Our Wonderful Post-Racial Future

My sixth grader is about to go through that part of the study of American History which involves the Civil Rights Movement. She will learn that "whites" - an undifferentiated mass that she will be led to believe includes her ancestors - were all racists to all people of color. I will explain to her, as I have to her older sisters, that her family came from a place no where near Alabama and that her ancestors were having their own issues with not being considered entirely American, a story that is part of the story of the American melting pot, except in elementary school, there is no melting pot, just an angry white fondue.

So, what happens after we spend 30 years of trying to convince school children that all whites are racists? Well, in Hawaii, the answer is that whites become the discrete and insular minority and the target of racism.

Also, I've always wondered what it would be like to be in Hawaii on the 50th anniversary of statehood. The answer is not so good:

Anti-white sentiments such as these have been more than 200 years in the making. The pivotal event occurred when American and European businessmen, backed by U.S. military forces, overthrew Hawaii's monarch in 1893 and placed her under house arrest two years later. The United States annexed the islands as a territory in 1898, and they became a state in 1959.

Little wonder then that as Hawaii prepares to observe the 50th anniversary of becoming the 50th state on Aug. 21, it will a muted celebration, devoid of parades or fireworks.

30 years of depicting America and the traditional WASP culture as the Enemy have born a sick fruit.

Another one - Hitler learns that Americans are calling each other Nazis

Johnny can't communicate

The rise of digital communications may have left the current generation clueless when it comes to face-to-face communication:

It does, of course, but how would they know it? We live in a culture where young people—outfitted with iPhone and laptop and devoting hours every evening from age 10 onward to messaging of one kind and another—are ever less likely to develop the "silent fluency" that comes from face-to-face interaction. It is a skill that we all must learn, in actual social settings, from people (often older) who are adept in the idiom. As text-centered messaging increases, such occasions diminish. The digital natives improve their adroitness at the keyboard, but when it comes to their capacity to "read" the behavior of others, they are all thumbs.

Nobody knows the extent of the problem. It is too early to assess the effect of digital habits, and the tools change so quickly that research can't keep up with them. By the time investigators design a study, secure funding, collect results and publish them, the technology has changed and the study is outdated.

Still, we might reasonably pose questions about silent-language acquisition in a digital environment. Lots of folks grumble about the diffidence, self-absorption and general uncommunicativeness of Generation Y. The next time they face a twenty-something who doesn't look them in the eye, who slouches and sighs for no apparent reason, who seems distracted and unaware of the rising frustration of the other people in the room, and who turns aside to answer a text message with glee and facility, they shouldn't think, "What a rude kid." Instead, they should show a little compassion and, perhaps, seize on a teachable moment. "Ah," they might think instead, "another texter who doesn't realize that he is communicating, right now, with every glance and movement—and that we're reading him all too well."

[H/T Lane Core on Facebook.]

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comments

Carl Cannon reminds us about a part of the Kennedy legacy:

First of all, he and two of the men, a cousin named Joseph Gargan and a friend named Paul Markham say they returned to the bridge to try and rescue Mary Jo. (If the Edgartown constable who believes he saw Kennedy was accurate, this was impossible.) Next, the men claimed that they drove Kennedy to the Chappaquiddick ferry landing, where he told them not to tell the other women for fear that they would try to rescue Mary Jo – at great peril to themselves – and assured them that he would report the incident to authorities. Then, the men said, Kennedy dove into the water and swam across the sound to Edgartown himself.

Upon reaching Edgartown, Kennedy went to his room at a local inn – it was now 2:25 a.m., -- where he spent the night, and the following morning engaged in small talk about sailing with a local yachter and agreed to have breakfast with the man when Gargan and Markham showed up about 7:30. They asked him who he'd called about the accident only to receive the astounding reply: no one. Kennedy explained it this way at the inquest: "I just couldn't gain the strength within me, the moral strength, to call Mrs. Kopechne at 2 in the morning and tell her that her daughter was dead." But he hadn't called the cops, either, and wouldn't until 9 a.m.

Not reporting a fatal traffic accident is a felony in most places. On Martha's Vineyard, if the driver is a Kennedy, it's not even a matter of official curiosity: The local police chief never even asked Kennedy why he waited nine hours to report what had happened. The state of Massachusetts, citing Kennedy's excessive speed on the bridge, suspended his license for six months. That was it.

And:

That is why the Kennedy "haters," to use James Fallows' word, rarely seemed to include the Republicans who knew Teddy personally. Many ordinary Americans without access to the corridors of power saw it differently. They should not necessarily be discounted as wrong, either. In protesting Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, Kennedy thundered, "Is there one system of justice for the average citizen and another system for the high and mighty?" These words, uttered five years after Chappaquiddick, are ubiquitous on conservative websites where they are offered up as evidence, not only of Kennedy's hypocrisy, but the mainstream media's as well.

Similarly, to movement conservatives, Kennedy's attack on Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork is offered up as a case study in the press's historic double standard. Immediately after Bork's July 1, 1987, nomination, Kennedy took to the Senate floor.

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions," he said. "Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is -- and is often the only -- protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy...."

It is an article of faith among conservatives that if a Republican senator had launched an attack this personal and vitriolic – not to mention wildly exaggerated – against a nominee named by a Democratic president that liberals would have gone ape and that the ladies and gentlemen of the Fourth Estate would have made the intemperate conduct of the Republican senator the main issue. The point is that Ted Kennedy surely earned the accolades he is receiving today. He also earned the disapproval he is receiving among Americans who saw him only from a distance, who judged him by his words and deeds, and found him wanting.

Fair point.

The point about engaging in small talk about sailing the day after the accident is, for me, the most troubling thing I've read about Chappaquidick. The seeming ability to exhibit indifference to the fact that a woman had died - that her body was as yet unrecovered - seems monstrous. As with most of us sinners, Ted Kennedy has to account for quite a bit, but that seems like a particularly heinous piece of injustice and scandal.

And there will be an accounting. As Pope Benedict points out in Spe Salvi, the hope of Christ doesn't mean that all slates are wiped clean:

God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened.

On the other hand, we are not discharged from our duties:

48. A further point must be mentioned here, because it is important for the practice of Christian hope. Early Jewish thought includes the idea that one can help the deceased in their intermediate state through prayer (see for example 2 Macc 12:38-45; first century BC). The equivalent practice was readily adopted by Christians and is common to the Eastern and Western Church. The East does not recognize the purifying and expiatory suffering of souls in the afterlife, but it does acknowledge various levels of beatitude and of suffering in the intermediate state. The souls of the departed can, however, receive “solace and refreshment” through the Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving. The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon?

And:

Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God's time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too[40]. As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.

So, even Kennedy-despising Irish-Catholics should pray that God will grant Ted Kennedy eternal rest and that he may be permitted to enter the Beatific Vision with all of his sins purged by God's love.

Amen.

Hitler learns that the "Avatar" trailer sucks

"Learning Ethics from Les Miserables."

Everyday Thomist provides a wonderful reflection on the ethical dimensions on display in the musical Les Miserables. For myself, I have always been captivated by the disparity between Javert - incarnating the rule-oriented deontological ethic - and Jean Valjean - who instantiates, as Everyday Thomist points out, a "virtue ethics" based on love. Exposed to grace, Valjean reforms; exposed to grace, Javert dissolves.

Everyday Thomist observes:

While Valjean occasionally uses utilitarian reasoning in his approach to ethics, he is more representative of a third approach to ethics, a virtue-based approach. If a deontological approach to ethics first asks “what does the law say?” and a utilitarian approach first asks “how can I do the most good?” a virtue-based approach asks “what does this action say about the kind of person I am, and what are the implications of this action for becoming the person I want to become?”

Alasdair MacIntyre, a famous philosophical advocate of virtue ethics, says that virtue ethics can be summed up in three questions:

Who am I?
Who do I want to become?
How do I get there?

Virtue ethics is unique because it sees ethics as concerned not so much about discrete actions (should I do X or not), but how every action fits into a total life narrative. Virtue ethics acknowledges that people change over time—they become better or worse people depending on what they do.

And:

Virtues are certain aspects of a person’s character that lead them to do good things. A person develops virtues through actions. One develops justice, for example, by trying to be just and giving to others and oneself what they deserve. One develops courage by facing fear, and by not avoiding good actions even when they are difficult or frightening.

There are lots of different virtues that people develop like temperance (moderation), prudence (right judgment about things to be done), generosity, etc. The dominant virtue for Valjean is love. In each ethical dilemma he faces, Valjean asks “what is the loving thing to do?” Javert asks “what is the right or the legal thing to do?” and as a result, ethical dilemmas are much simpler for him. But for Valjean, things are more complicated. It is not always easy to be loving, and he sometimes has to break the rules to do so, which is how he ended up in prison and an enemy of Javert in the first place.

And this brings us to what I see is the entire point of the story. Ethics is messy. Ethics is complicated. There are so many particular dimensions of each ethical dilemma that we face that we cannot possibly account for them all. And so if we look at ethics as primarily concerned about discrete actions, about what is the right or wrong thing to do in any given situation, we miss the point. Ethics is about becoming a good person. Ethics is primarily about the story of one’s life with all the successes and mistakes taken as a whole. It is about being able to die and say “I lived the best I could, and I am proud of the person that I am.” Rules are important, as is attention to consequences, but both rules and consequence are meant to facilitate the ultimate goal which is living well.

The college professors reading group I participate in is finishing off Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics this Saturday. This post is an excellent hook to start that that discussion.

Slouching to Gomorrah

U.N. Agency Calls for Teaching Children 5-to-8 Years of Age about Masturbation:

A June report from the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) suggests children of all countries and cultures are entitled to sexual and reproductive education beginning at age five.

The report, called International Guidelines on Sexual Education, was released in June in conjunction with the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), an organization which works for universal access to “reproductive health care.”

In its rationale for creating the guidelines, the UNESCO report said it is “essential to recognize the need and entitlement of all young people to sexuality education.” An appendix backed that claim by pointing to a 2008 report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation that argued governments “are obligated to guarantee sexual rights,” and that “sexuality education is an integral component to human rights.”

The guidelines are designed, according to the report, to be “age-appropriate” and break down the suggested curriculum into four age groups: 5- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 12-year-olds, 12- to 15-year-olds and 15- to 18-year-olds.

For those aged 5 to 8, some key concepts to be discussed are:

-- “Touching and rubbing one’s genitals is called masturbation” and that “girls and boys have private body parts that can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself.”
-- That “people receive messages about sex, gender, and sexuality from their cultures and religions.”
-- That “all people regardless of their health status, religion, origin, race or sexual status can raise a child and give it the love it deserves.”
-- “Gender inequality,” “examples of gender stereotypes,” and “gender-based violence.”
-- Description of fertilization, conception, pregnancy, and delivery.

For those aged 9 to 12, key concepts include:

-- “specific steps involved in obtaining and using condoms and contraception, including emergency contraception” and the “signs and symptoms of pregnancy.”
-- That “legal abortion performed under sterile conditions by medically trained personnel is safe.”
-- Discussing the ideas of “homophobia, transphobia and abuse of power.”
-- Discussing that “every person has the right to decide whether to become a parent, including disable people and people living with HIV” as well as “ART (anti-retroviral therapy) and side-effects on puberty.”
-- That “both men and women can give and receive sexual pleasure” and the “definition and function of orgasm.”
-- Discussing “examples of harmful traditional practices,” listed examples of which include female genital cutting, honour killings, bride killings, and polygamy.”

For those aged 12 to 15, the report recommends discussing “access to safe abortion and post-abortion care” and the “use and misuse of emergency contraception.”

UNESCO also suggests those as young as 12 should be told, “the size and shape of the penis, vulva or breasts vary and do not affect reproduction or the ability to be a good sexual partner.”

By age 15, adolescents should be exposed “advocacy to promote the right to and access to safe abortion,” according to the guidelines.

A cogent summary of Christopher Hitchens' debate style

From a comment by Vox Day in the comments to this post:

You clearly don't know Hitchens's style very well, because Hitchens doesn't actually make coherent arguments. His notion of an argument is to bitch about circumcision, or Mother Theresa, or bans on pork, or to tell some random anecdote about two guys he met in Zambia once, and then act as if this somehow makes a point relevant to God's existence. That's why he gets his ass kicked every time he debates these days; everyone knows he's just a storyteller who can't actually construct an argument.

Dead on.

I'm listening to this second Christopher Hitchens v. Frank Turek debate. It is abundantly clear that Turek learned that Hitchens doesn't present arguments so much as offer up long, windy stories about something that purportedly offends him. In that regard, the description of reading "god is not Great" was by someone I know who is personally acquainted with Hitchens and described the book as akin to hanging out with someone who had a couple of Martinis and was going to tell the world what he really felt - i.e., like a monologue offered by an entertaining drunk riding his hobby horse. This certainly can be fun on occasion, but it's hardly a basis for living the examined life.

Nonetheless, in the second debate, like clockwork, around 13 minutes into his intitial twenty minute presentation in defense of the atheist worldview, Hitchens descends into a three minute monologue about "that evil, evil woman, the so-called 'Mother Theresa'" but who really has an Albanian name and took money from oppressive dictators and used that money to open up convents. Turek's reply - properly - was to say "So What?"

The difference between their first debate and this one is interesting. In the first debate, Turek was effusive in his admiration for Hitchens; that is missing in the second debate.

Turek presumably got an accurate reading of Hitchens' measure from the first debate when Hitchens showed himself unable and unwilling to actually address any of the points made by Turek. Instead, Hitchens spent his opening attacking what he called an "ontological argument" of the sort pioneered by Thomas Aquinas. The two problems with that approach were (a) the ontological argument presented by Hitchens was a strawman and (b) Aquinas rejected the ontological argument.

The only thing missing so far from these debates is Doug Wilson's question to Hitchens: "You gonna do something or just stand there and bleed?"

But still competent to run both the auto and health industries.

Obama administration still hasn't filled half of administration posts.

Culture of Death

First published under the Clinton administration, and suspended under Bush,under the Obama administration, the Veterans' Administration has revived a book implicitly advocating that disabled Vets allow themselves to be killed:

Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

One can only imagine a soldier surviving the war in Iraq and returning without all of his limbs only to encounter a veteran's health-care system that seems intent on his surrender.

I was not surprised to learn that the VA panel of experts that sought to update "Your Life, Your Choices" between 2007-2008 did not include any representatives of faith groups or disability rights advocates. And as you might guess, only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as "Compassion and Choices").

This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. Worse, a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to "Your Life, Your Choices." Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America's 24 million veterans deserve better.

There is a reason that Americans are rightly afraid of government death panels.

More Business Heading Our Way

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has tossed in with the Episcopal Church and will now permit homosexuals living in a "committed relationship" to serve in leadership positions.

No word as yet on whether the ELCA will allow polygamists living in a "committed relationship," or heterosexuals living in a "committed relationship," to serve as pastors.

That private interpretation is an amazing thing.

A Presbyterian Take on Chesterton's The Ethics of Elfland

Check it out here.

The Passion of Tarantino

When Mel Gibson released his "The Passion of the Christ," critics went wild with describing it as "violence porn." Now, Quentin Tarantino releases "Inglorious Basterds," which is described by its creators as "Jewish revenge fantasy" and "kosher porn."

He certainly ended up in the right movie. The genre-busting Inglourious Basterds is strange, even by Tarantino standards. It's a war movie, a spaghetti western, a spy flick, a comic book, a comedy, tragedy and farce. It's a war film that's at once fiercely attentive to detail - German characters actually speak in German, for example - but full of wild fictional concoctions. There's Tarantino's stunt casting, with Mike Myers appearing as a British officer and cult actor Rod Taylor (The Birds) playing Winston Churchill. And notably, it is a Jewish revenge fantasy: In Tarantino's alternate reality, Brad Pitt leads a Jewish vigilante squad as they hunt down Nazis and scalp them, inciting the fury of Hitler himself.

And

Roth, who directed the Hostel horror flicks, says that Tarantino's bizarre cocktail of reality and fiction is intoxicating. "I'm so glad he wasn't constrained by history. I started thinking about 9/11 too, and how I wished I could go back and kill those hijackers. Quentin is so in tune with human nature, he knows that it's very real to want to go back and sacrifice yourself to stop evil, to save thousands, in this case millions of lives. The idea of going back and killing Nazis? It's so exhilarating. It's like kosher porn, it's orgasmic!"

I suspect that we won't be seeing an outcry about sadomasochistic porn with respec to this movie.

Vox Day argues that Tarantino's film dishonors American soldiers and puts Jews at risk around the world.

The Scary Obama Administration

You've got to give a lot of credit to Nat Hentoff. Republican administration or Democrat administration, he can be relied upon to put his civil libertarian convictions ahead of his political tribal loyalties. He has also been the rare Leftist voice who has spoken out against treating human beings like fungible units of commerce. This column, however, is startling in its historical retrospective:

I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.

Read the whole thing.

Down the Memory Hole - Cindy Sheehan Edition

Formerly endowed by the media with unique moral authority, Cindy Sheehan is no longer useful now that the Democrats are in power.

Sheehan is now referring to the "anti-war movement" as the "anti-Republican war" movement.

Well, D'uh.

Strangely Captivating

Girls in bikinis read Star Wars.

I particularly like the dramatic tension in the scene where Han Solo encounters Greedo.

Liberals - Our intellectual masters, Part III.

But wait! There's more!

James Taranto also points to this classic example of the way that liberals become "our intellectual masters." The Orwellian Memory Hole whereby things that they said simply disappear from their memory:

Two Speakers in One!

"I say to the president, Mr. President, if you think that our troops in Iraq are there to fight for democracy, do not destroy it at home by cutting off our freedom of speech. . . . "So I thank all of you who have spoken out for your courage, your point of view. All of it. Your advocacy is very American and very important. . . . There's nothing more articulate, or more eloquent, to a member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituent. . . . I'm a fan of disruptors,"--Nancy Pelosi, speaking to a San Francisco town hall meeting, Jan. 17, 2006

"I think they're AstroTurf. You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care."--Nancy Pelosi on disruptive constituents, Aug. 5, 2009

Dissent patriotic or an evil, manufactured conspiracy of hate? You decide.

We are in the best of hands.

Liberals - Our intellectual masters, Part II

Remember how uncool and unsophisticated using the word "evil" was when it involved George Bush or Ronald Reagan. Well, guess what? Calling things "evil" is cool again, but only when it involves Americans who dissent from the Democrat agenda.

Also from James Taranto:

"Town hall protesters are 'evil-mongers,' says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)," reports Eric Zimmermann of the Hill:

Reid coined the term in a speech to an energy conference in Las Vegas this week and repeated it in an interview with Politics Daily.

Such "evil-mongers" are using "lies, innuendo and rumor," to drown out rational debate, Reid said.

"It was an original with me," Reid said of the term. "I maybe could have been less descriptive," he said, adding that "I doubt you'll hear it from me again."

Nevertheless, Reid worked in the word one more time during the interview.

"I feel I haven't done anything to embarrass [my children]," Reid joked. "Except maybe call somebody an evil-monger."

We're old enough to remember when the word "evil"--as in "evildoers" (terrorists) or "axis of evil" (rogue regimes)--would cause Democrats and liberals to break out in hives. Either Harry Reid is on corticosteroids or the word triggers allergies only when used accurately.

Harry Reid sounds so proud of his new coinage to describe dissenters - and was there a time when "dissent was patriotic"? It's been so long, it's hard to remember. For his contribution to the American language, Harry Reid is our "Intellectual Master" of the week.

Liberals - Our intellectual masters, Part I

James Taranto asks about Sarah Palin, "If she's dim and Obama is brilliant, how did he lose the argument to her?"

The first we heard about Sarah Palin's "death panels" comment was in a conversation last Friday with an acquaintance who was appalled by it. Our interlocutor is not a Democratic partisan but a high-minded centrist who deplores extremist rhetoric whatever the source. We don't even know if he has a position on ObamaCare. From his description, it sounded to us as though Palin really had gone too far.

A week later, it is clear that she has won the debate.

President Obama himself took the comments of the former governor of the 47th-largest state seriously enough to answer them directly in his so-called town-hall meeting Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H. As we noted Wednesday, he was callous rather than reassuring, speaking glibly--to audience laughter--about "pulling the plug on grandma."

The Los Angeles Times reports that Palin has won a legislative victory as well:

A Senate panel has decided to scrap the part of its healthcare bill that in recent days has given rise to fears of government "death panels," with one lawmaker suggesting the proposal was just too confusing.

The Senate Finance Committee is taking the idea of advance care planning consultations with doctors off the table as it works to craft its version of healthcare legislation, a Democratic committee aide said Thursday.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the committee, said the panel dropped the idea because it could be "misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly." . . .

The Palin claim about "death panels" was so widely discredited that the White House has begun openly quoting it in an effort to show that opponents of the healthcare overhaul are misinformed.

You have to love that last bit. The fearless, independent journalists of the Los Angeles Times justify their assertion that the Palin claim was "widely discredited" with an appeal to authority--the authority of the White House, which is to say, the other side in the debate. One suspects the breathtaking inadequacy of this argument would have been obvious to Times reporters Christi Parsons and Andrew Zajac if George W. Bush were still president. And of course this appears in a story about how the Senate was persuaded to act in accord with Palin's position--which doesn't prove that position right but does show that it is widely (though, to be sure, not universally) credited.

Press courageously defends First Amendment

Or not. And in a post-modern world, exactly what does "defend" mean anyhow?

Mark Shea points to this Orlando Sentinel article on how the local police have cornered the criminal mastermind who has openly admitted the crime of committing politics. The Sentinel breathlessly breaks the news:

CLERMONT - Clermont police have interviewed one suspect who is admitting to putting up the dozens of posters pasted around the city depicting President Obama as the Joker character from the Batman film The Dark Knight, city officials confirmed.

Assistant City Manager Darren Gray said city officials have an individual "admitting to putting up 500" of the posters.

Clermont Police Capt. Eric Jensen said the male individual has admitted to putting up some signs, but investigators suspect others were involved and their investigation is continuing.

"We have talked to an individual," Jensen said. "He only admitted to some of it...We're still tracking down leads and talking to folks. We have not arrested anybody."

At this point officials are not sure how much damage was caused by the signs or the dollar amount associated with the clean-up.

Dozens of the posters were pasted around the city earlier this week. A pair of the posters were pasted to a Clermont Post Office collection box. They prompted the postmaster to contact the Postal Inspector's office, which is looking at potential federal crimes for defacing federal property.

City officials, meanwhile, are trying to determine what local crimes might be associated with the posting of the images on public and private properties. They've also been busy ripping down the sticky signs because they're a violation of city ordinance regarding illegal signs.

Jensen said he doesn't have a good count on the number of posters put up because, he said, "People are going out and tearing them down."

In a press release put out late today, Jensen said the suspect "also asked if he could video tape the encounter with the officers." Clermont Police declined that request.

"Currently we are still conducting interviews of victims, witnesses, and other suspects who were placing the Obama Joker Poster throughout our city," Jensen said in the statement. "We believe that the postings are the result of multiple suspects. We are hopeful that we can develop enough information to present charges of vandalism to the State Attorney's Office for review."

He did not have a specific reason why the individual who admitted to putting up the posters spent so much time sticking them to surfaces around the city, but Jensen suspects it may have something to do with a contest linked to the image of the President in white face and smeared lipstick, like the Joker.

Well, obviously, it couldn't be because of, I don't know, Free Speech reasons!

Shea observes:

Yeah, yeah. Defacing property. Duly noted. And that is, of course, so very very different from the *thousands* of political scraps of paper, blues band ads, rock band ads, BUSHITLER cartoons and so forth that are plastered on fifty bazillion walls in fifty bazillion cities all over the world without any notice whatsoever by the MSM. Nobody is ever a "suspect" in the infamous "Indigo Girls at the Paramount, August 12th!" caper which left Seattle reeling from the crime wave of lesbian-folk-rock induced littering. But blaspheme the One and you are a "suspect".

Fair point, which is often overlooked of late. Under the traditional understanding of the First Amendment - before Abortion Zone Bubbles and selective enforcement of public disturbance laws against anti-abortion protestors - the enforcement of laws had to be "content neutral." In other words, the government could not single out particular acts to enforce otherwise neutral laws against because of the content of the message implicated by those acts. One would think that a purveyor of the values of the First Amendment, like the Sentinel, might be sensitive to that distinction, but it seems that the media has gone for too long on the idea that free speech means those who think the right way can speak freely.

One is an activity, the other is a core identifier of existence

Sci Fi Catholic has an interesting insight into the state of psychology:

The Associated Press reports that the American Psychological Association has declared that psychologists should not treat people afflicted with homosexual desires. Here's a gem of a sentence:

Instead of seeking such change, the APA urged therapists to consider multiple options — that could range from celibacy to switching churches — for helping clients live spiritually rewarding lives in instances where their sexual orientation and religious faith conflict. [more...]

Apparently, it is no longer the job of psychologists to treat mental disorders, but it is their job to entice people away from their religions. Changing your sexual desires? That's too hard, and it might even be harmful! Let's change your entire view of reality instead--that's easy!

Here is the AP report.

I also like this part of Sci Fi Catholic's post:

I cannot easily imagine changing my religion to pursue a sexual perversion, or for that matter, even a sexual non-perversion. Anyone who changes his religion for such a reason cannot possibly take religion seriously. I shudder to think what my turn at the Last Judgment would look like:


Jesus: So, after a few years of prayer and study, you became Catholic because you arrived at the the conclusion that the Catholic Church was the Church I had founded and in which I still resided. But then, after three years as a Catholic, you suddenly became Mennonite. Care to explain that?

Me: Well, you see, Jesus, there were these babes--

Yeesh. Whatever comes after that can't be very pleasant.

Alas, I think there are going to be a good number of such conversations.

Apologies to Everyone - The Old Negro Space Program.

"As much as they feared losing the space race to the Russians, they were even more afraid of losing the race to the Negroes."

Ironically, NASA did lose when the Negro Space Program landed on the Moon in 1966, which, of course, was a story buried by the media of the time.

Was there a divorced husband anywhere in America who didn't have a PTSD flashback when Hillary dressed down that student?

Rich Galen observes how Hillary is stinking up the room:

Hillary Clinton is a dreadful Secretary of State.

In May, Clinton announced that the Iranians were building a huge "mega-embassy" in Nicaragua. Why? "You can only imagine what that's for," she said.

The operative word there was "imagine" because that's apparently what America's chief diplomat was doing about the Iranian embassy. The other answer is that the Iranians have, while they have been developing their nuclear bomb technology, the ability to build an invisible embassy.

Could happen.

According to that front for Right-Wing interests, the Washington Post,
Nicaraguan reporters scoured the sprawling tropical city in search of the embassy construction site. Nothing. Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce chief Ernesto Porta laughed and said: "It doesn't exist." Government officials say the U.S. Embassy complex is the only "mega-embassy" in Managua. A U.S. diplomat in Managua conceded: "There is no huge Iranian Embassy being built as far as we can tell."

Oops. Musta been George W. Bush's fault.

More recently you have seen the footage of Hillary - looking like Jabba the Hutt in a light blue outfit - lashing out at a student during a - dare we say it - town hall meeting in Kinshasa, Congo who had asked about what President Clinton thought about the Chinese moving in and taking over the heavy construction biz.

Hillary flashed and said,

"Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.''

Yikes! Could it be that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton made the deal for Bill to go to North Korea before anyone mentioned it to the Secretary of State who, as we now know beyond any doubt, is Hillary Clinton and she was feeling a little left out, once again, of the boy's club?

Over the ensuing days it was explained that it was the mistake of a nervous student mis-speaking Mr. Clinton when he meant to say "Mr. Obama." Then it was the mistake of a nervous translator. Or, and I think this is the real answer, it was George W. Bush's fault.

Hillary's latest example of why she should be fired came the other day when she suggested that the 2000 election was stolen.

"You know we've had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we have our problems, too."

Put aside the fact that major news organizations, desperate to claim that Al Gore should have been elected, hired a major auditing firm to recount the recount and found that, no matter which set of rules they used, Gore still lost. Hillary probably hadn't read about because it wasn't widely reported.

This, in Hillary's mind, was not George W. Bush's fault. It was Jeb Bush's fault.

But, to be in a place like Nigeria and hold America's democratic process up to scorn is an outrage.

If Hillary were a Republican in a Republican Administration there would be howls of outrage from the press corps demanding to know if the Republican President stood behind what was dribbling out of the mouth of his Republican Secretary of State.

But … nooooooo. Barack Obama takes responsibility for nothing and is asked to take responsibility for even less.

Obama should cut his losses. If he can't fire Hillary, he should bring her home and give her a time out.

In an alternate universe, Americans are watching a sex tape of President Edwards, who is now serving the 7 month of his first term

Edwards' Love Child: Mandatory Gloating Edition" via the Kausfiles. Apparently, Edwards has admitted to being the father of the "love child" that the media elected to ignore, until the National Enquirer dug up the truth.

The National Enquirer.

Also, there seems to be a sex tape out there, involving Mr. "Please vote for me because my wife has cancer" and "the Mistress."

Can't really blame the national press since it is absolutely unbiased in its interest in stories dealing with hypocrisy by Republicans. Obviously, if there had been flimsy evidence of John McCain having an affair, that would have been newsworthy.

What a sucky mutation

No, it couldn't be the abiity to blast things with your mind or teleport or pick winning lotter numbers. It just had to be greater sensitivity to pain:

A growing body of research shows that people with red hair need larger doses of anesthesia and often are resistant to local pain blockers like Novocaine. As a result, redheads tend to be particularly nervous about dental procedures and are twice as likely to avoid going to the dentist as people with other hair colors, according to new research published in The Journal of the American Dental Association.

Researchers believe redheads are more sensitive to pain because of a mutation in a gene that affects hair color. In people with brown, black and blond hair, the gene, for the melanocortin-1 receptor, produces melanin. But a mutation in the MC1R gene results in the production of a substance called pheomelanin that results in red hair and fair skin.

and:

“The reason we studied redheads in the beginning, it was essentially an urban legend in the anesthesia community saying redheads were difficult to anesthetize,” Dr. Sessler said. “This was so intriguing we went ahead and studied it. Redheads really do require more anesthesia, and by a clinically important amount.”

After publishing research on the topic, Dr. Sessler began hearing from redheads who complained about problems with dental pain and fear about going to the dentist. He said that when someone with red hair is considering a dental or other procedure requiring an anesthetic, they should talk to their doctor about the high probability that they are resistant to anesthetics.

“Because they’re resistant, many redheads have had bad experiences,” Dr. Sessler said. “If they go to the dentist or have a cut sutured, they’ll need more local anesthetic than other people.”

The "urban legend" thing is interesting. I'm sure that most dentists just thought that redheads were a bunch of whiny complainers since, after all, how could hair color possibly interface with anaesthesia resistance? Then someone checked out the "urban legend" and, voila, weird new discovery.

Of course, maybe redheads don't go to dentists because they're just lazy.

How is that transparency working for 'ya

"'Non-responsive' Justice Dept. pressed again on Panthers case":

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Friday demanded for the second time that the Justice Department explain its dismissal of charges against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during the November elections, saying a previous response was "largely non-responsive" and "paints the department in a poor light."

In a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the commission said it is "answerable" to the president, Congress and the public to ensure that civil rights laws are enforced and that it had the authority to subpoena witnesses and documents to guarantee laws are being followed by federal agencies, including the Justice Department.

It also accused the department of failing to properly respond to members of Congress who have asked about the decision to dismiss the New Black Panther Party complaint, saying its responses to congressional inquiries also were "non-responsive" and contained "factual errors and ... questionable legal claims."

The commission's five-page letter also says the Justice Department's undated response, which was received June 20, did not answer the commission's most basic questions, "which impairs our duty to investigate potential voting deprivations and federal enforcement policies."

And:

In January, Justice filed a civil complaint in Philadelphia against the New Black Panther Party after two of its members in black berets, black combat boots, black shirts and black jackets purportedly intimidated voters with racial insults, slurs and a nightstick. A third party member was accused of managing, directing and endorsing their behavior. The incident was captured on videotape.

Four months later, Justice officials dropped the charges because, they said, "the facts and the law did not support pursuing" them. They also said the New Black Panther Party had disavowed what happened in Philadelphia, had suspended that city's chapter and that one of the Panthers, Jerry Jackson, had been allowed by Philadelphia police to stay at the polling place as a certified Democratic poll watcher.

In April, a federal judge had ordered default judgments against the Panthers after they refused to respond to the charges or appear in court. The Justice Department was in the final stages of seeking sanctions when a delay in the proceedings was ordered by Loretta King, who was serving as a political appointee as the acting assistant attorney general.

That ruling was issued after she met with Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the department's No. 3 political appointee, who approved the decision to dismiss the complaint, according to interviews with department officials who sought anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

In its letter, the commission questions whether political appointees should have been involved in the case. It says, "That Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, a political appointee, reportedly approved the dismissal of the suit against a Democratic poll worker raises a host of questions."

Well, it's nice to see that he U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is interested in the matter, even if the Justice Department is not.

Heat, Kitchen, etc.

Democrat Congressman yells at constituent for asking about health care.

Amazing.

Republican Congressmen obviously did not act this way regarding anti-war protesters. If they had, we never would have heard the end of it.

Father of the Year

Ryan O'Neal hits on daughter at the funeral of his late wife.

O'Neal spoke to Bennetts and characterized himself as "a hopeless father." He offered the below example from Farrah's funeral as a reason why:

"I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me," Ryan told me. "I said to her, 'You have a drink on you? You have a car?' She said, 'Daddy, it's me--Tatum!' I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it's my daughter. It's so sick."

"That's our relationship in a nutshell," Tatum said when I asked her about it. "You make of it what you will." She sighed. "It had been a few years since we'd seen each other, and he was always a ladies' man, a bon vivant."

Ryan also talks about the demise of his relationship with Farrah in 1998, when the pair initially split. He cites Farrah's menopause and talks about subsequently bedding a much-younger.

I don't know which is worse: (a) not recognizing you daughter or (b) hitting on your daughter or (c) doing it at the funeral of your recently deceased wife.

Update:

Or maybe it's hyperbole by O'Neal. Strange story for him to tell on himself, though.

Liberal Fascism

Amidst reports that the Dems are packing Town Hall meetings with union members, comes this report that a conservative was assaulted by members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) after handing out pins at a Town Hall meeting hald by Democrat Russ Carnahan.

That tactic definitely worked for Mussolini and Peron.

Well, that was pretty foreseeable



It ought to be too obvious for words: never, ever have something permanently attached to your body that (a) you might get bored of, (b) makes a statement about some transient stage of your life or (c) seemed like a good idea at the time, but that time was when you were three sheets to the wind.

"Tattoo regret" may fuel next big industry:

After a decade, adult-film star Alexis Amore is looking to remove the Playboy bunny tattoo below her belly button. She also wants to get rid of a crown and the letter "a" on her wrists.

"I got them when I was really young," said the petite 30-year-old. "I'm a little bit older and a little bit wiser now. And it's not very classy to have tattoos on your wrists and stomach."

An adult film star is worried about "classy"?

Keefe declined to release the firm's revenue total but did say Tattoff is a multimillion-dollar business. He estimated that tattoo removal could become a $10-billion-a-year industry. And this is catching the eye of investors and firms that would like to help Dr. Tattoff expand.

Tattoos are big business, and it costs more to remove a tattoo than to get one.

Most tattoos run about $100, depending on the size of the piece, the colors used and the skill of the tattooer. It usually costs about $750 to $1,500 to remove one, Keefe said, because it requires five to 10 treatments at about $150 a pop.

If only there was no fault divorce, then wives wouldn't have to hire fake hit men



The marriage probably wouldn't have lasted anyway.

The Slow Moving Train Wreck

N.T. Wright from July of 2009 explains how the American Episcopal Church has repudiated the Anglican Communion. This is particularly interesting:

Granted, the TEC resolution indicates a strong willingness to remain within the Anglican Communion. But saying “we want to stay in, but we insist on rewriting the rules” is cynical double-think. We should not be fooled.

Of course, matters didn’t begin with the consecration of Gene Robinson. The floodgates opened several years before, particularly in 1996 when a church court acquitted a bishop who had ordained active homosexuals. Many in TEC have long embraced a theology in which chastity, as universally understood by the wider Christian tradition, has been optional.

That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined, as the shrill leader in yesterday’s Times suggests, to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.

The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

Such a novel usage would also raise the further question of identity. It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.

Not Another Episcopal Church Blog has a captivating post on last months trainwreck of a General Convention. That blog has this video report on the zaniness of the convention:



The zaniness includes a discussion of how the uber-liberal bishops believe that everyone has to believe them when they call a tail a leg (3 to 4 minutes), the defeat of an attempt to be inclusive by including Ishmael into a Eucharistic prayer (16 minutes) and how a debate about stripping the Blessed Virgin Mary of her virginity was defeated because of concern about public relations fallout. (17 minutes).

Now, it is fun to watch train-wrecks from the outside, but we outsiders have to stay aware of the fact that there are human beings suffering on the inside. The final minute about how one reporter had to leave a church that predated the American Revolution is worth watching, as is the fact that the liberal Episcopal had to close that church in July after it had been in continuous operation for 240 years.

Which motivates the question, just how is that "inclusiveness" working for 'ya?

Dean Koontz has his head screwed on right.

Catholic Exchange interviews Koontz:

Describing Dean Koontz as a popular author of suspense novels is an understatement. His books have been published in 38 languages and sold more than 400 million copies worldwide. But what I discovered when I read his book Brother Odd a few years ago was that you can enjoy a Koontz story strictly for its engaging writing, characters and plot. But if you read the same story through a spiritual lens, you’ll be able to appreciate it on an even deeper level. I recently had the opportunity to interview Dean Koontz on “Christopher Closeup” (full podcast here ). Here’s an excerpt:

CC: I’ve heard a number of converts to the Catholic faith say that, initially, it wasn’t theological or intellectual arguments that won them over. It was the example of good Catholic people. You had a similar experience in your life. Tell me about that.

Dean Koontz: By the time I was going to college, I was looking for a different path from where I had been. Then I began to be drawn to — I wouldn’t say more organized, but a more formalized kind of faith. I did become engaged, more and more as the years went by, by the intellectual rigor that lies behind the Catholic Church. A lot of people will possibly laugh at that but if you know St. Thomas Aquinas and some of the other famous writers of the Church — or laymen who wrote brilliantly from a Catholic perspective like G.K. Chesterton — then you understand what I’m talking about. There is a deep intellectual basis behind it and that always appealed to me.

CC: A facet of your book Brother Odd that I appreciated was that it established that faith and science are not enemies. When did you realize that faith and science…are historically linked as walking hand-in-hand?

Dean Koontz: The birth of science comes out of the Catholic Church. People always say, “No, no, Galileo.” They don’t really know the history; they just know talking points. The reality is through various times in the Catholic Church, various sciences were founded and encouraged. There is no distance between (faith and science) except for what people try to make for political reasons. I’m interested in a number of sciences. I read a lot in quantum mechanics and I’m interested in molecular biology too. They’re not incompatible with faith but especially quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is ever-more describing a universe to us that’s uncannily like some things that faith believes.

CC: Dean, in your books like Brother Odd and One Door Away from Heaven, you talk about the dignity of special needs children and you talk about modern bioethics. How and why did these life issues become so important to you?

Dean Koontz: My wife and I have long worked with a charity for people with disabilities – Canine Companions for Independence. They train service dogs for all kinds of people with disabilities. People who are paraplegic or quadriplegic, with one of these dogs, can live on their own when they couldn’t before. They have great effect on autistic children. Working with that and being a part of that, I saw that a lot of these people were shunted aside. There’s a lot of people who think they shouldn’t be given medical care. People like Peter Singer think a disabled child should be allowed to die or should not be given antibiotics because they have nothing to contribute to the world. [(Singer’s] an idiot. If you bring these [disabled] people into your life, I’ve discovered – I’ve never found one who whined or complained like average people do. I’ve never found one who wasn’t grateful for every good thing that comes their way. And I haven’t found one that wasn’t an inspiration to people. If you can inspire other people by your own courage and your own stoicism, you’ve had a very valuable and important life. So they bring a great deal to the world… I’ve featured Down Syndrome kids in books at times and I’ve gotten literally thousands of letters from people who have Down’s children. Every single one of them says, “This was the best thing that happened to me.” They’re not pretending; they’re not trying to make the best of a bad situation. They’re saying it really was a tremendous benefit to their lives. That’s why I wish people would stop thinking that you have to be the perfect physical specimen in order to be worth living. That is far from the truth.

CC: Do you think that addressing those issues in story form may be a more effective way of getting the point across than say, a priest in a homily or an op-ed piece in a newspaper?

Dean Koontz: I think so because you disarm people with a story, you charm them with humor, and then you let them think about these other issues. For me, it’s a wonderful method by which to promulgate at least the thought of these things, at least to make people stop and wonder if they’re really right to think these things.

Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Let's hope this is just leg-pulling:

GUY Ritchie's plan to put a gay spin on the relationship of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in his new movie about the detective and his sidekick could backfire.

Robert Downey Jr, who plays Holmes, has revealed the crimebuster will sleep with and have sweaty grappling scenes with Watson, played by Jude Law, in "Sherlock Holmes," due out Christmas Day.

"We're two men who happen to be roommates, wrestle a lot and share a bed. It's bad-ass," Downey told Britain's News of the World. Added much-in-the-news Law: "Guy wanted to make this about the relationship between Watson and Holmes. They're both mean and complicated."

But Michael Medved, a former Post movie critic, says Downey and Law must be joking. "There's not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals," Medved told us. "I think they're just trying to generate controversy . . . They know that making Holmes and Watson homosexual will take away two-thirds of their box office. Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Law make out? I don't think it would be appealing to women. Straight men don't want to see it."

Roger Johnson, editor of the Sherlock Holmes Journal, observed that in Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, "Watson is something of a ladies' man, but a faithful husband to his wife. And Holmes is essentially asexual, with no erotic interest in women or men."

Still, some fans welcome the jolt. Manhattan thriller writer Jason Starr, whose book "Panic Attack" hits stores this week, said: "This sounds like exactly the type of updating the series needs to attract a new generation. Playing up the homoerotic undercurrents in 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' worked rather well. If Conan Doyle was writing today, he would have been much more provocative with the characters."

What did Arthur Conan Doyle think he was doing? Didn't he understand that everything is improved by introducing a homoerotic subtext?

Margaret Sanger's Future

Most things will resolve themselves if you just ignore them.

Being "proactive" is for suckers.

Here's a great story about how this woman saved her marriage:

Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You’re the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You’ve done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.

Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”

But wait. This isn’t the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It’s a story about hearing your husband say “I don’t love you anymore” and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.

And, maybe the best part:

It was Thanksgiving dinner that sealed it. My husband bowed his head humbly and said, “I’m thankful for my family.”

He was back.

And I saw what had been missing: pride. He’d lost pride in himself. Maybe that’s what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we’re not as young and golden anymore.

When life’s knocked us around. And our childhood myths reveal themselves to be just that. The truth feels like the biggest sucker-punch of them all: it’s not a spouse or land or a job or money that brings us happiness. Those achievements, those relationships, can enhance our happiness, yes, but happiness has to start from within. Relying on any other equation can be lethal.

My husband had become lost in the myth. But he found his way out. We’ve since had the hard conversations. In fact, he encouraged me to write about our ordeal. To help other couples who arrive at this juncture in life. People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent. Who see an easy out, and think they can escape.

My husband tried to strike a deal. Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me.

Divorce - to put it bluntly - sucks. The grass is almost never greener. While most divorced folk have the face-saving instinct of explaining how much better they are now, when they are all alone, most will wonder what the heck good came out of it. What most people lack, when they are in the trenches, is the ability to see past this war to the peace that follows.

Then, on the other side, you have this story of four women who dealt with a two- Mmmm, three or maybe four - timing SOB as follows:

Three Wisconsin women are accused of tying up and assaulting a married man after allegedly finding out he was having affairs with each of them.

The women are each charged with false imprisonment, a felony that carries a maximum prison term of six years.

Calumet County prosecutors say 48-year-old Therese A. Ziemann of Menasha lured the man to a Stockbridge motel last Thursday. Prosecutors say she was soon joined by 43-year-old Michelle Belliveau of Neenah; 43-year-old Wendy L. Sewell of Kaukauna; and the man's wife.

Authorities say Ziemann punched the man in the face and applied Krazy Glue to other body parts. All four women allegedly fled with his cell phone, wallet and vehicle.

Prosecutors also plan to charge the wife.

While we would never endorse kidnapping and assault, nonetheless we have this to say about "the man": What a scumbag moron.