Sunday paper

How many of you get and read your Sunday paper? My Dad always did, which is why I guess I always have. One of the things I've enjoyed about living in the DC area is getting what usually passes for a very good sunday paper (the Post, that is -- the Times is _terrible_). I enjoyed today's more than usual. Here are a few samples that stimulated this posting (I think you can read most of it online today at http://www.washingtonpost.com/; unfortunately I think they make you register. There are also RSS feeds, so if you know what that is, you can probably figure out how to get them):

- The Sports page headlined an article comparing the statistical liklihood of scoring off a bunt with no outs in various situations. Bottom line: conventional "modern" wisdom that only poor hitters should bunt is mostly true, but in the bottom of the 9th when you only need one run, most hitters would be better off bunting.

- The editorial section (full section on Sundays called "Outlook") headlined "A Tale of Two Wars" by a Marine who went to Vietnam as journalist hawk in '67, and had recently been to Iraq. Some of its points: In the first 3 years in Vietnam, we lost 392 Americans, but the final tally in '75 was 58,000; we've lost 1900 in 2.5 years in Iraq. "14 months. $200,000. I'm out of here. [Expletive] you Iraq. [Beneath this:] 12 months. $20,000. What the [expletive] is going on here?" -- American bathroom graffiti in Iraq. In today's dollars, the Vietnam war cost $600B. The Iraq war has cost $218B so far, and will reach $700B if we get out in 6 years. A senior diplomat in Iraq worries that it may take two generations of soldiers and 40 years to establish democracy in Iraq under current policies. "The ultimate lesson of Vietnam - one that is applicable to Iraq - has been that once Americans decleared victory and returned home, the Vietnamese went through the inevitable, sometimes, brutal shakeout that we had merely delayed. Eventually, the realities of the marketplace and the appeal of capitalism resulted in a a nominally communist but vibrant nation."

- Outlook also has a regular feature called "Verbatim" in which they publish an interesting piece they found in the public domain (usually on the internet). Today's was an "Open Letter to Kansas School Board," which you can read yourself on http://www.venganza.org/. I won't spoil it here, but it points out that Intelligent Design doesn't necessarily imply a Christian designer.

- I almost always find something I'd like to read in the Sunday book review. In a review of several books about the origins of neo-conservatism, one was a recently discovered and published manuscript by Hannah Arendt, which contained this: '"In the Socratic understanding, the Delphic 'know thyself' meant: only through knowing what appears to me ... can I ever understand truth. Absolute truth ... cannot exist for mortals. For mortals the important thing is to make doxa [opinion] truthful, to see in every doxa truth and to speak in such a way that the truth one's opinons reveals itself to oneself and to others." Reading Arendt, who was open to the possibilities of persuasion, we are reminded that democratic politics is an unfinished argument, not a war between incompatible ideologies. This is something that today's partisans - both liberal and conservative - would do well to remember.'

- Also in this section was an article reviewing several books on how Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

More on the Anti-War Mom

Jimmy Akin, the chief apologist at Catholic Answers, has written on his blog a short history and commentary of what has happened to the Sheehan family since the death of Casey. Most of the comments below Akin's short article are not of high quality, but Akin makes a point that I had missed. Much of what Sheehan has stated for the record is irrational, and the close, illuminated attention paid to Sheehan in her current state serves no one. Not Sheehan, not the public. (Certainly not the President. :^) Indeed, the exploitation may be irresponsible and even despicable.

Star Trek and Pedophilia

In May, law professor Ernest Miller noticed an astonishing tidbit in a Los Angeles Times story on the Toronto police Sex Crimes Unit's pursuit of pedophiles:
All but one of the [over 100] offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.
Miller was skeptical but the cops basically stood by their story--at the least, a "majority of those arrested show 'at least a passing interest in Star Trek, if not a strong interest.'" Not just an interest in science fiction generally, mind you. But Star Trek.
The conventional explanation for this seemingly bizarre correlation was that pedophiles must simply be trying to use an interest in Star Trek as a device to lure their prey. But Ellen Ladowsky, an L.A. therapist, thinks there actually is something inherent in the show itself that makes it "irresistible to perverts.". She lays out her case in HuffPost. Sample:
[W]hen it comes to relationships off the ship, Captain Kirk displays a truly astonishing emotional poverty. He goes from planet to planet, having trysts with an assortment of nubile women, but never forms any real attachments. ... [snip] ...There's a pervasive message that women are toxic. In an episode called Cat's Paw, there is an evil sorceress who separates the crew from each other and from the starship. The perpetually indignant Dr. McCoy cautions Kirk, "Don't let her touch your wand Jim, or you'll lose all your power!["] On the very rare occasions where Kirk seems to find love, his partners quickly die off. After one of his loves has croaked, Kirk admonishes Spock "Love, you're better off without it." [Emphasis added]
Ladowsky argues pedophiles naturally identify with the crew's "utopian interracial and interplanetary world" as a model for "denial of the difference between the sexes and the difference between the generations." And then there are the monsters:
[I]f the pedophiles are identifying with the crew members, who do the monsters represent? Possibly aspects of the pedophile's mind that are split off because they are unthinkable, and projected into someone else. On the Enterprise, aggressive impulses aren't battling it out with libidinal ones as they are here on earth. In the Star Trek universe, every "bad" impulse is attributed to an external force. When it comes to sex, for example, it's always an outside influence that takes possession of the crew's minds and bodies, causing them to behave in erotically driven ways. Child molesters have a similar mechanism at work. They deny having any sexual impulses themselves; they frequently claim that it was the children who seduced them.
Ladowsky only discusses the original Star Trek series, not the Next Generation and subsequent follow-ups.

Cartogram of 2004 US Presidential Election Results

Click on the image to look at the interesting page from which it was taken.

Anti-War Mom

If any of you were watching Anderson Cooper's 360 on CNN on Monday night, you might have seen a woman named Pat Vogel standing next to the anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan. Pat happens to be my aunt and has become quite the anti-war protestor herself ever since her son (my cousin) was deployed to Iraq a couple of years ago. He came home in one piece after a few close calls, but the experience turned her and my uncle into passionate protestors against the war.
My aunt and uncle have been trying to get as much media attention as possible and have appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR and several cable outlets during their anti-war campaign. But neither of them has caught the media's attention like Cindy Sheehan, who is been camping outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford for more than a week now.
Tonight, there are more than 1500 vigils (yes, one thousand, five hundred) vigils planned across the country to support Cindy Sheehan's message. All of them happen at 7:30pm in the various time zones and will be attended by anywhere from 20 to 2,000 people depending on the locations.
Are you surprised that Cindy Sheehan has become such a big story in mainstream media? What do you think of her demands to meet President Bush? He has already met with her once before she started this stunt, and he certainly doesn't have time to meet the family members of every fallen soldier killed in Iraq. Do you think there will be any political fallout against Bush or, more importantly, the Republican hawks who support this war and may still be dealing with it in the 2008 elections?

Material Girl

Hey Julia here, contemplating stuff. Why on earth do I have so much of it? Particularly when we move so often? One thought is that since I don't make many solid friendships any more, it's comforting to have have familiar stuff around when I change surroundings so often. But how comforting are albums that I never play? Or is it just inertia? It takes too much energy to decide to get rid of something. Easier to let the movers put it in yet another box... Some is nostalgia. How could I possibly get rid of the Larger Than Frogs T-shirt I got for my 16th or was it 17th birthday? Why do I feel more attached to albums than to cd's? I took a bunch of cd's to the Army Thrift Shop yesterday morning, but I can't figure out what to do with some of these albums. Some I have to keep. Clare's favorite song these days is "Dancing Queen" by Abba. Of course The Tigger Song is a close second, which I also have on album from when I was little. I have some 45's that I absolutely never play, but I can't bring myself to put them into into the "get rid of it" pile. sigh.

SXSW Lite

Just got back from a great couple of days in San Diego with Walter at something called Street Scene. It's a multi-platform concert event held every year in San Diego with bands from different genres but mostly Alt Rock.
On Friday night, we saw The Blackeyed Peas (nothing special), Social Distortion (great), White Stripes (interesting but not my cup of tea), and The Killers (fun - I think the lead singer stole one of my Miami Vice jackets from the 80's).
On Saturday night, we saw The Flaming Lips (kind of cacophonous but great stage presentation), Unwritten Law (twentysomethings doing white rap rock), 311 (thirtysomethings doing white rap rock), Snoop Dogg (didn't understand a word he was saying), and The Pixies (great sound - Walter's favorite of the whole event).
For some reason, this is the fourth time I've seen Walter in the last five months. People are going to start to talk if we're not careful.