Evil: Eight Reason Media Ignore #Gosnell

Trevin Wax has eight reasons to explain media editors’ decision to ignore Kermit “the Ripper” Gosnell’s trial over the past several days.

1. The Gosnell case involves an abortionist.

Whenever we see news stories about abortion, the abortionist must be portrayed as a victim of hate and intolerance, not a perpetrator of violence. But it is impossible to spin this story in a way that keeps “abortionist” separate from testimony about dead women and children.

2. The Gosnell case involves an unregulated abortion clinic.



Whenever we see news stories about abortion, the clinic must be portrayed as a “refuge” for women in distress, not a “house of horrors” where women are taken advantage of. But it is impossible to spin this story in a way that keeps “abortion clinic” away from negative connotations.

3. The Gosnell case involves protestors who, for years, stood outside 3801 Lancaster and prayed, warning people about what was taking place inside.



Whenever we see news stories about abortion, the protestors must be portrayed as agitators and extremists, not peaceful people who urge mothers to treasure the miracle inside them. But it is impossible to spin this story in a way that keeps the abortion protestors from looking like heroes.

Keep reading. One reason Trevin doesn’t give is that a 15-year-old girl helped kill babies too.

You Americans! Ha, Ha!

On a note related to Lars’ last post, here are ten American habits which at least one Brit cannot understand. Take flossing, for instance, or talking to strangers.

By contrast, here are ten British habits which apparently don’t jive with Americans. Take avoiding eye contact and direct intentions. I wonder how many times I’d be tempted to tell a Brit to shut up.

Into the "Grey"

Over at Lileks.com, my close personal friend* James Lileks was complaining about paint today. He’s repainting his office, and can’t seem to get the color he wants, once it actually dries. I have no comment on that subject. I moved into a pink office in the library several years ago, and have just lived with it because getting it repainted would be a lot of work.

What caught my attention was that, by my count, he used the word “gray” twice, but he spelled it “grey” both times.

I’ve seen this spelling come up more and more frequently lately, and it amuses me. All my life (which is another way of saying “from time immemorial”) I was taught that “gray” is the American spelling and “grey” is how the English do it. But “grey” seems to be winning out now. I suppose that’s because of the Fifty Shades of Grey books.

This may surprise you, but I’m not actually unhappy about this development. I’ve always thought spelling “grey” with an “e” was kind of cool. There’s something a tad bleaker, colder about that spelling. Grayer, you might say. Or greyer.

I remember reading an interview, probably in Writer’s Digest, with Colleen McCullough quite a few years ago. She was the author of The Thorn Birds, which was a big deal at the time. She mentioned that she always spelled gray with an “a,” except when describing people’s eyes. Gray eyes, she felt, should be spelled with an “e.”

I sympathized, though I’ve always used the “a” spelling myself. I have enough affectations already, without adopting English spellings.

But maybe “grey” will win.

I can live with it, in my grey old age.

*Editor’s Note: This is a lie.

Fade Away, by Harlan Coben

Myron Bolitar, Harlan Coben’s sports agent mystery hero, is primarily a sports agent and (supposedly secretly) a former FBI agent. Once a top NBA draft pick, almost guaranteed a highly paid career and all the perks, he got injured in a pre-season game and never had the chance to play in a major league game.

But in Fade Away, he is to get his chance. A team owner who is also an old friend asks him to join his team temporarily – not actually to play (much), but to sit on the bench, schmooze with the players, and try to figure out what happened to Greg Downing, one of the stars, who has disappeared.

Myron agrees and begins an investigation that will lead to threats and further murder, and will uncover secrets involving drugs, old 1970s radicals and a betrayal in his own life. The plot gets pretty complicated.

But the great joy of this book – even for someone as apathetic toward sports as me – is Myron’s personal character arc. Though established in his new career, a competent, successful, and even dangerous man, once he’s on the basketball court it’s (emotionally) as if he were a kid again. The passion, the love of the game, the competitive instinct, are all back in full force, and his inevitable disappointment is all the crueler for it. This gave the book a genuine poignancy that made it moving indeed, simply as a piece of literature.

As usual with Coben, there are adult themes, but they’re handled in a fairly civilized manner. Highly recommended.

Was the End of Slavery in the South Really About Undermining Scripture?

Thabiti Anyabwile, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, has been blogging his critique of Douglas Wilson’s 2005 book, Black and Tan: A Collection of Essays and Excursions on Slavery, Culture War, and Scripture in America. Wilson has joined in freely, and the two have charitably and thoroughly argued on the important issues of slavery in the American South, the authority of Scripture, and how the issues of 1860 were handled in relation to issues today.

Anyabwile posted a round-up of links to the whole discussion here. It isn’t a simple argument, so I don’t think I can adequately summarize it here.

Post haste

Not much to tell you tonight. I have company, and it’s rude to blog while someone is conversing with you. Or so they tell me.

Our friend Dale Nelson sent me a recording of a 1964 interview with J. R. R. Tolkien, from (I assume) the BBC. I listened to it today. An interesting aspect is that he was a very rapid speaker — one of those people who seems to be thinking so fast his mouth can’t keep up with him. Not actually what you expect from a language scholar.

Skip to the End and Discount eBooks

Roberto Estreitinho writes about reading. “If by page 30 of a book I’m not hooked, I stop reading,” he says, and if it’s a long book he begins to have doubts about, he skips to the end. “If it’s worthy of understanding how the author got there, read it all. If not, congratulations. You just avoided wasting time.” (via 99u)

On that note, The Unofficial #TGC13 Discount E-Book Store is open with many discounted eBooks from the authors at The Gospel Coalition Conference in Orlando this week.

Annette Funicello, 1942-2013

Another famous woman died today – Annette Funicello, famous as an early Mousketeer, and as the star of a string of 1960s beach movies.

I remember her well. I wasn’t one of those who had a crush on her, since her wave crested before I hit adolescence, but I was well aware of her. After working many years with Disney, she got cast with Frankie Avalon in a string of silly beach blanket movies. She also had a successful career as a singer.

Through all her career she was never – so far as I’ve been able to tell – involved in a scandal. The bikini movies were a little risque by the standards of the day, but she never did anything that crossed the line. Her image remained wholesome, and in time she faced the terrible disease that killed her with all the courage and grace you could ask of a human being.

The question occurred to me today – what would have happened to her if she’d been born later, and had come to fame in our own time?

That’s not a hard question to answer. She did appear again, in a sense, in the person of Britney Spears. And Lindsey Lohan. And Miley Cyrus.

Why was Annette able to live a life of dignity, while these younger women, born with the “advantage” of a culture that claims to promote the dignity and rights of women, have quickly made public jokes (and dirty ones) of themselves?

Not to say the younger girls didn’t have lots of “help.” Hollywood is certainly a field well-strewn with pitfalls. Money and fame at an early age are dangerous drugs in themselves, even before you get to the pills and powder.

But Hollywood was no convent school in the 1950s, either. Anybody who worked there in those days will tell you the predators were out in force, and there were ample opportunities for partying.

Annette, I think, benefited from Puritanism. She benefited from a double standard. She benefited from repression, and hypocrisy, and all those awful social constraints we despise the Fifties for today.

A girl in Annette’s position, if she wanted to be a “good girl,” actually had social resources available to her. America was in her corner, back then.

Nowadays, America’s peering through a hole in the Women’s Room wall, with an iPhone camera.

It’s called Progress.

Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013

You’re probably already aware that Lady Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, passed away today at the age of 87.

I think most American conservatives would be surprised to learn how hated this woman remains in her own country. On the basis of my own sampling of English culture, Mrs. Thatcher is commonly portrayed as a human ogress who closed factories, destroyed jobs, and snatched bread from the mouths of the hungry out of sheer hatred for the poor and their noble Socialist protectors.

This, for me, is the lesson of her life – if you do right in our time, do not expect any thanks. If you get away with a mere public shaming, you’ll be lucky. These things call for the endurance of the saints.

Death, it seems, is all around. On Saturday I attended my boss’s funeral. It was, I think, the largest I ever attended. He was a man much loved by many, many people.

Sometimes I think God is taking the best of us out of the world now, so they won’t have to see the evil that is to come.

Hailstone Mountain, Snippet Five

I apologize for the cliffhanger ending on this one, but only out of politeness, because I did it on purpose. You can buy the book here. It doesn’t cost much.

One of the thralls came to me then with a complaint. As you may recall from my earlier tales, Erling had a plan for his thralls whereby they bought their freedom through labor carried out in the evenings, after their day’s work for him was done. As his priest and the only man about who knew letters, I was in charge of running the thing (granted, the Norse have a kind of writing of their own, but I don’t know it, and Erling wanted me to do the job since it had been, in part, my idea, thus earning me the headache). The thrall was unsatisfied with the plot of ground he’d been given to sow barley on. I ended having to go and inspect it with him. I can’t recall now how I resolved the matter, but I suppose I must have. It was evening and suppertime when I headed back to the steading at Sola, entering the loose oblong of buildings that surrounded the yard. My goal was the new hall, set end-to-end with the old hall which we used only for great feasts these days. The day had cooled enough that I wished I’d worn my cloak. I was wearing layman’s clothes, as most priests in Norway did in those days, except for special occasions.

I went into the entry room, then turned right and stepped over the threshold into the high, smoky hall. It was peat smoke, a homely smell. A long fire burned in the hearthway down the middle. Pillars of wood that marched down either side of the hearthway upheld the rafters. Fixed benches for the diners to sit on ran down both side walls and across the far end, and before them trestle tables had been set up for eating. Erling’s high seat was midway down the bench on my left, between two specially carved pillars. My place was on his right. Erling’s wife Astrid Trygvesdatter, fair headed and great with child, had her seat on the women’s bench at the end. Their little boy Aslak sat beside her, when she could get him to sit still. Erling’s mother Ragna sat on Aslak’s other side.

The seat for the honored guest was on the bench across from Erling. Our honored guest tonight was in fact a woman–Thorbjorg Lambisdatter, a young widow who owned her own trading ships and had gone from being a prosperous to a very wealthy merchant. (Lawfully the business belonged to a brother I’d never met, but he’d been lamed in battle and was home-bound.) Thorbjorg was a tall, robust woman with a strong face and fiery red hair. She might have looked almost mannish were it not for her slender hands and graceful walk. Continue reading Hailstone Mountain, Snippet Five