I have a gigantic headache.
HUNTSVILLE, AL—In the seven months since she got herself knocked up, graphic designer Amy Glennon, 27, has been walking around the Calendarz, Inc. office acting like the Queen of Sheba just because she's pregnant, coworker Stephen DeGrassio announced Monday.
"Amy thinks she's Big Miss Important," DeGrassio said Monday. "She's behaving like a total priss. It's like, 'Ooh, look at me! I'm pregnant! I'm gonna have a baby!' Hey, calm down. People have babies all the time."
Richard Tallent writes about sin and homosexuals.#
I completely agree with her, but there is another side as well. Any Christian who treats gays differently than the gossips, heterosexuals outside of marriage, adulterers, gluttons, elitists, selfish, etc. that they also know is a hypocrite. If you hold someone in lower esteem than yourself just because you think their sin is "gross" or "unnatural" or whatever compared to yours or others', you are completely missing the point: everyone sins. The ways and extents to which we break God's laws may have different natural consequences (murder > hatred, thievery > coveting), but the spiritual consequence is the same: not being where God wants us to be. We all need forgiveness.
The Black Saint on Hayden Christensen in Star Wars.#
It just doesn't seem possible that Christensen could turn into the galaxy's greatest bad ass, Darth Vader. While credit is due to the character's costume design and to actor David Prowse, much of what makes Vader memorable is James Earl Jones's voice. He's like the Shaft of villains. And while Jones gave Vader a sort of regal elegance, he wasn't above getting a little ghetto when the time was right.
Richard Tallent explains why he feels protectionism helps innovation.#
If the mother of invention is necessity, our ability to innovate in a particular industry is proportional to the number of people working in that industry. Only someone actually doing the day-to-day work will ever be able to discover and invent new ways to do that work. Thus, as software development moves overseas, the innovation and creative output from that industry will also move. Anyone who thinks we Americans can hold our economic position by just all sitting at desks thinking real hard about how to re-engineer someone else's job is kidding themselves.
John Quiggin wonders about George W. Bush and 2004.#
The announcement that Ralph Nader will again run for the Presidency raises the (almost) unaskable question -are there any circumstances under which we should hope for, promote, or even passively assist, the re-election of George W. Bush as against either of the remaining Democrat contenders? I feel nervous even raising this question, but I think it's worth a hard and dispassionate look.
Richard asks a question about marriage...#
On what principle can we—can I—justify denying the ability and, more importantly, the propriety of people loving more than one person? Nate quotes a Malcolm Gladwell where the latter says "institutions [...] are where we hide when we can't find our principles." It's a naive question (but naive questions are often the important ones to ask): is there a good explanation for why we are marrying? Or do we do it because, while there may once have been a good reason for doing it, we only do it now because it's the way we've always done it? We can question why these men made fools of themselves so publicly and have a laugh about it, but you'll notice that nobody questions the institution that caused them make fools of themselves.
I don't know, I'm just a hustlah homie.
Richard is pushing his -edge beliefs on me.#
AKMA links to Naomi Wolf's accusation of Harold Bloom, 20 years later.#
From AKMA:
People who know me well know that I'm deeply loyal to Yale (for historic, familial reasons as well as fond personal experience) — but even more than I am loyal to Yale, I'm repulsed by people (especially people in my vocational areas of ordained ministry and teaching) taking advantage of their position to intimidate and exploit those whom they should be serving. Nothing could warrant the Yale administration's opaque and evasive defense against the consequences of their inaction.
From the comments of AKMA's post:
I find myself agreeing with Camille Paglia on this one—if Naomi Wolf's aim really is exposing systemic problems at Yale, she would have been better off approach the problem from that angle, not making an accusation against Harold Bloom for something that happened twenty years ago and cannot be corroborated by any reports filed or interviews given twenty years ago. And if Ms. Wolf cannot provide any evidence of systemic problems beyond a couple of deans avoiding her phone calls, then she's guilty of turning a single incident into a scandal involving the University.
From Naomi Wolf:
In the late fall of 1983, professor Harold Bloom did something banal, human, and destructive: He put his hand on a student's inner thigh—a student whom he was tasked with teaching and grading. The student was me, a 20-year-old senior at Yale. Here is why I am telling this story now: I began, nearly a year ago, to try—privately—to start a conversation with my alma mater that would reassure me that steps had been taken in the ensuing years to ensure that unwanted sexual advances of this sort weren't still occurring. I expected Yale to be responsive. After nine months and many calls and e-mails, I was shocked to conclude that the atmosphere of collusion that had helped to keep me quiet twenty years ago was still intact—as secretive as a Masonic lodge.
Notice the unflattering picture of Harold on page 2. Nice choice.
Ryan Overbey ponders about gay marriage supporters and their foes.#
So I issue a challenge. Do any of you, my dear readers, support a marriage amendment? And if so, why? Feel free to comment below. But this game will have rules. You are not allowed to say "Because I want to protect marriage", or "Because I want to defend the sanctity of marriage." If you do attempt these meaningless lines of argument, then give them meaning. Define them. Tell us why allowing gay people to marry will damage the institution itself, will dilute the meaning of union for other couples. If you sincerely believe that permitting gay marriage will lead to the collapse of our social institutions and family structures, do us the favor of telling us why you believe it is so. And try not to be like the Baptist protester in Boston, who stated frankly and unironically that God would destroy the state in the same way He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You can do better than that.
Jorrit Wiersma writes about his dear daughter.#
I may sometimes seem a little negative about her when I talk about how she's not speaking much or how she can sometimes nag. But she's such a sweet little girl. And she does listen to her parents very well— of course, we hope that's because we taught her that she can't mess with her parents, but it might just be her personality :). She's quite good with her hands: drawing, playing with lego, and throwing balls. And she can sing quite well. And she's become very good at parroting what we say. Of course, I don't really know what other two-year olds are like, but this morning when she was crying and shouting because she was of the opinion that I didn't give her enough attention and I told her that it was really enough now and that she should stop crying, she did stop. So you see, that is just so sweet that I can't help but to be proud of her and love her.
That's superb.
Harry Brighouse writes about Nader and voting.#
I have never found the 'vote for someone you believe in' principle compelling — we should allocate our vote in such a way that maximizes the expected probability of it contributing to a good all things considered outcome. This sometimes means holding your nose and voting for a Democrat. It may sometimes mean voting for a Republican. But in this race I thought, and still think, that there was a very good case to be made that voting for Nader was the best thing to do.
Ryan McGee explains How NOT to date me.#
I'm not going to give a timeline, although that would be a hilarious exercise in masochism. Rather, I'm gonna given five basic tips on how not to approach a relationship with me. If you, like, just wanna freak 'til the sun comes up, so long as you don't have open sores feel free to disregard any and all of the following tips. These tips, incidentally, come from at least one experience with at least one woman in the past year. Mostly, they have a few iterations apiece. That fact in and of itself bespeaks the fact that I myself have a long way to go as well, but it's much more fun to blame other people. Hell, I blame myself nearly every day on this website, let's take some of that inner anger and blowtorch these beeyotches to Kingdom Come.
And he continues with part 2.