- Anyone want to make any snide comments about the “slippery slope”
- “So this stupid, subhuman homeless person walks into a newspaper story and says ….”
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Cracker.
- Newt the Constitutional Scholar.
- Pandora gets — Holy smokes! Wouldja look at that! — a facelift.
- I do so wish that some GOP hopeful for 2012 would not race to the lunatic fringe.
- Can the study of history heal the culture wars?
- Souls experience strange things, apparently, when exiled from the body.
- “One of the Best Ones” is one of his best ones.
1
A very smart and well-known law professor is challenging Utah’s Anti-Polygamy law based on the Supreme Court decision from Texas that struck down criminal laws against sodomy (an outcome I support politically, but not as Constitutional Law).
Ann Althouse correctly notes that his challenge — which seeks merely to decriminalize polygamy — is stronger than a case trying to compel state recognition of polygamy’s legal validity. Decriminalization is especially plausible, in fact, because of gaseous, fluttery-eyelid bullshit from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s “Mystery Passage,” the most mocked legal rationale of the past two decades:
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
Yeah. Right. Whatever. You’ve got the robe and four votes, so you must be right. (See commentary here, too.)
2
Amateur art criticism apparently is now a crime in Madion, Wisonsin if you’re homeless.
I just wanted to make it clear that Indiana’s Supreme Court isn’t the only midwestern government authority doing stupid things this year. And that Lafayette’s local news isn’t the only local news that’s often infuriatingly stupid and clueless.
3
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may not have matched Justice Kennedy for nonsense enshrined in a high profile opinion, but she showed a rather ugly hint of racism in an interview 2 years ago yesterday.
I call that a hint of racism, by the way, because for a decade or more after Roe v. Wade, one regularly heard from the left arguments to the effect that it’s cheaper to abort ’em than to support ’em on welfare. Since that was an era when every conservative gander’s mention of welfare was labeled racist, it seems only fair to apply that sauce to the goose, too.
4
When coaching a client for a deposition, which I rarely do these days, I always warned them to “answer the question, not the tone of voice.” It’s the nature of depositions that questions asked in a snide, accusatory or ridiculing tone may look benign when reduced to ink on a page, which is what judge and jury will see.
Conversely, words that are spoken in a provocative, revealing way may be made to look stupid on paper. Such, apparently, is the effort of some folks to make Newt Gingrich look stupid for saying “there’s no Supreme Court in the Constitution.”
If you don’t see how that could be other than stupid, read Ann Althouse on the subject.
5
A good thing, Pandora, appears to be getting better. If I understand the tech stuff right, this will make it available on iPad — one tech toy I’ve personally found totally resistable, but your mileage may well vary.
Speaking of ink on a page, imagine “A good thing, Pandora, appears to be getting better” without the commas.
It would look like “It a darned good thing that Pandora is finally getting some overdue improvement.” That’s not my opinion. When I get a car with Pandora, Sirius/XM will retreat in the rearview mirror.
6
“Tim Pawlenty’s national security views have often been likened to those of McCain, but this is a bit unfair to McCain. Pawlenty recently told Marc Thiessen that he is a much more fanatical and immoral hard-liner than McCain…”
7
John Fea, history professor at (the pacifist-leaning) Messiah College suggests at Patheos that maybe we need more liberal education, not just more activism:
But … thinking about how we might end the culture wars, I could not help but wonder if the thing that ails us most is not our failure to engage in activism, but our failure to understand and empathize with those with whom we might disagree. Perhaps our failure to bringing reconciliation and healing to our divided culture is, at its core, a failure of liberal learning, particularly as it relates to the study of history. Christians and secularists can team up in social justice projects, and Barack Obama can give stirring speeches about ending the Red State-Blue State divide, but until the American people develop the discipline of listening to one another, we will remain stalled in our attempts at reconciliation.
Some of the rest of the short piece failed, it seemed to me, to appreciate the difference between a problem and an evil (see item 3 in yesterday’s tidbits), but this part rings true.
8
I browsed the “Christian” book rack at the CVS drug store while waiting for a prescription to be filled. I was a bit shocked to find two death-heaven-back-to-earth books on the small rack, presumably as hot sellers.
I knew Heaven is for Real has been a bestseller because (a) it’s from Thomas Nelson so (b) Michael Hyatt’s blog touts it from time to time and (3) I discovered browsing that it involves a surefire formula for success: a cute kid as protagonist in a spiritual “true story” that confirms what people want to believe. Wowsers! If it hadn’t happened, you’d want to make it up.
The message Cute Kid “brought back” is along the lines that God (who he saw) is really big and really loves us.
That reminds me of the “interpretations” of glossolalia I heard 40+ years ago. Someone apparently had to be transported into ecstasies of involuntary utterance to channel, in translation, “Behold, I come quickly” or some such. Yawn!
The second book was by a more marginal publisher, and purports to tell the death-heaven-back-to-earth story of some professional revivalist who claims that the dead have been raised in some connection or other with his shows. I didn’t check copyright. I assume it’s a knock-off of Heaven is for Real but with Mr. Marvelous, the Spiritual Guru, instead of Cute Kid. The cover puffery was creepy.
Make no mistake: I believe heaven is real — or “for real,” if you must. What I don’t comprehend is the somewhat credulous appetite for these kinds of stories to confirm it.
Do people really think the kid saw heaven? Is that because God didn’t know that he would revive? Or is it a new revelation, akin to St. John on the Island of Patmos and thus to be added to the Canon of Scripture?
“Souls Experience Really Strange Things, Apparently, When the Exiled from the Body.” Think it would sell?
8
The music is not his catchiest, and the song is long, so somehow I had overlooked Bruce Cockburn’s “One of the Best Ones,” which is, well, one of his best ones (that isn’t an angry protest):
Guess I’d get along without you
If I had no choice
It’s taken me this long to find youDone a lot of getting ready for this
Some things we learn so slow
But look at you, you’ve got plenty behind youThere’s lots of ways to hit the ground
Not many answers to be found
We’re faced with mysteries profound
And this is one of the best onesThere are eight million mysteries
In the naked body
Can’t even sight on some distant horizonLike the nine billion names of God
Don’t bring you any closer
To anyone you can simply set eyes onBut in the same way it’s as real
Don’t always recognize what I feel
But of the dancing scenes that life reveals
This is one of the best onesSay what you will
There’s no snake oil or pill
Can make love less painful or fine
There’s no theatre
Even of the absurd
Can express what goes on in this meeting of hearts and mindsGuess I’d get along without you
If I had no choice
But please never make it so I have toPaid a lot of dues to get here
And after all this life
I’m a loser if I don’t live with youThere’s lots of ways to hit the ground
Not many answers to be found
We’re faced with mysteries profound
And this is one of the best ones
It doesn’t reflect my romantic history, but it’s pretty evocative of 6 decades in the rear-view mirror generally (especially “Done a lot of getting ready for this, Some things we learn so slow … Paid a lot of dues to get here” and the chorus).
Bon appetit!
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 