Texas Abortion Law Stalled

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2013-06-26 Texas Abortion Law

The Texas Tribune is reporting that the GOP attempt to pass one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws in Texas failed last night / early this morning because the Republicans were unable to vote before midnight. The whole thing makes me so depressed.

  1. I give props to Wendy Smith for her legitimate, stand-up-and-talk-for-hours filibuster. I’m not an expert, but the GOP’s efforts to derail her seemed shady at best.
  2. I can’t give props for her reasoning. She said the defeat of the bill “shows the determination and spirit of Texas women and people who care about Texas women.” This is a bill that included safeguards for women that are desperately needed (Gosnell wasn’t alone, and we know that). Defeating the bill isn’t about supporting women. It’s about supporting abortion.
  3. The mob take-over of the legislature was, given the GOP’s shady handling of the filibuster, perhaps a necessary evil. But the raucous celebration of the chaos by Democrats is immature at best, and strikes me as ominous. If the majority of people have to seize power from their elected officials, even for a moment, that’s a serious and sober moment. But when a minority do so it is even more troubling. Even if you oppose the law, there’s nothing to celebrate at all in how it was defeated.

It depresses me and it shames me as an American. There may have been some few folks who acted out of principle, but all I see–on both sides–is a rowdy crowd rioting because their team won or lost a sporting event.

Adverse Childhood Experiences And The Truth About Everyone

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2013-06-26 Dr. Felitti

In the first of three articles for the Huffington Post, Jane Ellen Stevens talks about one of the biggest public health studies you’ve never heard of.

Dr. Felitti ran an incredibly successful preventative health program, but one of the initiatives had a puzzling problem. Aimed at helping people who were significantly overweight, he found that about 50% of the population would drop out before completing the program, even though they were making good progress. His efforts to uncover this mystery led to something even bigger. In a massive study with over 17,000 participants, Dr. Felittie and others discovered that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)–things like physical or sexual abuse–created a staggering toll on adult health: “chronic disease,… mental illness, doing time in prison, and work issues, such as absenteeism.” What was really surprising, however, was the extent of the exposure to ACEs. Over 2/3rds of study participants had experienced at least one form of adverse childhood experience, and of that population, 87% have experienced two or more. Dr. Felitti, upon seeing the results for the first time, says “I wept. I saw how much people had suffered and I wept.” 

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Salon’s New Atheism Takedown

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2013-06-26 Salon New Atheist Takedown

I’m pretty much over the New Atheists these days, probably because the one Facebook friend of mine who posted Dawkins and Hitchens quotes most frequently left Facebook. Funny, how our worldview can hinge on such inconsequential matters. Even when we know all about selection bias and problems with small sample sizes, it just takes too much cognitive power to keep a constant watch on unruly intuitions.

In any case, this is a particularly good take-down of New Atheism (specifically: of the late Christopher Hitchens) and, surprisingly enough, it comes from Salon.

Even more surprising? It cites a “The Most Misunderstood Book: Christopher Hitchens on the Bible,” which is  an article from the FARMS Review of the Maxwell Institute out of BYU.

Salon quoting Mormons to take down Hitchens? The world is truly upside down.

Beyond Bigotry: The Real Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage

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2013-06-25 Gay Marriage Protest

A lot of things are disconcerting about the same-sex marriage debate. One of them–which I’ve already discussed–is the way that social conservatives were silent for too long in pairing a principled stand for traditional marriage (one Christian virtue) with sincere interest in the welfare of homosexuals as brothers and sisters (an even more important Christian virtue). But another comes from the opposite side of the political spectrum.

Eric Teetsel explains it harshly but clearly in a post for the Witherspoon Institute:

Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert George recently wrote a masterful defense of what marriage is and why it matters. It is no exaggeration to say that their argument is the intellectual foundation for marriage advocates, used by the National Organization for Marriage, the Heritage Foundation, and others (including my own Manhattan Declaration).

What did the same-sex marriage movement do with this seminal book? They ignored it.

They don’t have answers to the authors’ claims; they don’t need them. Advocates of same-sex marriage aren’t concerned about the logic of their arguments or the precedents they establish. Forget facts; theirs is a more powerful weapon in the era of amusement: fad.

As I said: harsh. But I think Teetsel is largely right, even if it could have been expressed with more sensitivity. In almost all cases the “debate” goes something like this: support gay marriage or be tarred a bigot. With some exceptions that seems to be about it. It’s as though Americans who support gay marriage think that the Westboro Baptists genuinely represent the traditional marriage constituency.

They don’t.

With the upcoming Supreme Court decision, this debate may be winding down or moving on. Then again, maybe not. But in either case, I think it would be incredibly beneficial for those who support marriage equality to read the paper Teetsel referenced. It’s called “What Is Marriage?” and it appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. It’s not exactly short or light reading, but as Teetsel points out, it’s the actual expression of what defenders of traditional marriage actually believe. No matter how this debate plays out, I think that’s something worth understanding. Primarily, I might add, because I think while it may not be what gay marriage supporters want to hear (obviously), it’s notably free of what bigotry, animosity, or intolerance as a motivation. Vocal minority of fearful idiots notwithstanding, that’s not what the traditional marriage movement is really about.

So go ahead: give it a read.

Lost, Underwater Egyptian City

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2013-06-25 Lost Egyptian City

So this is pretty awesome:

It is a city shrouded in myth, swallowed by the Mediterranean Sea and buried in sand and mud for more than 1,200 years. But now archeologists are unearthing the mysteries of Heracleion, uncovering amazingly well-preserved artifacts that tell the story of a vibrant classical-era port.

More pics and video at ScienceDump.

 

Monday Morning Mormon Madness: Modesty and Feminism.

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Check that alliteration out! That’s a 5 in a row and 5 out of 7. Don’t try this at home!

Anyway, here’s my weekly post for Times And Seasons, in which I jump into the fracas over (former Power Ranger, current swimwear designer) Jessica Rey and her comments about bikinis, modesty, and empowerment.

2013-06-24 Jessica Rey Power Ranger

This one is definitely less heavy on the Mormon terminology and more universal in scope, although it does address more the concerns of religious (not necessarily Mormon) social liberals and social conservatives. I’m going to turn comments off on this thread, so feel free to weigh in over there if you’d like.

People Never Finish Articles

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A person browses through media websites on a computer on May 30,

I witnessed this first-hand when my post about food insurance vs. health insurance got picked up on Reddit. It was obvious from some of the earliest comments that folks hadn’t bothered to read the article, because they were like “Well… he didn’t bring up X” when, in fact, I did bring up X. So, not a surprising article from Slate, but they do have lots of specific data to back up the reality that folks just don’t finish reading articles. Often even if they share them!

I wonder how many people finished reading that article, though…

Obama Admin Accounts for 70% of Espionage Act Indictments

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2013-06-22 Blessed_are_the_Peacemakers
Political cartoon protesting the Espionage Act of 1917 way back in 1917.

So the Obama Administration has filed a criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, and some of the counts fall under the Espionage Act of 1917. According to the WaPo’s article:

There was never any doubt that the Justice Department would seek to prosecute Snowden for one of the most significant national security leaks in the country’s history. The Obama administration has shown a particular propensity to go after leakers and has launched more investigations than any previous administration. This White House is responsible for bringing six of the nine total indictments ever brought under the 1917 Espionage Act. Snowden will be the seventh individual when he is formally indicted.

I find it interesting that an espionage law that is almost 100 years old will end up having 70% of its indictments come from the current administration. That’s just a really stark example of the “particular propensity to go after leakers” the article mentions. I also think that having Snowden successfully extradited might be the worst thing that could happen to the Obama administration politically, but I guess we may have a chance to find out soon. (Also, the complaint against Snowden was initially sealed. Figures.)

More Problems With Marriage

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2013-06-21 Bridezilla

So “sanctity of marriage” is a phrase that almost always means “we’re talking about gay marriage”. But it shouldn’t. There are other fish to fry, and the The Daily Beast has a feature article called The ‘Me, Me, Me’ Wedding serving up a big one:  the superficiality and selfishness of America’s bridezilla culture. From the article:

In many pockets of 21st-century America, the idea of the wedding as something communal is anathema—a relic from a bygone era or the realm of the devoutly religious. Nuptials today are defined by your Pinterest board, of which there are a multiplying number of wedding-related ones, three-day destination extravaganzas, and $200 spoons from Michael C. Fina. So, many American weddings have evolved into a fixation with material details, trials of abject devotion by members of the wedding party, and resigned acceptance of bridal crusades for perfection that threaten to crush all in their path. Because, well, you deserve it—it’s your day.

The article also points out that this wedding culture is just a a toxic spawn of conspicuous consumption more generally with this memorable line:

Peggy Olson or Don Draper couldn’t have conceived a better marketing slogan than “This is your day”—the kind of tagline that so deeply, and reliably, influences consumer behavior.

The whole thing is worth reading, both on its own merit and as a reminder that the institution of marriage in the United States has many, many problems.

If You Really Care: Take Risks but Speak Carefully

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When it comes to politics, ignorance really is bliss. I didn’t really know very much at all about politics until I felt obligated by civic duty to start paying attention around 2006. One of the things that I chose to do was expose myself to different voices, so I started listening to conservative radio (starting with Rush Limbaugh) as well as looking for liberal radio (which was harder to find, but I found some). It definitely degraded the happiness level of my life, but I learned a lot. I learned, for example, that the mainstream media frequently misquotes Rush Limbaugh and that, for his part, Rush Limbaugh frequently says misquotable things. It’s a co-dependency: each relying on the perceived injustice of the other to rally their own side (and drive advertising dollars, of course).

Rush Limbaugh: Pretending to care since 1984.
Rush Limbaugh: Pretending to care since 1984.

I also learned that when Rush Limbaugh has to pick between his principles and his ratings, he picks his ratings every time. The most vivid demonstration of this comes every four years during the GOP primary

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