Tasty Tidbits 7/8/11

Here’s today’s Tasty Tidbits I’ve thought worth memorializing:

1. The epitome of greatness turns 83.
2. Obama’s perverse attack on DOMA.
3. There oughtn’t be a law.
4. Who can sing?
5. What’s wrong with this table?
6. Which head of Hydra do we attack first?
7. Making politics personal in the digital age.
8. Who killed Communism?
9. 7×8=62

1

I posted yesterday before noticing that it was the 83rd anniversary of sliced bread, the epitome of greatness (slide down the page).

2

I have been uneasy all along with the Obama Administration’s abandonment of defending the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.

I’ve been uneasy because the Executive Branch is supposed to defend laws — indeed, they take an oath to that effect — and I absolutely don’t agree, wherever one may come down in the end, that DOMA is so indefensible as to warrant an exception to that rule.

But it has gotten worse. They’ve actually filed a pleading that “reads like a gay rights manifesto: It rejects tradition, morals and procreation as justifications for marriage restrictions and concludes that a federal ban on spousal benefits was unconstitutionally based on “animus” – dislike, rooted in prejudice – toward gays and lesbians.” That’s the San Francisco Chronicle’s gushing mash note to the Administration, although it has been trumpteted predictably by others (including, now, Yours Truly).

I don’t want to see a 2012 GOP campaign that demagogues gays — that’s both wrong and probably a political loser — but an attack on Obama for dereliction of duty and indeed defiance of duty would be well-placed.  The judicial system does not work properly when one side decides to throw the game to play to its base.

3

There oughtn’t be a law (to be pronounced very carefully).

This story reminds me of the time our local newspaper demanded that the legislature stop messing around and get on with immediately creating a State Lottery. I had to remind them that the Indiana Constitution forbade lotteries, so the legislature at least needed an initial step before following its advice. (I still hate the lottery and other regressive taxes on stupidity.)

4

Who can sing? Well, as noted yesterday, Cecilia Bartoli.

But there’s more than one way to sing. Thanks to NPR Thursday morning, I discovered that there’s more to the personnage styled Beyoncé than the attractive sternum and navel she displays. I just assumed she was a no-talent with a good young body and good marketing.

But she really can sing. I didn’t like her lyrics, but she appears to be a sort of female Billy Joel, with chameleon musical style changes.

And then there’s this youngun:

5

The Pew Forum very recently published results of a “Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders.” I’m less keenly interested in the comings, goings, and meanderings of Evangelicalism now that when I was closer, but Evangelicals emerged in the 70s, and remain today, a potent political force, so anyone interested in American public affairs should pay a little attention.

What’s interesting to me, among other things (I continue to explore) is this:

Yes, contrary to what I would have guessed, Orthodox are viewed favorably by 2% fewer Evangelical leaders than are Roman Catholics. I have some hypotheses on why that’s so, but my favorite is that American Catholicism since Vatican II is pretty much Protestantism with smells, bells, and weekly communion.

I think there’s some political correctness, and some ignorance masquerading as opinion, creeping into some of these answers. Note, too, that “Jews” do better than Orthodox Christians and most Evangelical leaders profess that teetotalism is necessary to be a good Evangelical.

6

I tend to ignore some things that richly deserve to be ignored, and even to poke fun at people who pay attention to them. But no doubt I also ignore some things that deserve some attention.

The recent Supreme Court case saying that a ban on sale of violent video games to children was unconstitutional, while (at least) hinting that restriction on sale of sexually-oriented material to them was still okay, may have been something meriting attention. Jon Stewart had fun with it, and Timothy Egan approaches it more soberly. Since I was focused on a few of Hydra’s other heads, I’ll limit my thoughts for now to that link.

7

If the conflict between Same-sex marriage and religious freedom is real — and it is —  friends of religious freedom may need to become as media-savvy as friends of SSM.

This makes the obligatory purchase of Girl Scout cookies from girls’ parents at the office look voluntary in comparison.

8

Everybody wanted to take credit for the fall of Communism. I recall as a Calvinist flushing with pride at a story from Romania about how some Calvinists did something-or-other that was sorta bold that supposedly brought down Nicolae Ceaușescu. The story was probably true, the significance exaggerated.

Peggy Noonan reminisces in today’s WSJ Online (I believe she appears in the weekend dead tree edition) about Ronald Reagan as his centenary approaches, and she’s probably right that he and John Paul II deserve pride of place in the historic telling of the end of that dreadful chapter of history.

(And for whatever it’s worth, I filed Noonan’s column in my “history” folder, consistent with my conviction that Reagan Nostalgia — the conviction that we just need to repeat his magic formula and our problems will go away as did his — is misplaced. We need someone with his clarity of vision about the problems we face today, not someone with clouded vision cloddishly applying the wrong balm to the present wound.)

9

There’s an old saying that if “2+2=4” had political ramifications, there’d be a party to oppose it. (There’s an even older saying to that effect about some axiom of geometry that would leave people slack-jawed at what the point was if I could remember and quote it.)

Bon appetit!