Our friend, Hunter Baker, points to an interesting interview with Raquel Welch, which ends on how our sex-saturated culture is ruining sex for most of us. “I just imagine them sitting in front of their computers, completely annihilated.” It’s curious that the interviewer says she may come across like a prude, as if that’s one of the worst positions one could be in.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
In the Spirit of Freedom, You Should Be Ashamed
James Taranto describes how the public discourse over Rush Limbaugh’s characterization of Sandra Fluke’s argument before Congress has spawned a “meta-kerfuffle” among professors. One prof praises Limbaugh’s argument, while detracting from the two words he apologized for, and his university’s president scolded him, both in print.
“I am outraged that any professor would demean a student in this fashion,” Seligman writes. “To openly ridicule, mock, or jeer a student in this way is about the most offensive thing a professor can do.”
The implication is that by treating Fluke with disrespect, Landsburg has behaved unethically. That’s bunk… Seligman’s shot at Landsburg is the equivalent of saying it is unethical for any physician to criticize Fluke’s political activism because she is a “patient.”
The effect of President Seligam’s argument may be to squash the freedom of thought and speech of students and profs without tenure. It’s happened before, he says, over just this type of argument.
Look Around You. What Do You See?
Tom Davis was in a cafe in Moldova and saw things he didn’t want to see. “One of the girls you will meet was trafficked from this restaurant.”
Shall We Rally for Free Speech?
I hesitate to say it, but I side with Limbaugh in the recent selective outrage. Perhaps the word “slut” is currently anathema, but haven’t several other female public figures been called the same or equivalent names without the outrage? With a hard-R-rated movie like Project X opening last week, are we really this disgusted at some hard words on a ugly topic?
The whole point of this is that a Georgetown law student and feminist activist claimed to need $3,000 of contraception to get her through school, and public taxes should provide it. Meg McDonnell describes the story as I remember it before the outcry:
Claiming that contraception coverage was financially crippling to students, like herself, Fluke ended her testimony by saying: “We refuse to pick between a quality education and our health and we resent that, in the 21st Century, anyone thinks it’s acceptable to ask us to make that choice simply because we are women.”
Fluke claimed the costs of contraception were steep, saying that roughly 40 percent of Georgetown women struggle with $3,000 contraception bills over the course of a three-year law school term. But many quickly debunked her claim, notably The Weekly Standard, who found that Target in DC sells generic birth control pills for $9/month to those who do not have insurance.
That sounds like typical, ridiculous political rhetoric that gets politicians and newspapers moving again, and I’m having a hard time believing it should not be ridiculed. No one wants to deny women contraception; some of us are fighting the idea that every healthy provision can be paid for with federal taxes by the good will of congress.
I am Shackleton. Or Amundson. Somebody.
It came at last. It was originally predicted a couple days ago, but didn’t materialize, and suddenly last evening I looked at the Weather Channel page, and there it was—heavy, wet snow tonight, mixed with sleet.
And this morning, as I ungaraged Mrs. Hermanson and shifted her into four-wheel-drive, I knew the couple inches that had fallen overnight were already too heavy for my snow blower to handle. And that was before an expected day of additional snow and sleet, plus mild temperatures.
Tonight we had Sno-Cone snow, heavy as a shovelful of wet concrete. I attacked it with a push shovel, with the assistance of my neighbor (we share the driveway). She’s a couple decades younger than me. Eventually she gave it up, but she let me borrow her ergonomic snow shovel (example below).
Picture credit: Scott Catron.
I’ve always been suspicious of ergonomic snow shovels. New-fangled new age gimcracks. Hippy implements. No respect for tradition.
I’m a believer now. They reduce the perceived labor about 50%. Continue reading I am Shackleton. Or Amundson. Somebody.
That’s Become Unthinkable
James Taranto writes on “how feminism deforms intellectual culture,” by accepting, even praising, perversion and shouting down morality.
In related news, The University of North Carolina investigated a few months ago complaints about a Christian singing group which had rejected a member over his views on homosexuality. University admins cleared the group of any wrongdoing, but are now reviewing fought-over policy. (login required)
#Everythinghasconsequences
Web Salmagundi
1. John takes a gorgeous photo of a sunset over the Pacific ocean and pays $6,612 for it.
2. An app for iPad of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is barely more than an ebook of the same. … “[t]o have turned a profit so quickly, however, may say as much about The Waste Land app’s production budget as its undisclosed sales figures.”
3. Dining After ‘Downton Abbey’: Why British Food Was So Bad For So Long
4. More Republicans (8x more) than Democrats are impressed (or positively influenced) when a political candidate expresses his religious convictions. (via Trevin Wax)
5. Venerable literary magazine, The Paris Review, is on Pinterest. In other news, Google has announced an official retroactive alliance with the once-and-future Soviet Union.
Inception Park in Buenos Aires
If this were The Thinklings site, this would be filed under Awesomeness and This is Freakin Bizarre. Uber-kudos to Black Sheep Films for their skills in putting together this amusement park footage.
Fun Impressions in Shakespearean Monologue
Impressionist Jim Meskimen performs Clarence’s speech from William Shakespeare’s Richard III using the voices of George Clooney, George W. Bush, Woody Allen, Jimmy Stewart, Boris Karloff, Morgan Freeman, and many, many other public figures. I love it. I’m sure the Bard would love it too.
“Damsels in Distress”
Ooh! Ooh!
After more than a decade without a new Whit Stillman film, his new one, “Damsels in Distress,” is coming:
The trailer doesn’t say when it’s being released, but Movie Insider says April. I want very much to see this movie. It looks great.
I explain my passion for Stillman’s work here.
Tip: First Things.