EveTushnet.com |
|
|
Conservatism reborn in twisted sisterhood
Archives
February 02 March 02 April 02 May 02 June 02 July 02 August 02 September 02 October 02 November 02 December 02 January 03 February 03 March 03 April 03 May 03 June 03 July 03 August 03 September 03 October 03 November 03 December 03 January 04 February 04 March 04 April 04 May 04 June 04 July 04 August 04 September 04 October 04 November 04 December 04 January 05 February 05 March 05 April 05 May 05 June 05 July 05 August 05 September 05 October 05 November 05 December 05 January 06 February 06 March 06 April 06 May 06 June 06 July 06 August 06 September 06 October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 E-mail Me! Note: All emails will be considered for publication, with name attached, unless you request otherwise Other Eve Sites Eve's Published Journalism and Fiction Questions for Objectivists Against Therapeutic Cloning (Part I) Love in the Time of Cloning (Part II) Nietzsche vs. Eros Non-Blogs Shamed Dogan for Missouri State Rep Torture FOIA Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center Arts & Letters Daily City Journal Dappled Things Doublethink Godspy Institute for Justice National Catholic Register Pregnancy Centers Thunderstruck Yale Free Press Daily Stops Amy Welborn Hit and Run MarriageDebate The Corner Unqualified Offerings Sicut cervus: Resources on God and homosexuality Dreadnought discussion boards "Gay sex or Jew. How come Jew won?" The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde Gay marriage in the Church and the blessing of same-sex friendships (a response to John Boswell, but interesting in its own right) John Heard on Augustine and love between men Ron Belgau autobiographical essay Belgau "Love That Does Not Count the Cost" "Not Exactly Natural (Stunning, Nonetheless)" (me) sequel (me) gay sublime (me) Some stars from a constellation that hasn't been drawn yet (me) In which I attend an ex-gay conference (scroll down for lots of stuff, then up for reactions) Homosexuality & the Church: Two views (mine is view #2) Courage US Catholic bishops to parents of gay children Why you should ignore Paul Cameron Some Iraqi Blogs Iraqi LGBT UK Konfused Kid LivesStrong Inside Iraq Salam Pax 24 Steps to Liberty Iraq Blog Count More Good Reads Abhay Khosla About Last Night After Abortion Agenda Bender The Agitator Alias Clio Balkinization Cacciaguida Child of Divorce - Child of God Christian Persecution Church of the Masses Cigarettes Claw of the Conciliator Club for Growth Colby Cosh Daniel Mitsui Dark October 618 Disputations Disputed Mutability Dreadnought ePiscoSours E-Pression First Things For Keats' Sake Get Religion Holy Heroes Jeremy Lott Journalista KausFiles Kelly Jane Torrance Libertas Mark Shea Marriage Junkie Megan McArdle Millinerd Monster Brains Mumpsimus Noli Irritare Leones Now the Green Blade Riseth O Joyful Light One of the Jones Boys Overlawyered Oxblog Paleo-Future Ross Douthat Scrutinies Sean Collins ShoeBlogs Stop Torture The Rat Virginia Postrel VJ Morton WaiterRant I'm Syndicated! 
|
Monday, June 30, 2003
PICTURE BOOKS: After the kids' books post, I started thinking about picture books as well. I remember picture books much less vividly, since I generally didn't reread them in later life, but there are some that stand out--Tomie de Paola's Prince of the Dolomites, what I think might have been Patricia Tracy Lowe's version of Alexander Dumas's Tale of Czar Saltan, William Pene du Bois's Lion (truly a magical book, perfectly combining the ethereal and the sensual--it's the story of an angel who designs the lion). Here's a list from the New York Public Library that has a lot of good stuff--I can vouch for Blueberries for Sal, Bread and Jam for Frances (and all the Frances books), Caps for Sale, Corduroy, George and Martha, Harry and the Purple Crayon, Harry the Dirty Dog, Miss Nelson Is Missing, Babar, Strega Nona, There's a Nightmare in My Closet, Tikki Tikki Tembo (hey, do I still remember the kid's whole name? Tikki Tikki Tembo No-Sa Rembo Cherry Berry Ruchi Puchi Pip Perry Pembo--I think that was it!), The Very Hungry Caterpillar; and, of course, everything by Maurice Sendak ever. Oh, and Paddle-to-the-Sea by Holling C. Holling (what a great name!)--a great book about a carved Indian in a carved canoe who makes his way through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Wow. Those were fun. Surely you know a kid who could use one...! FOUND MAGAZINE. That's what it is: stuff people found. Like notes reading, "With a smile like that you must not be from around here." Or, from a high school hallway, "You really are 'gifted.' I wish I could 'talk French' like you. I just thought it was funny coming from Mme. Sorry for laughing." There are photos. I could spend hours at a site like this.... Via Sed Contra, who is back. ALSO, YOUR BIO PROFESSOR WILL HAVE A CREEPY OBSESSION WITH THE BONOBO A.K.A. SEXMONKEYS. BE FOREWARNED. From Ginger Stampley comes the question, What advice would you give if you could go back in time and talk with your former self? I've wondered this quite a bit, given the weird turns my life has taken. I'll take two moments--one at the end of ninth grade, one at the beginning of my freshman year of college.... Dear Ninth Grade Self, You'll get bored with being radical. Read more Shakespeare, less Sistah Souljah. The House on Mango Street isn't even a book for pete's sake. You can't escape shame by turning it into pride. Senior year is going to be really, really awful, so be prepared, and try to be a good friend to the people who will need you. You know more than you think you do about God, but less than you think you do about life. Don't put anything in your zine you don't want your mother to read. Even if she never sees it, you can bet that you will regret it later. In general, be a lot less of an exhibitionist/agent provocateur. You're surrounded by amazingly patient, forbearing people, especially your parents. You should return the favor, but I bet you won't.... Dear Freshman Self, Don't take "gut" science classes (i.e. Rocks for Jocks). You will be so bored you'll come within an inch of FAILING, like with an F. Panic and hideola grades will ensue. Take History of Science instead--it's a cop-out, but it's an interesting cop-out. Don't be so quick to judge people. Some of the "cool" people will leave you in the lurch or betray your friends; at least one of the people you can't stand will prove to be a loyal, courageous, and inspiring friend. (Roo-fiance, this means you!) PLEASE don't be so histrionic! Get a grip!!! Don't believe everything you hear, especially if it makes a friend look bad. Remember that people really do have enemies who spread false rumors about them, or, mistakenly but not viciously, perceive events inaccurately and draw bad conclusions. Speaking of, be slower to draw conclusions yourself. Talk more, and don't be afraid to look stupid. Give more speeches in the debating society you're about to join--you'll really regret this if you don't do it, because you'll realize it took you until junior year to give a good speech. Keep your temper in check even with people who hurt your friends. Other people's viciousness, gossip, and vengefulness are no excuse for you to respond in kind. If you do act all evil to your enemies, you'll just end up having to apologize; skipping directly to forgiveness will save you a step. It's possible to stick up for your friends without returning evil for evil. Don't worry--you will not regret spending so much more time with your friends than with your studies. As soon as Taste of India opens, eat there every chance you get--a car's gonna ram into it pretty soon and force it to close down. Oh, and start eating meat again ASAP, you wouldn't believe the hamburgers they've got here! There's more, but hey, ya gotta figure some stuff out for yourself...! Friday, June 27, 2003
QUICKLY (will probably post more substantive stuff tomorrow...): AfricaPundit on Charles Taylor/Liberia/total idiocy from the Associated Press. What possesses these people? Zainab, an Iraqi woman blogger. Via BuzzMachine; I basically agree with his take, i.e. great to have another blogger on the scene but why the cliched, "running dog of the imperialists"-style high-school-anarchist rant? So, be forewarned, Zainab's first post won't tell you anything. But that's life. Hoder calls for brave reporters to unmask Iranian governmental corruption. Please read. Thursday, June 26, 2003
WOW. Barbara Nicolosi of ActOne: Christians Writing for Hollywood reviews "The Passion," a.k.a. the Mel Gibson movie about the life and death of Christ. She's awestruck. MMMMMM, homemade liqueurs. Eeeeeek, no matter how much I love Jello with fruit in it I do not think pretzels (yes, pretzels) would be a good addition. Wednesday, June 25, 2003
HMMM.... Decided I couldn't phrase things coherently without saying just a little bit more than I want to about my own personal situation. So, voila! the post is gone. Sorry. There's lots of cool stuff in the rest of the blog though. HEH-HEH-HEH. Reason's blog is hosting a comments-box discussion of whether Brave New World is really a dystopia. All I can say is, Thank you for confirming my prejudices. NO WAY TO FIGHT. This is wrong. Seriously. More on this later if I can think of anything especially useful to say. YES!!! Excellent piece on writing by Peter David--excerpts: Where do writers get ideas? They don't get ideas. Ideas come to them. They come from the newspapers, or books, or TV shows. They come from movies, or friends. They come from happenstances that they witness or hear about second hand. If I'm making it sound like ideas are a dime a dozen, well...they are. Probably less. It is so darned easy to get ideas if you just set your mind properly. The key to writing fiction is remembering just how closely linked fiction and reality are. Fiction is just like reality, except it's more elegant. ... Execution. That's where it all is. You see, how you tell a story is more important than the idea. A hundred writers can have the same idea, and produce stories involving that idea that are wildly dissimilar. Look at the half-dozen movies that came out a couple years back involving a kid in the body of a man. The only one worth a damn was "Big." Same concept. Better execution.... There's also good stuff about the difference between "inspired by" and "plagiarized from," and in general the piece is just fun to read. Go! Have fun! POETRY WEDNESDAY: I've been reading Tim Powers's Declare, on the advice of a blog-reader, and so far it's terrific. Sort of a dark fantasy Cold War spy novel. Perfect summertime reading. However, it doesn't excerpt well, which is why I haven't been posting the usual quotes from my reading. Anyway, I wanted to get something fun up here after all. that. law. (Below the law post, you will find kids' book recommendations, so there is a point in scrolling!) So here is a poem for this hot, hot, almost hot enough June day. I'm not sure why it seems appropriate, but it does. From Lord Byron. So we'll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul outwears the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a-roving By the light of the moon. Tuesday, June 24, 2003
MORE LAWBLOGGING! Once again, I will rush in where angels fear to blog, as I take issue with people who know more than I do about the law. For prior instances of my hubris, click here (me vs. Prof. Jack Balkin) and here (me vs. Prof. Lawrence Solum). This time I'm arguing with Solum again, addressing what strike me as significant flaws in Solum's defense of "really really strong stare decisis," the belief that the Supreme Court should in all cases put precent above fidelity to text and history. Hereafter that view will be called RRSD. I think that Professor Solum won't take too much offense at my presumption here, because his general cast of mind seems to be pretty populist; I get the impression that he believes the inner workings of the law (or at least the theory of it) should be roughly intelligible to the laity. After all, we have to obey it--might be good if we can understand it! So. I have three disagreements, a question, and a brief set of suggestions. We'll run through these in reverse order. Sorry if this gets confusing--there will be a couple of points where I have to say, "More on this in a moment!", but I think at the end you'll see why I structured it this way. And please do check out Solum's post--it's a good hardcore argument. HOW MODERATE STARE DECISIS COULD WORK. Professor Solum gives a few examples of how judges could respect precedent without giving it preeminence over text and/or history. He offers "precedent last," "precedent as one factor to be weighed," and "precedent as binding in the absence of clear error." He rejects all of these options as unsatisfactory, often because they allow for too much discretion on the part of the justices. I actually like the absence-of-clear-error one, more on that in a moment; here are four possibilities I think are, at least, better than RRSD, though none of them makes judicial flimflammery impossible. Ways judges might discern when to follow precedent in the teeth of the text and when to reverse course: a) The Graybeard Rule: The older the better. Recent precedents are up for grabs, but precendents that have had a long time to get really dug into our law and ordinary lives can be left alone in the interests of avoiding disruption and preserving order. (More on Solum's passion for order later!) b) The Sleeping Dogs Lie Rule: The Supreme Court shouldn't seek to "settle" political issues for us little people. But sometimes it does; and sometimes it even succeeds. The SDL Rule would allow justices to reverse precedents that remain controversial, either reasserting the text or simply returning the issue to the legislative arena. Justices would continue to rely on or at least leave alone those precedents that are rarely disputed. c) The Egregiousness Rule, which is Solum's "absence of clear error" rule. Rulings that are textually sketch but not wilfully destructive of textual meaning are left alone, while blatant text-manipulation gets the smackdown. d) RRSD for non-Constitutional issues (whether common-law, where you need SD a lot more, or legislation, e.g. the 1964 Civil Rights Act but not the 14th Amendment), but text-over-precedent for the Constitution. None of these are perfect. I'm not even sure which one would be best, or if there are still better possibilities out there. To make that judgment would be to soar outside my quite limited competence even more than I'm already doing. My tentative preference would be d, c, b, a, in case you care, but I'll be glad to get any critiques of that stance. All of these possibilities require more prudential judgment on the part of the currently-sitting judge than Solum's model. In fact, this is why Solum rejects the "egregiousness" standard. Part of the point of RRSD, for him, is that it removes much of the opportunity for judicial discretion, much of the need for prudence. Solum thinks this will make judges more predictable and less powerful. I think the second claim (RRSD will diminish judicial power/oligarchy) is just false--I make my case here. I do see how RRSD limits a Solumite judge's personal decisionmaking. But I guess I don't weight that as heavily as Solum does. We know we can't get judging-by-computer: Some degree of discretion and prudence will always be required. Given that, for reasons both practical (I think RRSD provides huge incentives to judicial power-grabbing) and principled (more on this in a moment), I'm pretty comfortable with a less rigid schema that sometimes or often sets text above precedent. Solum seems to me to be collapsing "prudential" into "random," but in fact we can teach prudence and we can discuss whether particular jurisprudential judgment calls were imprudent, even if those judgment calls involved weighing various factors and applying relatively complex rules. (There aren't no rules, just slightly more complicated ones--and in fact, the text itself is quite constraining, so you're in no way getting "judging without walls"...) As a side note, Solum seems to get into exactly the kind of epistemological skepticism that is so wildly useless in philosophy: We want to overturn bad precedents because we know judges get stuff wrong. But wait! I could be the one getting stuff wrong! Aaack! How can I impose my will, by overturning bad precedents, when my overturning could itself be a bad precedent??? Paralysis ensues. (I'm getting this from the section on the perspective-shift, the one that ends, "Totally bogus, man!") RRSD functions here as an escape from judgment, an escape from knowledge and the search for knowledge, and an escape from individuality and fallibility--just like how skepticism functions in philosophy. And just like in philosophy, this corrosive doubt is self-undermining. If people want me to, I can do the math on this, but really if you start thinking about it as an epistemological theory (which is what it really is) rather than a jurisprudential theory I think you'll see the problem. A QUESTION. Solum says it will be possible to work around offensive precedents. Over years of Solumite judging, a body of Solumite precedents will build up that will, slowly but surely, overpower the bad precedents of the past: "As neorealist precedents accumulate, the force of realist decisions is gradually eroded—their gravitational force growing ever less powerful with time. Strong stare decisis does not require the view that errors can never be corrected. Quite the contrary. As time passes, realist decisions control a shrinking domain, then are confined to their facts, and finally are overruled. How can that be? If precedents are binding, how can they ever be overruled? You already know the answer. Formalist judges overrule precedents when, but only when, they have become so inconsistent with the surrounding legal landscape that respect for precedent requires that they be overruled. This move is so familiar to common lawyers that we don’t think twice when we see it happen." But this description is way too metaphor-laden for me. What does this change look like? How do you simultaneously embed a precedent and work around it? Won't this strategy lead to major discrepancies in the law--rulings that conflict, rulings that confuse, rulings that are too narrow to offer clear guidance for people trying to follow the law--and thus destroy the order that Solum seeks so strenuously to preserve? I don't get it. How does this work? LAW AND/OR ORDER. Now we come to the heart of the matter: the issue of order vs. chaos. Here we get to my three most basic objections to RRSD. a) Justices have life tenure, yo. It's potentially great power with limited accountability. Why remove one of the few checks on the Court? This is the point I was making with my whole scrumptious-eclair imagery here. b) Solum proposes RRSD in large part because he views the Court's role as preserving order in a society and staving off confusion. "The rule of law" for him is equated with stability and certainty, thus with adherence to precedent. It's certainly true that order is necessary for people to plan their lives, to attain a degree of control over their futures. (Much of the fatalism in poor or corrupt countries derives from this sense that life is absurd, unintelligible, arbitrary, so who can plan his own future?) But I think Solum is defining confusion down. If it's chaotic to overturn a precedent, isn't judicial review in itself inherently chaotic? Why is overturning a ruling worse than striking down a law? Solum's positions seems to require that if Congress passes a law saying British troops will be quartered in U.S. homes, the Supreme Court can smack 'em, but if the Court itself rules that British troops etc. etc., no future court could reverse them. Color me... confused. I think that Solum is pushed into defending RRSD because he wants to allow for change of bad precedents (see "A Question" above), but he wants that change to come slowly. He wants evolution not revolution, and all that Burkey goodness. Fair 'nough as far as it goes. But the structure of the Court already slows the pace of precedent-change. (For example, Eugene Volokh has pointed out--can't find the link, sigh--that contrary to NARAL propaganda, Roe, sadly, does not hang by a thread.) Supreme Court appointments are staggered; and any would-be revolutionaries must face the hurdle of Senate confirmation. Adding RRSD would turn a slow process positively glacial. But that isn't my most important point. This is: c) There is a higher order--represented not by the whim of the Court, but by the Constitution. This is the final point: RRSD replaces the Constitution with the Court. The Constitution becomes the thing you rely on only when no previous court has left its fingerprints all over the issue before the judges. Presidents--and Court justices--take oaths to uphold not the Supreme Court's precedents, but the Constitution. The order they're called to preserve is the constitutional order, not the order of whatever happens to be the precedential status quo. I do understand the danger of disorder and the preference for reconciling ourselves to precedents rather than crafting each ruling as if it were 1790. Hence the various possible concessions to stare decisis above. But the relentless ardor for precedent above Constitutional ardor strikes me as more likely to produce confusion, and less likely to preserve justice and "ordered liberty," than a more complex and more Constitution-focused understanding. You've got the email link over there if ya wanna prove me wrong.... KIDS' BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS: I love recommending kids' books. So I was thrilled when an acquaintance asked for some thoughts on favorite books. First off, here's my Crisis magazine piece about Christianity and children's fantasy; you'll find many of my favorites there. Here are a passel more, chosen more or less at random, that I hope will bring someone many, many happy hours. My tastes skew dark, so be forewarned, but some of these are very sunny: Diana Wynne Jones, esp. Dogsbody, Power of Three, Witch's Business (published in UK as Own Back Ltd. I think), The Ogre Downstairs, Cart and Cwidder, Howl's Moving Castle--heck, they're all good. Jones has a stellar sense of intrafamilial dynamics (especially between siblings). Her characters always have distinct, realistic personalities. And she remembers the characteristic awfulnesses of childhood--the despairs, fears, and miseries of people who have very little past, and therefore no realistic sense of the future. Arabel and Mortimer series by Joan Aiken. Mortimer is Arabel's pet raven. The two of them make a hilarious pair--sort of Paddington-esque, but slyer. Aiken's Is Underground and Cold Shoulder Road are dark and terrific, and her short story collection The Faithless Lollybird is very good. Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes. Deserves its classic status. Beautifully written. A great book about fatherhood, sonhood, aging, evil, and wonder. Helen Cresswell's Bagthorpes series. SO MUCH FUN! Hilarious adventures of backbiting family of geniuses and their one ordinary son. Michael de Larrabeiti, The Borribles and The Borribles Go for Broke (there's a third one, Borribles Across the Dark Metropolis, but it's not as good). Very dark, but I really loved these--feral, kind of elfin children leading secret life in '70s-'80s-ish London, and battling giant intelligent rats. Zilpha Keatley Snyder. The Egypt Game is her most famous book, and it's great; The Headless Cupid, Blair's Nightmare (I think that's what it's called), The Witches of Worm (very dark), and The Changeling are also good. Oh and her "Below the Root" series--Until the Celebration, Below the Root, And All Between. Maybe not in that order. E.L. Konigsburg--another classic writer. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver (about Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II!); Father's Arcane Daughter; more. Stanley Kiesel, The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids and Skinny Malinky Leads the War for Kidness. Awesome. Gordon Korman is generally a VERY funny writer, although not all of his stuff is up to snuff. I loved the Bruno and Boots series (This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall!, Beware the Fish, Go Jump in the Pool, The War with Mr. Wizzle) and Son of Interflux. The Henry Reed books by Keith Robertson, esp. Henry Reed's Journey and Henry Reed's Babysitting Service. All the Ramona books (Beverly Cleary) except the most recent one completely rock. Roald Dahl of course. The famous trilogy by Madeleine L'Engle--A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Wind in the Door. Excellent, very smart stuff. (Special treat for readers of this site: AWIT includes a way to explain the difference between our perspective, in time, and God's perspective in infinity, using a skirt! Very helpful for free will vs. foreknowledge-type discussions....) Other classics that deserve their status include Edward Eager's books (Half Magic etc., I loved them all), E. Nesbit, Lewis Carroll, and--more than the others--the amazing Wind in the Willows. If you haven't read TWITW already, you're in for a real treat. I loved The Count of Monte Cristo despite its vast length. The Rescue of Ranor by Wilanne Schneider Belden--sense of humor and also sense of duty--very fun quest book with some dark currents. Willo Davis Roberts's The Girl with the Silver Eyes is great; everyone else seems to love her View from the Cherry Tree, which I can't remember if I've read. TGw/TSE is a vibrant, sophisticated example of the "child with bizarre, alienating abilities learns that she is actually part of a secret group of children who must discover their destiny w/the help of some cool adults and the opposition of many lame adults" genre. Thus, tons of fun for bookworm kids. Jean Merrill's Pushcart War and The Toothpaste Millionaire are fun, sweet paeans to the little guys. I wrote a bit about TTM here. Ellen Conford is good--Me and the Terrible Two for younger kids, The Alfred G. Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations for preteens. I read an amazing amount of drek as a kid (my parents very wisely let me read whatever I wanted, figuring there was enough wheat mixed in with the chaff...) but these are some of the books that I still love. Monday, June 23, 2003
"Being a priest is so great I can't even believe it." Heartwarming reading. Via the Cranky Professor. Friday, June 20, 2003
MARK SHEA on why the Pope isn't doing what you want him to do (the first point is especially interesting to me--I've blogged about my problems with the third point in the series that begins here) and starting a lay Catholic reading group. The latter link is hugely, wildly, pom-poms-waving recommended. Shea also has the usual slash-and-burn theology (I mean that in a good way) and sundry intriguing posts. STUDY SUGGESTS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY. In other news, water wet. But if this study has any merit (and I can't even guess whether that's a big if), it is mildly interesting/confirming-of-what-I-already-think: "Three decades of research on men's sexual arousal show patterns that clearly track sexual orientation -- gay men overwhelmingly become sexually aroused by images of men and heterosexual men by images of women. In other words, men's sexual arousal patterns seem obvious. "But a new Northwestern University study boosts the relatively limited research on women's sexuality with a surprisingly different finding regarding women's sexual arousal. "In contrast to men, both heterosexual and lesbian women tend to become sexually aroused by both male and female erotica, and, thus, have a bisexual arousal pattern...." YOU LIKE THE BIBLE, BUT NOT THE REAL PRESENCE IN THE EUCHARIST? I think you've irritated a lion! (Nice post from Lynn Gazis-Sax, in other words. I don't actually know if her site's title means "Don't bug the lions." That's because I dropped out of Latin after "Canis est in via. Grumio Melissam delectat." or whatever.) WISDOM TEETH: The day I moved back to D.C., in August 2001, my wisdom teeth were killing me. I could barely chew. I tried valiantly to eat a Roy Rogers hamburger at a NJ rest stop, because I love them (it tastes like they butter the bun, mmm) and the chain is no longer operating in D.C., but it just hurt sooooo much. So I went to see the dentist. My dentist recommended that the teeth be removed, which I'd expected. Then he showed me a little cartoon movie. I still remember this movie vividly. I still remember the little cartoon tooth being dug out from its little cartoon jaw. And I very, very clearly remember the little cartoon nerve being snagged, and damaged, by the tooth on its way out. I vaguely remember the movie's antiseptic warnings that there was this percentage chance of partial nerve damage and that percentage of total loss of feeling in this, that, or the other sensitive mouth-place. But I do know that the movie was scary. I hadn't even thought about the possibility that my nerves might be damaged in the course of wisdom-tooth removal. After seeing this charming movie, I pretty desperately didn't want to get my wisdom teeth out--but they hurt so much! Fortunately (sort of...), I have a minor blood disorder, which I had to get checked out before I could have the surgery. This process dragged on, due to a few fairly odd bureaucratic mistakes, and probably due to my own unwillingness to get it over with. Eventually, of their own accord, my teeth stopped howling at me, and I could eat solid food once more. I never did get my wisdom teeth out, even though my dentist kept recommending it long after they'd stopped hurting. I think about this experience when I think about "woman's right to know" laws that mandate various types of medical counseling about the physical risks of abortion. After Abortion is your best place to go for this stuff, but let me throw in my two cents. First, it's just responsible medicine to make sure your patient knows about the physical risks of surgery. Especially elective surgery. That's true even if you think knowing the risks will make the patient less likely to go through with the procedure. That's true even if the risks are fairly minor. (I mean, people get their wisdom teeth out all the time, and I've never met anyone who got nerve damage from the surgery; yet my dentist, responsibly, thought I should know the risks so I could make an informed decision.) Second, opponents of "right to know" laws often argue that women already know all that stuff. After all, abortion is a wrenching decision that women don't make on a whim. Surely they've pondered the risks and decided it's worth it. But that's something of a non sequitur. Yes, abortion is a wrenching decision, not made on a whim. But before you can even ponder the risks, you have to know where to look. You have to know what you don't know. And I've found, in my work at the pregnancy center, that a lot of our clients are surprised to hear things that as far as I know (and I've read a lot about this stuff) are undisputed medical facts. For example, we often show clients photos of fetal development. (I'm pretty sure they're the Lennart Nilssen pictures. If not, they certainly correspond to everything I've seen on the Web--these aren't eight-month fetuses being passed off as zygotes or whatever.) And we get reactions like, "Oh, I never knew!" "Is that really what they look like?" Women are shocked to find out how early the kid begins to look like a baby. This information sometimes affects their decision to abort or keep the child. Does that mean providing the info is manipulative? To my mind, it's exactly the opposite--because the information may affect their decision, they need to know it. Information is only relevant if it might affect either your decision as a patient, or how you view that decision. I mean, my dentist didn't tell me a lot of random facts about how he was going to do the surgery. He showed me the things he thought would be most likely to affect my decision (whether the pain was bad enough that I wanted my teeth out) or my view of the decision (if something went wrong, I'd at least feel like he'd given me fair warning). Similarly, I do a pretty basic description of abortion procedures. I do not go into graphic detail, I do not make faces, I do not talk about killing the baby. I would say my description of abortion, to clients, is almost as clinical as the wisdom-teeth cartoon. But I know the reality of it--having to assess the up-front and personal description of the uterus, the suction, the curette--makes some women reconsider. Is that a reason to keep them from hearing the descriptions? Absolutely not. So although I pretty obviously don't think "right to know" is in any way a sufficient response to abortion (though hey, I don't think a Human Life Amendment is a sufficient response to abortion either--I'm hard to please that way), I do think it should not be controversial. (I would like these laws not to assume anything about the abortion/breast cancer connection, since they inevitably lack nuance and get stuff wrong--go here for a pretty good round-up from an abortion-rights perspective.) Even if abortion isn't wrong, it is surgery, and it should be treated as such. BENEATH THE VAST POST THERE, you'll find reviews of "Spider-Man" and Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth." Just so you know. HELLO PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE! (WAVE HELLO TO THE NICE FUTURE PEOPLE, SWEETIE): What will people centuries hence want to know from your blog? What will frustrate them--"Why couldn't she have written more about 'Metrobuses'?" What will delight them--"Oh, so that's what a Fudgsicle is!" What was the flu like? Fiction lives in the details. So too does history. Thus I'm super-intrigued by the "Pepys Now Project" (link via Tepper), which gives suggestions for bloggers wondering what future-folk might want to know. I'm going to do a kind of quickie version of their suggestions, since this sort of thing seriously fascinates me. First, what are some of the things I do or know that might be lost in years to come? The pregnancy center immediately comes to mind. It's an intensely feminine atmosphere--cozy, full of brightly-colored toys and playsets, lots of American Baby-type magazines, with bright displays showing photos from our parenting class. Christian mags with names I forget. A basket of stuff we're trying to give away, which we got through an evangelical warehouse (for real): pens, lipstick that looks silver but goes on pink, nail polish, rattles, Christian romance novels, I don't know what all. One girl polished each nail a different color while waiting for her appointment. We also do a brisk trade in PowerPuff Girls coloring books, and a weird "hip" version of the New Testament, a "study Bible," which I suspect I'd dislike if I ever had time to read it. We have a good "Bible selections for women in crisis" purse-sized book, though, which I like a lot. The general atmosphere of the center is somewhere between grandma's house and, well, chaos. I own three kinds of musical recordings: tapes, CDs, and records. My strong impression is that records have a more summery or autumnal sound, full-bodied, rich, chocolatey, whereas CDs are wintry, precise, both crisper and a little colder. (This is especially true of older CDs.) Tapes are the worst of every world--cracklier than vinyl, short-lived and very easily destroyed (the brown tape ravels and tears at every opportunity), neither crisp nor full. But they're cheap as all get out, especially before the MP3 Age. I live on 16th Street, downtown. It's never dark in my apartment, and it's never quiet. The orange street light spills in through the venetian blinds in a very film-noir way. There are cars at all hours. Occasionally prostitutes. Very, very often, there are sirens; but during the day, that may mean a motorcade, not an emergency. It's very safe precisely because 16th Street is so well-lit and well-traveled. I have some wacky birth defects; maybe future-people won't know as much about those. I have a large scar on my throat from a tracheotomy when I was an infant. It's sort of star-shaped (if stars have shapes!) and puckered and not especially pleasant to look at. I used to be really self-conscious about that. Now I basically don't care. I was a bit miffed when it was airbrushed out of a picture I needed for journalism-publicity reasons. Yes, this did influence my view of abortion a little bit, but only once I'd already become pro-life. When I supported legal abortion I just didn't think about the whole "Oh, I could never bring a child with life-threatening birth defects into the world, it would be better if those children were never born" thing. I can't wear contacts. I've tried. But I just. can't. deal. with putting my fingers in my eyes. Even applying mascara has a hint of "Un Chien Andalou" for me--I do it, but it took me a while to get used to it, and I still can't use eyeliner. Eyes are no-fly zones as far as I'm concerned. So I wear small glasses and have no peripheral vision and took a self-defense class in which I would generally end up fighting a big menacing blur. Now for some of the New Pepys Project's questions. Place: What do I see when I look straight ahead? Computer, obviously, with a St. Joseph holy card taped to the side, a bunch of business cards I need to deal with stuck into the keyboard so I won't lose them, and a bottle of CVS brand ibuprofen. A mess of papers and a ballpoint. (I totally agree with David Gelernter's idea that we naturally think in piles, not in file folders.) A blue squeezy ball, the kind executives use to relieve stress, which I'm hoping will build my hand strength in preparation for more pistol shooting with the Oligarch. A day-by-day "365 Stupidest Things Ever Said" calendar. Several cardboard cups of elderly coffee--ugh. Spiral notebooks. A book I'm reviewing. A silver-colored folding chair. When I look behind me, I see a book of photos of New York, underneath a dictionary of saints; two boxes of unused checks; two matching cat figurines; a kind of mini-tambourine The Rat got me in, I think, Mexico. Next to it is my small shrine-y corner: several prayers; the palm from the most recent Palm Sunday; my baptismal candle in its long cardboard box; a somewhat saccharine devotional picture of St. Therese looking a lot like my actual patron saint, St. Elizabeth of Hungary; two St. Edith Stein holy cards; a crucifix; a missal; another candle from I-forget-where, probably last Easter; and holy cards with a reparation prayer to Jesus and a prayer to the Holy Spirit. What am I wearing? Polyester, of course! A brightly-colored polyester shirt, with huge, very '70s lapels and wide cuffs--mostly tan, with big blue and red flowers and random white geometric designs. I love this shirt. Gray pants that are supposed to look like wool, but don't really. Most of my clothes are polyester. So easy to wash! What makes a joke funny? I will try to be both illuminating to future-folk, and not soporific to present-folk. Let me tell you my favorite joke and then briefly sketch the stuff it's playing on. An Englishman, a Frenchman, and an American are sojourning in some remote part of the world, when they're captured by cannibals. The cannibal scouts drag the captives to their cannibal chief, who looks them over and pronounces them tasty morsels indeed--and their skins will make excellent canoes! But the cannibal chief is a man of honor, and he says he will allow them to choose the method of their demise and speak a few last words before they're skinned and popped into the stew. The Englishman chooses a pistol. He shoots himself, proclaiming, "God save the Queen!" They eat him and make his skin into a canoe. The Frenchman chooses a dagger. He stabs himself, crying, "Vive la France!" They eat him and make his skin into a canoe. The American chooses a fork. The cannibals are consternated, but they give in; he gets the fork. He proceeds to stab himself all over his body, shouting, "So much for your $#@!ing canoe!" ....So, why do I love this joke? It gets at the essential pigheadedness of the American character--the violent, inventive, rebellious, individualist, crass, young streak. It may not have the forbidding eloquence of "Don't tread on me," but "So much for your $#@!ing canoe!" wouldn't've made a bad Revolutionary War slogan, no? What surprised me most recently? Tough question. I was surprised today when a woman in counseling used the word "sin" to describe something she'd done. We don't hear that a lot. I was very surprised at how quiet my parents' house seemed after the noise of my apartment--I remembered their house as fairly noisy, due to the combination of shrieking insects, barking dogs, old-house creaking, and muffled traffic on 16th Street. Surprised, and I must say frightened, at how dark the streets were, after the constant ghostly orange night-light of my neighborhood. I was surprised when an Iraqi man tried to pick me up by telling me about his acting career, showing me his SAG card, describing the various Iraqi-themed movies in which he'd had bit parts (including "Three Kings"), and writing me a slightly histrionic snatch of dialogue in Arabic on a page of my City Paper. I was surprised, I can tell you!, when I was locked into my own apartment by the humidity. I was surprised to find that Benning Road is really easy to get to if you, like, know where you're going. It totally wasn't where I expected. This shows how little I really know of D.C. outside the few neighborhoods I frequent: Silver Spring, Shepherd Park, bits of Takoma, Adams Morgan, bits of the U St. area, pretty much anything along 16th St., Friendship Heights, CUA, really most of the Red Line, and Capitol Hill/Eastern Market. On a similar note, I was surprised to learn that there are lots of empty storefronts in Georgetown nowadays, according to a recent visitor. "SPIDER-MAN": Saw it last night. Okayish. Not my thing. Tobey Maguire was much fun, though, very Boy Scout/nerd. I really liked how his first few Spidey-stunts look awkward, even clumsy--they're breathtaking, but still very gawky and adolescent. And there were several funny moments, several sweet ones, some fun (the NYC man-on-the-street reactions), some chills (Norman Osborn vs. his mirror): the usual Chinese-menu approach to moviemaking. But I think it's a problem that I identified most strongly with the becoming-evil (evilescing?) son of the evil villain. Sum less than parts. Here's a comments thread about which are the best superhero movies. I will vouch for "Unbreakable" and, as you already know, "X2." SATAN SUM, ET NIHIL HUMANUM A ME ALIENUM PUTO. Finished Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth," on the recommendation of a (practicing) Jewish friend. It's basically Twain's complaint against God, framed as letters written by Satan to the other angels based on Satan's observations of humankind. Mostly, it got up my snout. If I had to summarize it in one word it would be "shrill." Some of the passages on disease and Old Testament God-driven killings were powerful, but overall, the piece is mired in a worldview that smells so very, very late 19th-century: Biblical literalism and its mirror-image atheism, sexual obsession (OK, that's us too, but Twain gets just creepily prurient here--plus his description of men vs. women on sex completely ignores the minor detail of pregnancy, which would be funny if it weren't quite so telling), sweet naivete about the depths of human evil (how could anyone be bad enough for Hell?), and utter confusion about determinism and free will (Twain/Satan cutely blames all humans' rottenness on our Creator, but our good deeds are our own, of course). I wondered if I should be separating Twain more cleanly from his narrator, but some of Satan's observations are more lurid versions of things Twain has said elsewhere in his own voice (e.g. Life on the Mississippi), and I couldn't find reason to think that Twain was secretly satirizing the style of atheism the work promotes. I was also interested to see how glancingly Twain touches on the Incarnation; the Crucifixion appears not at all. C'mon, man, at least Nietzsche took the bull by the horns! LFTE does illustrate the common, swift progression from hatred of God, to hatred of religion, to corrosive contempt for one's fellow man. So hey, that's useful, I suppose. Thursday, June 19, 2003
MY IMPULSIVE AND CHAOTIC LIFE was more impulsive and chaotic than strictly necessary yesterday and today. Hence the dearth of posts. Tomorrow things should be settled down, and I'll do some lawblogging, post mail about vouchers, and explain what my wisdom teeth have to do with abortion restrictions. For now, why don't you read this (for fun) and this (not for fun)? Wednesday, June 18, 2003
ANNUNCIATIONS on the laity and the bishops. Good read. Plus a wild anecdote about what some supposed "messages from Mary" really mean. Via Amy Welborn. Tuesday, June 17, 2003
MORE SUBCONTRACTING CHILD ABUSE: Inside the Tranquility Bay, Jamaica "tough love" camp for kids. Expect more on this subject from me later this week. SO THE NYC SMOKING BAN means that two barbers step outside their barbershop to satisfy the nicotine cravings. Then they get ticketed for loitering. Outside their barbershop, where they work. "'Blame it on Bloomberg,' they said the cop told them before driving away." This is true. Via Gene Healy. THE FINAL COMEDOWN: God of the Machine has a bunch of interesting drug-related tidbits stored in one sadly permalinkless post (scroll down to "Smack, Crack, Pot"). Excerpts: (Q: Mr. Haspel, how many times have you experimented with marijuana? A: Several thousand times, sir. Science requires replicable results.) ...Theodore Dalrymple [non-legalizer and congential pessimist, by the way--ed.] points out, by way of prologue, that heroin withdrawal isn't all it's, er, cracked up to be: "I can’t tell you how many people I’ve withdrawn from heroin. You never get any problems with it. It’s not like withdrawal from serious drinking which can be, and often is, a medical emergency. From a medical point of view, I’m much more worried in the prison when someone tells me he’s an alcoholic. I’m much more worried about the physical consequences of his withdrawal because they are really serious, and he can die from them. But nobody ever dies from heroin withdrawal. ..." ...Human beings are goal-directed to such a degree that they will substitute a destructive goal if nothing constructive presents itself. Drugs fit the bill admirably. ...This pseudo-meaning is enhanced by ceremony and ritual, a vastly underrated aspect of drug culture. [Yup. More here--ed.] ...All-consuming drug use travesties purposeful behavior, the way the Mafia travesties legitimate business. And drug users testify, strangely, to the Misesian proposition that man is a being who acts toward ends. HILARIOUS slap at The American Conservative, via Los Volokh. Seriously, if you have ever leafed through this misbegotten mag, read John Holbo's take. I annoyed The Rat no end by reading their recent "The Smiths Are Conservative!" piece over lunch and alternately laughing hysterically and quoting lyrics at her to convince her that this piece was truly weird. I mean, I love the Smiths. And you can, I guess, point to "Sweet and Tender Hooligan" as a slam on the whole "criminals are kindly and misunderstood" mentality ("He swears that he'll never, never do it again, and of course he won't/Not until the next time"). If memory serves, the AmConMag article did not mention S&TH even though it may be the only Smiths song that actually fits the case. Well, maybe I exaggerate--frustrated desire is conservative, I think--anyway it's certainly not liberal! But, uh, where to begin with the refutations of the AmConMag piece... here, here, here, here, here, here. Holbo asks for the "highlights" (using the term loosely, I guess...) from the Smiths piece. Sadly, it is hiding from Nexis, and all I can remember is that the author argues that the characters in "Hand in Glove" are hidden by rags because... Britain is too socialist. Is it just me or is there a subtext being missed here? Oh well, the world won't listen, and all that.... AXIS OF EMAIL: Hoder Derakhshan offers his services to Iraqis, especially those who want to blog in Arabic. This guy is already there, apparently, though I can't make his blog show up as anything but a series of boxes and random weird (non-Arabic) characters. Looking for Iraqis online? Go here. Some people on the list also have personal webpages. Almost all of these people live outside Iraq, as far as I can tell--unsurprisingly. Meanwhile, among non-Arabic blogs, G. in Baghdad has a lot of interesting stuff up; Oxblog on Iranian machinations in Europe (and elsewhere); BBC "talk back" site where lots of Iranians are writing their firsthand impressions of the protests--this is a completely fascinating read; my less-fascinating but still-relevant article about blogging in the Middle East. (Yeah, sorry about the title, had to get it out of my system.) ANCIENT JEWISH BLOGS! Two blogs by professors of Jewish Studies: PaleoJudaica, which focuses on "ancient Judaism and its context," and Mystical-Politics, offering "discussions of Jewish mysticism, especially from the ancient world (biblical, Qumran, Hekhalot, rabbinic, etc.) and of contemporary politics -- and of the occasional interactions between them." Both via Kesher Talk. TIMELY BLEG: OK, so who really said that the streets of Hell are paved with the skulls of bishops (or some even more colorful variant)? Google is conflicted on this question. Ask me why it's on my mind. CHARLES TAYLOR AGREES TO STEP DOWN! Whoa. Let's see if this really happens before we break out the champagne.... Link via Oxblog I think. Monday, June 16, 2003
ANNUNCIATION PIX: Matthew McGuire writes: So all the way back to last Wednesday... you wrote an interesting bit about icons in the context of talking about the new book by FMG. You mentioned an annunciation. The no-brainer recoiling Mary annunciation, the classic rendering, is indeed early renaissance - Simone Maritini's in 1333. The provenance is Sienese - he never painted in Florence**. You can see it at the Uffizi, or you can see a washed-out photo here. Martini was grand, a nice balance to the guys in Florence. But.. check out this terrific little-known annunciation from 200 years later. It was painted by Domenico Beccafumi, the self-conscious heir to (among other things) the Sienese spooked-Madonna tradition. Beccafumi is fantastic, but like Gluck in Vienna, had unfortunate timing - painting along with Michelangleo, Raphael, et al, and in the relative (by that time) backwater of Siena. If you look at his Birth of the Virgin, you'll see some of Michelangelo's pallette, but with less monumental figures. And odd Mannerist touches, like the dog and the kid - haha. Okay, sorry, you're a busy woman, and I have studying to do. Just didn't know how many art history graduate students you might have reading, and thought this might be what you'd seen. God bless, Matthew McGuire ** ended up, actually, it the Papal court in Avignon, where he became a boon friend of Petrarch. Eve again: Sadly, neither of these are the picture I referred to in the icon post; but they're neat nonetheless, and the first one is especially awesome. Thanks! |
