ACT OF LOVE: Obama Admin to Dump Over 1,000 Illegal Immigrants in AZ this Weekend.
EUGENICS: Who supports it? Approval is less likely among political conservatives and regular attenders of religious worship.
FAT SHAMING WORKS: From ‘fat girl’ to beauty queen: Miss South Texas shares story of amazing 100-pound weight transformation.
Kryfko remembers taking a fitness test for gym class and failing all the requirements. She couldn’t do sit-ups or push-ups, and she couldn’t finish running a mile.
“I wasn’t able to do any of it and it was so embarrassing,” Kryfko said. “So I went back into the locker room hoping no one would notice and I overheard these girls saying, ‘Can you believe the fat girl couldn’t do any of it?’
COLLECTOR’S ITEM: U.S. Postal Service issues ‘global warming’ Forever® stamp? “Not only is it an oddball stamp, being round, it isn’t even of actual sea surface temperatures, it’s a model output. That’s not a real El Niño pattern you see on the stamp, it’s a simulation frame.”
NOT WELCOME: Occidental Expels Student for Rape Under Standard So Low That the Accuser Could Have Been Found Guilty, Too. Why do men continue to go to college when it’s clear that they’re not welcome? Why give money to people who hate you?
By several accounts, the sex was consensual. The accuser sent Doe a text message beforehand asking him if he had a condom. She also texted a friend and clearly announced her intention to have sex with Doe.
After that night, the accuser spoke with several Occidental employees, including Danielle Dirks, an assistant professor of sociology. Dirks told the accuser that Doe “fit the profile of other rapists on campus in that he had a high GPA in high school, was his class valedictorian, was on [a sports team], and was ‘from a good family.'”
A week later, the accuser filed a sexual assault report against Doe.
SMART MAN: Putin on Clinton: “It’s better not to argue with women.”
QUESTION (via interpreter): Mr President, it is very convenient that you are meeting with Mr Obama on June 6. Perhaps, it would be worse if you were meeting with Hillary Clinton. Only a few days ago, she said that what Russia is doing in Eastern Europe resembles what Hitler was doing in the 1930s.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: It’s better not to argue with women. But Ms Clinton has never been too graceful in her statements. Still, we always met afterwards and had cordial conversations at various international events. I think even in this case we could reach an agreement. When people push boundaries too far, it’s not because they are strong but because they are weak. But maybe weakness is not the worst quality for a woman.
QUESTION (via interpreter): Women must be respected, of course, and I’m sure you respect them. Do you think she went too far? There is a lot of mockery and cartoons in the media – including those showing you. What was your first reaction? Were you angry? Did you want to get back at her or laugh? We have never seen you laugh.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Someday I will indulge myself and we will laugh together at some good joke. But when I hear such extreme statements, to me it only means that they don’t have any valid arguments. Speaking of US policy, it’s clear that the United States is pursuing the most aggressive and toughest policy to defend their own interests – at least, this is how the American leaders see it – and they do it persistently.
There are basically no Russian troops abroad while US troops are everywhere. There are US military bases everywhere around the world and they are always involved in the fates of other countries even though they are thousands of kilometres away from US borders. So it is ironic that our US partners accuse us of breaching some of these rules.
PAUL RAEBURN: Do fathers matter? A connection that’s deeper than we realize.
Fathers, it turns out, contribute far more to their children than many of us realize.
Those contributions begin during pregnancy, before fathers and their children have even met. Studies show that the death rate of infants whose fathers were not around during pregnancy is nearly four times that of those with engaged dads. And depression in fathers during their partners’ pregnancies — which is more common than most people realize — can increase the child’s lifelong risk of depression.
After birth, children whose fathers play with them, read to them, take them on outings, and care for them have fewer behavioral problems during their early school years. And they have a lower risk of delinquency or criminal behavior as adolescents.
Some of fathers’ contributions are surprising. One might guess, for example, that mothers have more influence than fathers on their children’s language development. Despite the growing number of women in the workforce, mothers still spend more time with children in many families than fathers do.
But that turns out not to be the case.
“IT TAKES A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD to teach the MSM what it means to ask direct questions.”
DAVID FRENCH: A Matter of Honor: Why So Many Soldiers Are Angry at the Bergdahl Deal.
Bergdahl knew that men would risk life and limb to find him and knew that men would likely die.
Yet the available evidence indicates he walked off anyway.
And of course, the predictable happened. The military initiated a massive search, and men died.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Walnuts make bad cholesterol harmless. “Walnuts protect against cardiovascular disease, and thanks to a small human study published by Ella Haddad in Nutrition Journal we better understand why. Walnuts prevent ‘bad cholesterol’ LDL from oxidising and thus reduce the chance of LDL causing damage to blood vessels.”
THE NEW TOLERANCE: New York Times Wants Google to Fire Asians for Diversity. Well, not really. It does float the suggestion, but in a way that at least seems to show that it’s untenable.
Here’s a good line from the NYT article:
Although tech is a key driver of the economy and makes products that many Americans use everyday, it does not come close to reflecting the demographics of the country — in terms of sex, age or race.
What does the “although” here suggest? That the importance of an industry means that it should institute racial preferences? Maybe we should just admit that there’s some mystical connection between productivity, efficiency, and utility on the one hand and hiring people for their abilities rather than their race on the other. If an industry is important, that itself should be a reason why it shouldn’t institute racial preferences — or, to put the matter more honestly, why it shouldn’t institutionalize anti-white, anti-Asian employment policies.
STEVE SAILER: World War HIV. “The hunt is on for a new oppressed minority to champion. How about people with HIV who are annoyed by laws mandating that they inform potential sex partners of that fact? That’s discriminatory!”
NO. NEXT QUESTION? Should U.S. bishops weigh in on the carbon emissions policy?
EDUCATIONREALIST: “Teaching involves trust.”
Students are, I think, the best judge of teacher quality in classroom management. They know when a teacher can’t control the kids. But they are usually incapable of evaluating teacher content knowledge. I hope this story shows that students can form fundamental received wisdoms that are simply false. From average to excellent, Mr. Singh’s students all thought they knew more than he did. And they didn’t. . . .
Mr. Singh knows far more math than I do . . . The kids know this. I make it clear to them. Yet they still came to me for help.
And that, readers, is an important takeaway from this little essay, a truism people mouth without really thinking about what it means. Teaching involves trust. You can’t just have content knowledge and run a fair classroom. Your students have to trust your ability and your judgment. Your students’ parents have to believe that you have their interests at heart.
Reformers might do well to remember that, as they wonder what went wrong in Newark, in DC, in Chicago and Indiana. It’s not enough to tell everyone you want excellent schools. They have to believe you.
JILLIAN KAY MELCHIOR: $745 Million Was Awarded to Failed Obamacare Exchanges. “The four states that have called it quits — Nevada, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Maryland — have been awarded a total of $744.9 million in federal grants to help pay for their failed insurance exchanges, according to the latest count from the Kaiser Family Foundation.”
DOG BITES MAN: Surprise! Leftist minimum wage policy backfires in Seattle suburb.
“Are you happy with the $15 wage?” I asked the full-time cleaning lady.
“It sounds good, but it’s not good,” the woman said.
“Why?” I asked.
“I lost my 401k, health insurance, paid holiday, and vacation,” she responded. “No more free food,” she added.
Earlier: Why Are There So Few Job Losses from Minimum-Wage Hikes? “Past experience has confirmed the nonmonetary impact of a minimum-wage hike on workers, not only in reduced fringe benefits but in increased work demands and decreased job training.”
KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: Laverne Cox Is Not a Woman.
The phenomenon of the transgendered person is a thoroughly modern one, not in the sense that such conditions did not exist in the past — Cassius Dio relates a horrifying tale of an attempted sex-change operation — but because we in the 21st century have regressed to a very primitive understanding of reality, namely the sympathetic magic described by James George Frazer in The Golden Bough. The obsession with policing language on the theory that language mystically shapes reality is itself ancient — see the Old Testament — and sympathetic magic proceeds along similar lines, using imitation and related techniques as a means of controlling reality. The most famous example of this is the voodoo doll. If an effigy can be made sufficiently like the reality it is intended to represent, then it becomes, for the mystical purposes at hand, a reality in its own right. The infinite malleability of the postmodern idea of “gender,” as opposed to the stubborn concreteness of sex, is precisely the reason the concept was invented. For all of the high-academic theory attached to the question, it is simply a mystical exercise in rearranging words to rearrange reality.
INDONESIA: Yogyakarta, Islamic extremists attack a group of Catholics gathered in prayer. “The reasons for the attack [are] unknown.” Uh-huh.
“GOOD GIRLS”: Gender [sic], Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus. “In this article we synthesize insights from social psychology, gender, and culture to argue that undergraduate women use slut stigma to draw boundaries around status groups linked to social class . . . High-status women employ slut discourse to assert class advantage, defining themselves as classy rather than trashy, while low-status women express class resentment—deriding rich, bitchy sluts for their exclusivity.”
I think that the focus on “class” here is too narrow. Women call other women sluts if they don’t like them, regardless of class.
TOM JAMES: Impact of child support enforcement on custody, Part I.
The essential nature of the child support order underwent a significant change in the nineteenth century. With the sanctification of motherhood (stay-at-home mothering) attendant to the intensification of the division of social roles by sex wrought by the Industrial Revolution came a growing concern among judges that single, divorced and separated women and their children would become a financial burden on the community (the state). Unless the father or ex-husband provided for them economically, a mother and her children could become dependent either on the state or on the limited resources of charitable relief organizations for their support. As a result, late nineteenth century judges increasingly cited a public policy in favor of preventing women and children from becoming financial burdens upon the state as the basis for their support orders. For this reason, courts began to describe a father’s child support obligation as being more than a merely private obligation between parents; now it was also a “duty to the public.” . . .
The concept of child support as a civic obligation, as distinguished from a purely private one, was reflected in the criminal nonsupport statutes that were enacted in the nineteenth century. . . .
Consistent with the intent of these statutes, a father could not be punished merely for failing to contribute money to his children unless they actually went without parental support. It was only those fathers who put their children at risk of becoming dependent on state funds for their support who could be prosecuted under these statutes.
In most states today, a parent may be prosecuted for nonsupport even if the other parent is independently wealthy.
Footnotes at the link.
VOX DAY: Richard Dawkins is a self-described Christian.
Comments Dawkins has recently made make it readily apparent that he’s not entirely comfortable with the ability of atheism to fill in the void that Christianity leaves behind. It will be fascinating to see which of the vocal anti-theists becomes the first champion of cultural Christianity. On the other hand, Dawkins doesn’t seem to be thinking the matter through.
“You do not have to be reticent in what you say. You do not have to look around and say, ‘I hope I am not offending anyone’. You can pretty much speak your mind now in a way that you could not 50 years ago.”
Oh, can you now? It seems to me that 50 years ago, British people were not being beheaded in the street. Many atheists, and indeed, many Christians, have assumed that although Christianity was integral to the development of Western civilization, it was not necessary to its continuation. And while many people still believe that, an increasing number of people are beginning to realize that is simply not the case.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Low-carb diet does not compromise strength and power.
DIVORCE parties:
Event planners, bakers, lawyers and academics note the rise of “divorce parties” over the last several years, many with cakes featuring weapon-wielding brides or gloomy black frosting on inverted tiers.
“I’ve taken to naming them freedom fests, as you aren’t celebrating the end of the marriage but the freedom you have chosen in your life,” said Richard O’Malley, a New York-area event planner who organized one divorce blowout that cost a woman about $25,000. . . .
In suburban Orlando, Florida, cake designer Larry Bach recalled creating his first divorce confection about eight years ago for a woman whose wedding cake he had made 18 months prior.
“She said, ‘Your wedding cake was the best part of my marriage,'” he recalled. “We came up with this upside-down cake, with the cake landing on the groom. I’ve repeated that design several times. I think it’s a healthy thing. When my sister got divorced about 25 years ago, she and my mother went into mourning. Divorce was so embarrassing in those days.”
Maybe it should be embarrassing again.
MARK PERRY: Another example of a misleading, incomplete representation of facts about an important women’s issue. “The reality is that while women are at a 52% greater risk than men for being the victim of homicide by an intimate partner, men are at a four-time greater risk than women of being murdered overall, and are six-times more likely than women to be murdered by somebody besides an intimate partner. The ‘War on Women’ graphic above undermines the seriousness of domestic violence and compromises the credibility of feminists by presenting incomplete and misleading data. Unfortunately, the ‘War on Women’ rhetoric often becomes a ‘War on the Truth’ by distorting and misrepresenting factual data, and this is a classic example.”
If feminists were actually interested in decreasing domestic abuse against women, they’d encourage stable marriages: “The safest place for women of all is in the marital home [PDF], living with their husbands. This goes for women with or without children, and the differences are dramatic. A single mother living alone with her children is almost thirteen times as likely to be a victim of domestic violence as a married mother.”
And they’d encourage heterosexuality among women over lesbianism, since homosexuals and bisexuals are more likely to be involved in intimate partner violence.
But they don’t encourage either of these, because they aren’t really interested in reducing domestic violence against women, just in controlling men.
VIBRANT ENCOUNTER: In Attack, NYPD Says Attempted Robbery, Victim Says ‘Knockout Game’
Avila told the news station he was leaving a friend’s house and looking at his cell phone as three teenagers passed by.
Then he was punched.
“Just as they were about to walk past me, one of them moves very suddenly and I feel a very hard impact to my face, as if I got hit by a brick or something,” Avila told Channel 4-New York.
Kudos to this man for refraining from walking to the other side of the street to avoid the teenagers. That would have been racist and far worse than any head injuries he might sustain from an unprovoked attack by thugs.
Related: Mark Cuban Under Fire For Admitting He’d Cross Street At Night To Avoid ‘A Black Kid In A Hoodie’.
NEVER PLAYED CATCH? 50 Cent and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad First Pitch. “He went with a sort of sidearm delivery and the pitch was just a bit wide.” That’s an understatement intended for humor.
Maybe 50 Cent can’t throw a baseball well because “he was raised solely by his mother.”
Some people are comparing his pitch to that of another famous person who can’t throw because he didn’t have a father around with whom to play catch.
DOG BITES MAN: Union Opposes Privatization For Others, Outsources For Itself.
The Michigan Education Association has been an outspoken critic of school districts that privatize custodial services to save money.
Yet, the MEA contracts out work with non-union companies for its own janitorial services.
It all comes down to the bottom line. This is no less true of unions than any other organization.
WOMAN GETS OFF EASY: Woman avoids jail over sex with 13-year-old neighbour due to ‘exceptional circumstances’.
The judge said the woman, who was in her early 20s when she began a sexual relationship with the 13-year-old, believed she was in love with the boy, whom she gravitated towards because they functioned at similar cognitive levels.
He said she provided a liberal environment for the teen, which included access to drugs, alcohol and freedom, but did not groom him or act in a predatory nature.
“Rather, you were simply attempting to endear yourself to (the boy) as you felt genuine affection towards someone with whom you could relate,” Judge O’Neill said.
PETER FROST: The puzzle of European hair, eye, and skin color. “While women are more diverse than men both in hair and eye color, this greater diversity came about differently in each case. With hair color, women have more of the intermediate hues because the darkest hue (black) is less easily expressed. With eye color, women have more of the intermediate hues because the lightest hue (blue) is less easily expressed.”
WILLIAM M. BRIGGS: Is This Sign Hate Speech? “Gladwin said, ‘I was just astounded really. We live in the 21st century and they have put that message – that non-Christians will burn in hell – up to try and scare people into joining their mentality.'”
That’s almost as bad as siccing the cops on people who say stuff you don’t like in order to scare them into behaving in ways that you find acceptable. Best to keep these folks in line. Next thing you know, they might start preaching about Hell. Better call the National Guard.
IF I HAD A SON, he would look like Aazis.
A 16-year-old has been arrested for shooting a cabbie twice in the back of the head when the driver didn’t follow directions, Pennsylvania authorities said.
Aazis Richardson admitted as much to a horde of reporters as officers in Scranton led him down a hallway at police department headquarters. “That’s what I do to people that don’t listen,” the handcuffed suspect said.
Kudos to the cabbie for not discriminating!
NEWS YOU CAN USE: “Heart Healthy” Foods That Aren’t.
3. Low-Fat Dairy Products, Which Happen to be Loaded With Sugar
Dairy products tend to be high in saturated fat.
Therefore, it is often recommended that we consume low-fat dairy instead.
But there is a problem with this recommendation, because saturated fat doesn’t actually increase your risk of heart disease (8, 9).
Studies that look at dairy fat specifically show that people who eat the most high-fat dairy are less likely to be obese and don’t have an increased risk of heart disease or diabetes (10). . . .
Also, let’s not forget that low-fat dairy products (especially low-fat yogurt) are usually loaded with sugar… they often have more sugar than candy!
Many studies show that added sugar has severe harmful effects on metabolism and increases some major risk factors for heart disease, including triglycerides, abdominal obesity and small, dense LDL cholesterol (13, 14).
AUSTRALIA: A belief that children under three should not stay overnight with their separated or divorced father has underpinned our family law system for years. Has it all been a mistake? Short answer: Yes.
Related: Movement on father’s overnight access.
Barriers constraining divorced fathers having their young children stay with them overnight may be lifted, with key family law organisations revising policies blocking overnight care of infants and toddlers.
The rethink follows the publication of an academic paper endorsed by 110 leading international experts challenging the policies. The paper is highly critical of a key 2010 study that found any regular overnight care by fathers was damaging to infants and toddlers.
The paper, Social Science and Parenting Plans for Young Children: A consensus report, by Professor Richard Warshak was published in the American Psychological Association’s journal, Psychology, Public Policy and Law, in February.
It says that the 2010 study, led by Melbourne child psychologist Dr Jennifer McIntosh, was inappropriately used to suggest that any regular overnight care by fathers was damaging to infants and toddlers. “This study provides no reliable basis to support custody policy, recommendations or decisions,” the Warshak paper found.
The experts said the findings of Dr McIntosh’s study should not have been used as a platform for developing public policy in this area.
WHOOPS: White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan.
The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops.
The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified on the initial release as the “Chief of Station” in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.
The author of the article attempts to contrast this inadvertent leak with a supposedly purposeful one from the previous administration, but even that appears to have been inadvertent, according to the leaker himself, Richard Armitage, and the reporter with whom he spoke, Bob Novak: “He mentioned her first name, Valerie…. The exchange about Wilson’s wife lasted no more than sixty seconds. Armitage offered no interpretation of Wilson’s conduct and said nothing negative about him or his wife. I am sure it was not a planned leak but came out as an offhand observation…. Shortly thereafter, he secretly revealed his role to federal authorities investigating the leak of Mrs. Wilson’s name.”
The press treated that leak as a big deal. What of this one?
MARK PERRY: University of Montana campus crime data show an average of < 7 sex offenses per year, but Missoula is the ‘rape capital’? “Could Missoula and the University of Montana really be “America’s Rape Capital” when there were only two sex offenses reported to the campus police during the entire year of 2008 (and no arrests), for both on-campus and off-campus offenses? And when over the five year period from 2008-2012, fewer than 7 cases per year of sexual offenses were reported annually to the campus police, for sex crimes committed both on and off campus?” TIME made a cover story based on these numbers? What a joke.
If the author of the TIME piece really wanted to identify a “rape capital,” she could have done much better picking out a prison. Perhaps she doesn’t care about men being raped.
JANET BLOOMFIELD: Men’s Activists Say Divorce Courts Are Biased Against Fathers. They’re wrong? No, Hanna Rosin. They’re right. Let’s do the math. “Here comes the math, from the actual study [PDF].” See Table 2a on page 10 (PDF p.11), “Child Placement in Divorce Cases.” The numbers are from Wisconsin.
I’ve taken liberties with Bloomfield’s formatting in the hope that doing so makes her analysis more readable.
[Mother’s custody:]
- Sole custody goes to the mother 45.7% of the time
- Primary custody goes to the mother 13.0% of the time
- Shared custody is agreed to 32.4% of the time
- 45.7 + 13 = 58.7
- 58.7% of the time, mothers are awarded sole or primary custody
- 45.7 + 13 + 32.4 = 91.1
- 91.1% of the time, mothers are awarded equal or more custody
[Father’s custody:]
- Sole custody goes to the father 7.0% of the time
- Primary custody goes to the father 1.9% of the time
- Shared custody is the same as women, obviously – 32.4% of the time
[The two, compared:]
- 7 + 1.9 = 8.9
- So fathers are the sole or primary custodians of their children in 8.9% of all cases, versus 58.7% of the time for women.
- 7 + 1.9 + 32.4 = 41.3
- Fathers get equal or better custody 41.3% of the time, compared to 91.1% for mothers.
- 8.9% vs 58.7%
- 41.3% vs 91.1%
In response, one could say that perhaps fathers are just less deserving of custody than mothers, and that the courts reflect this. But court-commissioned judicial bias surveys in various states reveal a clear bias against fathers in family court proceedings.
MAINTAINING ORTHODOXY: Are Climate Scientists Being Forced to Toe the Line? “After joining a controversial lobby group critical of climate change, meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson claims he was shunned by colleagues, leading him to quit. Some scientists complain pressure to conform to consensus opinion has become a serious hindrance in the field.”
MANGAN: The Victorians were still cleverer than us, or the road to Idiocracy? “There may be biological, non-genetic factors that have contributed to dumber people, for instance the low-fat diet craze, endorsed and promulgated by USG. The human brain is nearly 60 percent fat. Depriving the brain of essential fatty acids up to the age of 5 or 6 – and probably a lot longer if you ask me, but nobody is – means that the brain may very well not develop properly. If you think this is not a problem, take a look at the fat content of typical infant and toddler food, which is pathetically low. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that restricting fat can harm brain development in children, yet I would bet that many parents, especially from the more educated classes, have been doing just that for the past several decades.”
But even the AAP recommends in its own materials to begin restricting fat intake at age two, or even earlier. See the above link, or page 228 of “Bright Futures: Nutrition Tools” [PDF p.8], under the “Milk and milk products” section:
Children ages 1 to 2 need whole milk. After age 2, children should gradually increase the proportion of low-fat foods in their diets. For children older than 2, low-fat (1%) or fat-free (skim) milk is recommended. Reduced-fat milk (2%) is recommended for children ages 1 to 2 years for whom obesity is a concern or who have a family history of obesity.
Surely, if the AAP recommends cutting back on baby’s fatty milk at age two to avoid obesity, there must be good evidence supporting this, right? Wrong:
“Our original hypothesis was that children who drank high-fat milk, either whole milk or 2%, would be heavier because they were consuming more saturated fat calories. We were really surprised when we looked at the data and it was very clear that within every ethnicity and every socioeconomic strata, that it was actually the opposite, that children who drank skim milk and 1% were heavier than those who drank 2% and whole,” says DeBoer, who is also the chair-elect for the AAP Committee on Nutrition.
DeBoer says when they broke down the data into the different types of milk with increasing fat content, the findings were even more striking. As BMI scores went up among the kids, the amount of fat in the milk they were drinking went down. “So the ones drinking skim were by far the heaviest, and those drinking whole milk were the lightest,” he says.
LUTHERANS organizing 50 refugees to lobby Congress for more refugees and more money. “I find it unspeakably shameful that they should use your tax dollars and the refugees themselves to lobby the federal government for more money and more refugees (LIRS is paid by the head for each refugee they resettle).”
RELIGION OF PIECES: Radical Islamists take hammer to Syrian artifacts.
Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a radical militia that controls a large swath of eastern Syria, confiscated and destroyed illegally excavated antiquities from an ancient Mesopotamian site. . . .
The destruction of Assyrian antiquities was not the first assault against Syrian archaeological treasures committed by ISIL. In January 2014, the radical Islamist group blew up and destroyed a sixth-century Byzantine mosaic near the city of Raqqa, the Independent reported. The pristine Roman-style mosaic had only been discovered in 2007.
CULTURAL ENRICHMENT: Pakistani immigrant beat his wife to death in their New York apartment because she made him the wrong dinner – but his lawyer claims that’s just his culture.
Defense attorney Julie Clark said Hussein admitted beating his wife but said that in his home country, beating your wife is customary.
She argued that Hussein, who met his wife in Pakistan before the couple married and moved to Brooklyn, is guilty of only manslaughter because he didn’t intend to kill her.
In her opening statements at the Brooklyn Supreme Court bench trial, Clark said: ‘He comes from a culture where he thinks this is appropriate conduct, where he can hit his wife.
‘He culturally believed he had the right to hit his wife and discipline his wife.’
Well, okay then.
CANADA TO MEN: GET BENT. Canada funds 65 innovative health projects to help save every woman, every child.
HERE WE GO: Michael Sam: The NFL Goes All-Gay.
The fun will really begin with the repeat of Sam’s smooch of his “boyfriend” every game, which ESPN and every sports page will blast in everyone’s faces. As well as the reaction of mostly ghetto Black players in the locker room. Well, what could go wrong? Everyone knows rap music, the favorite of Black NFL players, is remarkably tolerant and accepting of gays. . . .
The NFL expanded inside the US to be the premier televised sport with TV revenues of around $9 billion for 2013 according to Forbes, but All-Gay all the time puts that in jeopardy. ESPN may have proudly broadcast the gay kiss during the draft, triumphantly “shocking the bourgeoisie” but that moment turned off legions of NFL fans.
Who, to put it mildly, are not exactly SWPL, gay-friendly, metrosexual lovers of all things organic and NPR. NFL ownership is concerned mainly with fitting in with other elites, particularly the media which is itself a hereditary position filled with the lesser children of elites or children of lesser elites. What turns on Keith Olberman, Tony Kornheiser, and the writers at Grantland is a turn-off for fans. This ought to concern the NFL owners (but it doesn’t, because they are fat, happy, and stupid) as the NFL has been unable to expand overseas and must find all its revenue among the American audiences.
LOOKING OUT FOR NUMBER ONE: Abortion Clinic Worker Counsels Women to “Be Selfish” and Abort. “I see selfishness as a virtue in making choices for yourself and your life.”
Of course, the commentator offers a three-paragraph disclaimer at the bottom about how “many women are driven to abortion by desperation,” how they are “pressured into abortions” by their lovers or parents, and how even the seemingly selfish ones “grew up in a consumer culture where they were constantly given the message . . . that abortion is an acceptable and moral choice.”
Interestingly enough, these things — desperation, pressure, and bad influences — absolve the women but not those around them who happen to encourage abortion.
It is easy to judge these women, but doing so is counterproductive. We must reach out even to these women, with compassion.
But we will judge the men in their lives, who are sometimes even more desperate (facing the prospect of eighteen years of child support, rather than nine months of pregnancy) and just as misled by popular culture. This is a common theme in pro-life literature — that only men are true moral agents who can be judged. Evidently, they are the only ones who can be influenced by arguments about the morality of their actions, while women have to hear about how carrying a baby to term is good for number one.
See also Michael Stokes Paulsen’s essay, “Men, Abortion, Sin, and Salvation,” wherein he blames men for abortion —
Men are deeply responsible for the tragedy of abortion. . . . Men . . . are often absent in crisis pregnancy situations, leaving women abandoned and alone. . . .
The accounts are legion of men pressuring, threatening, intimidating, and abusing wives and girlfriends into killing their unborn children. Even more frequently, men are absent, indifferent, or cavalier.
— but, when it comes to the women, says not to judge:
Placing the emphasis on the morality of the parents’ [read: women’s] conduct, especially when such morality is cast in terms of “sin” and responsibility, may well undermine the persuasive effort to rescue unborn children from destruction. When a woman is contemplating abortion, the response should neither be “You sinner!” nor “I understand completely; you are totally justified under the circumstances.” It should be, “Let’s see what we can do, together, to save the life of your baby.”
This disposition not to judge and to make the woman’s life as easy and shameless as possible is a part of “Pro-life Stockholm Syndrome”:
The pro-life movement often works to reduce, as much as possible, the consequences of female fornication. Traditionally the consequences of out-of-wedlock sex could include (but did not always include, and never did so equally for both men and women) shame, loss of status and income, and other consequences. Pro-lifers worry that these things will lead more women to abort: unborn children are hostages, keeping the pro-life movement captive.
As a result nearly our entire society is united on the goal of making unwed pregnancy and out of wedlock motherhood as easy and consequence-free as possible. People formally support abortion on the left, people materially support abortion on the right (even though many genuinely wish to oppose abortion and do formally oppose it), and almost nobody actually opposes abortion.