time Travel--No Mention of the Space-Time Continuum"
That aside, however, I do wish I had a time machine of my own, if only to interview the principals during the Bill of Rights ratification debate in order to put the above First Amendment issue to them. While I have no doubt where they would come down on the issue presented, it would really be nice just to see their reaction.
-- Speaking of SciFi, I am a man with a dream. The dream? To re-do Starship Troopers properly.
-- To The Everlasting Glory of the Infantry, Lives the Story of Private Rodger Young...
-- Question: With what beverage does a proper conservative toast the Conservative victory in Canada?
Answer: Why, with a Labatt's Blue, of course.
-- This, aside from the cat, may go some distance to explaining today's fog.
-- Unlike many on the Right, I was pleased with Senator Clinton's "plantation" speech on MLK Day, for it proved once again that the Democrats are beholden to a worn-out ideology that they are unable to shed. Every time she opens her mouth, a new Republican is born. Some of them are even rumored to be Black.
-- The crisis in boy's and men's education in America is starting to be noticed among the commentariat. Long a staple headache of our education administrators, the fact that our universities are home to an ever-decreasing number of young men and the implications of that fact are beginning to hammer home. Simply put: there is a crisis in modern American masculinity. I think it likely that this crisis will come to define the culture wars for the next 10 or 20 years in the way the crisis over what it meant to be a women defined the 70's. Given the young men I see around me daily in Portland, this national discussion will come not a day too soon.
-- There is no avoiding it for much longer. Russia is reverting to form. More and more hysterically anti-Western and anti-American statements fly out of the Kremlin every week. And now a shrinking Russia is flailing its energy weapon around, harming Ukraine, Moldova and, now, Georgia. The tragedy that is Russia, it seems, will always be with us.
-- Of all the criticisms I've seen levied at Israel's security wall, the one that I find the most unconvincing is that heard most often from learned commentators: that by erecting the wall the Israelis are unilaterally deciding the border of a future Palestinian state.
The world changes, events happen and leaders rise and fall, but some unyielding principles of human affairs never change. Chief among those principles is that when a people reject a compromise solution, wage war and lose, wage another war and lose again, wage yet another war and lose yet again, and then reject another generous compromise solution offered on much better terms than their bargaining position warranted, it's a safe bet they won't be consulted on the final terms. Offered the choice between getting 75% of what they wanted or holding out the hope of obtaining 100% through war, the Palestinian people overwhelmingly and freely chose the latter. Losing parties rarely, if ever, draw borders. Victorious parties do.
-- You're the man now, dog. See if you can spot all the pop culture references in this masterpiece.
-- Here's a joke from Iraq: A new policeman, fresh out of training, reports to his superior, a police captain, for the first time. Tired of dealing with rookies, the Captain decides to go easy on the new guy.
"Your only job is to enforce the curfew. The curfew is at 8pm. You go on duty at 6pm and walk the streets and remind the people of the coming curfew. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Captain"
"Before 8pm, the people are to be left alone. After 8pm, don't wait for orders, you shoot anyone you see on the street. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Captain"
"Repeat my orders"
"I am to enforce the curfew. Before 8pm, they live. After 8pm, if they are there, I shoot them and they die."
"Right. Get to work."
Later that evening, the Captain is working at his desk when he hears a gunshot ring out from the streets near his office. He looks at his watch. It's 7:50pm. He rushes outside to find his new recruit standing over the body of a man.
"What is the matter with you?!? Didn't you understand my orders? Do you know what time it is?"
"Yes, Captain, it is 7:50pm."
"Then why did you shoot this guy?"
"Well, Captain, I know this guy and he lives a half an hour from here."
-- Just for the record, I'd like it known that I am solidly of the opinion that The Simpsons is the best television show of all time, hands down.
-- Am I the only one torn by reading Lileks? One the one hand, it's always a treat. One the other, it also always induces depression over one's own writing skills.
-- On C-SPAN the other night, I saw a panel discussion with Pamela Paul, author of Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. The blurb at Amazon describes the book's thesis as follows:
Having already carved out a major niche among 20-to-30-somethings with The Starter Marriage, Paul takes on another bane of postfeminism: the Internet-enabled "all pornography, all the time" mentality of many younger men and its ripple effect on the culture. For this pornograph, Paul interviewed more than 100 people-80 of them young, straight men. Some findings are predictable: porn allows men "to enjoy the fantasy of endless variety," but can distract men from their partners, detract from their sexual skills and harm relationships. More valuably, Paul finds women caught under new forms of social pressure-from men and women-not to disdain porn: to do so, now, is (among other things) to be seen as limiting women's sexual self-expression. Paul also sees porn seeping ever sooner into preteen life and sensibly observes that there's no reason for porn to be limitless on the Net when it's regulated elsewhere. Still, a critique that aims to avoid religious conservatism's invocation of sin and radical feminism's emphasis on civil rights violations can get fuzzy. Like Potter Stewart ("I know it when I see it"), Paul can't always distinguish sex-related art from pornography other than on a case-by-case basis; things get especially thorny regarding the torture and pain that, she asserts, "many, perhaps most men, find alluring." She ends up arguing that pornography, like alcohol or cigarettes, should be "discouraged," and proposes an effort by the government and private sector to quell consumer demand. Paul's outlines and analyses can seem simplistic, and her prose rarely rises above the level of the Time magazine feature on which the book is based. But she covers a lot of territory, and there's plenty to unnerve the knee-jerk "free speech" crowd. This will be a major watercooler book this season.
Paul seemed to me to be a very solid thinker on this subject, noting some of the unintended consequences of the radical reinterpretation of "free speech" to include what had, until then, been thought of as outside that categorization. I cannot but agree with her assessment that porn represents a public health problem that already, I think, has seriously and adversely affected the sexual development of many a young man.
On the blurb itself, it always amuses me when people trot out Justice Stewart's famous line on pornography. It is always presented, especially by liberal law professors, as some sort of pearl of deep wisdom. Like we're supposed to believe, as a matter of course, that the First Amendment prohibits the Sierra Club from airing an ad on television during an election campaign urging a vote against Congressman Limbaugh because he's a danger to our forests while, at the same time, it absolutely allows a business man to charge money to view 18-year old girls with shaved vaginas, knee-socks, pigtails and a school-girl backpack being ejaculated on.
-- One of things I think sunk Star Trek in the post-Roddenberry era was Rick Berman's obsessiveness with time travel plots. Had I the power to take over the franchise, I would erect a banner in the writer's offices that says something to the effect of "No Time Travel--No Mention of the Space-Time Continuum"
That aside, however, I do wish I had a time machine of my own, if only to interview the principals during the Bill of Rights ratification debate in order to put the above First Amendment issue to them. While I have no doubt where they would come down on the issue presented, it would really be nice just to see their reaction.
-- Speaking of SciFi, I am a man with a dream. The dream? To re-do Starship Troopers properly.
-- To The Everlasting Glory of the Infantry, Lives the Story of Private Rodger Young...
