Monday, March 19, 2012
Quickmeme: Lying Mike Daisey
More memes here.
It's so sad to see someone lie for effect and when caught to try and justify their lie by claiming it was for a greater good. The left has been doing this a lot lately.
There is no answer to that question once you step outside of the liberal calculus in which all persons, no matter what their moral status as you see it, are weighed in an equal balance. Rather than relaxing or soft-pedaling your convictions about what is right and wrong, stay with them, and treat people you see as morally different differently. Condemn Limbaugh and say that Schultz and Maher may have gone a bit too far but that they’re basically O.K. If you do that you will not be displaying a double standard; you will be affirming a single standard, and moreover it will be a moral one because you will be going with what you think is good rather than what you think is fair. “Fair” is a weak virtue; it is not even a virtue at all because it insists on a withdrawal from moral judgment.I know the objections to what I have said here. It amounts to an apology for identity politics. It elevates tribal obligations over the universal obligations we owe to each other as citizens. It licenses differential and discriminatory treatment on the basis of contested points of view. It substitutes for the rule “don’t do it to them if you don’t want it done to you” the rule “be sure to do it to them first and more effectively.” It implies finally that might makes right. I can live with that.
Here is the Retraction that This American Life ran this weekend. It is painful to listen to Daisey prevaricate but what is more painful is that he seems to have decided at some point to back off apologizing and go with the "I'm just a story teller" excuse.
Update: You can't make this stuff up. "Meeting people who had been injured working on the line building devices. Meeting people who had been exposed to chemicals which caused neurological damage."
Watching this knowing what we know it is just obvious that Daisey is a practiced liar.
Update: I guess journalists are all storytellers. Mike tells his stories and Ira Glass is telling a story with the Retraction episode of This American Life.
Many consider this week’s THIS AMERICAN LIFE episode one of the most painful they’ve ever listened to. In particular the segment with me is excruciating—four hours of grilling edited down to fifteen minutes. I thought the dead air was a nice touch, and finishing the episode with audio pulled out of context from my performance was masterful.
That’s Ira’s choice, and it’s his show. He’s a storyteller within the context of radio journalism, and I am a storyteller in the theater.
Daisey has just called Glass a liar. This story will not be going away.
Update: Mike Daisey mocking James Frey.
Labels: funny, Leftist dogma
Friday, March 16, 2012
The American Shengnu
James Taranto has been on a tear on the subjects of feminism and hypergamy. He has correctly surmised that the debate about birth control is more about our cultures attitude about sexual freedom. On this there is nothing but contradictions with feminists turning into traditionalists and back when it is convenient.
This is very simple to understand. The hypergamous trait holds a tumultuous future for American society for if women are not marrying then families are not being formed. And societies with weak families have trouble holding together. For whom do men work? They work for their wives and children but if they don't have them then they don't and societies with large numbers of unattached men will die with a bang or with a whimper.
Advances in reproductive technology eroded the custom of shotgun marriage in another way. Before the sexual revolution, women had less freedom, but men were expected to assume responsibility for their welfare. Today women are more free to choose, but men have afforded themselves the comparable option. "If she is not willing to have an abortion or use contraception," the man can reason, "why should I sacrifice myself to get married?" By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father.
Both conservatives and feminists condemn men who do not agree to support a child they have helped create in the name of what's in the best interest of the child. It is amusing to hear feminists argue that a woman has the right to chose but if she choose to keep the child the man must revert to a traditional role. The best interest of the child ends with what is suits the mother. Taranto is surely right that, "...contemporary feminism is a totalitarian philosophy." It is not about gender equality, it is about gender supremacy. When it suits feminists to attack a man for misogyny it will do so and when it doesn't, they will remain silent.
Which leads us to hypergamy and how it rears its ugly head when there are few restrictions on female sexuality. Taranto points out that feminism has meant women have more choices but those choices have influenced how men behave and one behavior is refusing to play by the rules. IOW, to drop out of the game. This puts women, especially highly educated women in a bind because they are hypergamous and they want to marry up.
Lake explains the root of this phenomenon as follows:
In China, there's a deep-seated tradition of marriage hypergamy which mandates that a woman must marry up. This generally works out, as it allows the Chinese man to feel superior, and the woman to jump a social class or two, but it gets messy for highly accomplished females. Their educations and salaries make them hard to compete with, and so their Chinese male counterparts shy away in favor of younger, more "manageable" beauties.If the first sentence of this passage sounds familiar (in addition to being doubly redundant), it is probably because you remember our Valentine's Day column, in which we quoted feminist Stephanie Coontz's reflections on "the cultural ideal of hypergamy--that women must marry up."
Uncanny, isn't it? Coontz was referring to Western, not Chinese, culture. What are the odds that two so different cultures would somehow develop a "tradition" or "ideal" that is so similar? About 100% when you consider that hypergamy--more broadly defined as the female tendency to mate with dominant or high-status males or to be selective about one's choice of mate--is also widely observed in other species.
I think feminists realize this and that is why they are not willing to use their gender egalitarian values to argue that men deserve a choice.
When you think about it that way, 21st-century feminism starts to look uncannily like the old Victorian double standard. And even more so when you consider the behavior of feminist men, who sound like caricatures of white knights dashing in to defend damsels in distress. "The Mitt and Rick rebukes to Rush were timidly tepid," the lefty film criticRoger Ebert blustered in a tweet the other day. "Now that Rush has apologized, maybe they can man up."ABC News notes that yesterday President Obama "said that thinking about his own two daughters compelled him" to call Fluke last week "to offer his personal support." Some are cynical about Obama's motives, including NBC's Savannah Guthrie, who, asNewsBusters.org notes, describes Obama's call to Fluke as "an overreach" that "seemed a little nakedly political." If you take it at face value, though, the gesture was chivalrous--or, to put it another way, it was patronizing.
Some men chose to drop out and some have adapted to new social customs.
"Men get the advantage of free, easy access sex with young women of child-bearing age." It's a false analogy: Whereas the ObamaCare mandate creates an entitlement to birth control, no man is entitled to "easy access sex." That requires consent.It is true, however, that contemporary feminism is a sweet deal for hedonistic men who have the social skills to persuade "young women of child-bearing age" to consent to "easy access sex." When you look at it that way, you can understand why feminism's grandes dames are so keen to turn back the clock. [Emphasis added.]
Feminists are caught in their own catch-22. They argue equality but they are just as appalled by the products of equality. Conservatives need to realize they have lost this battle. The promiscuity genie is not going back in the bottle. If they want to strengthen marriage, if they want fewer children born out of wedlock, then they must use the dissatisfaction of the American Shengu to argue that marriage needs to be changed so that it gives both men and women a reason to enter it and a reason to stay in it. Otherwise, men will keep dropping out and no amount of browbeating will get them to return.
Jake Coco, Corey Gray and Caitlin Hart- We Are Young
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Rents up, house prices down in U.S.
"Fundamentally, it is an issue of supply and demand," Stan Humphries, chief economist for the Web site Zillow told the Times. "The foreclosure crisis is essentially a giant engine converting owner households into rental households."
Between January 2011 and January 2012, rents rose an average of 3 percent across the country, while home prices dropped 4.6 percent, Zillow said.
Unlike home prices, rents have been rising, up 2.4 percent in January from a year earlier, according to recent data, not adjusted for inflation, released by the Labor Department.With few rental buildings erected over the last few years, available units are going fast. Nationwide, the apartment vacancy rate is down to 5.2 percent, its lowest level in more than a decade, according to the research firm Reis Inc.
...
Families who might previously have bought homes are also staying in rentals longer. They may be waiting for the housing market to hit bottom or finding it difficult to qualify for a mortgage. Many others remain uncertain about their job prospects and wary of the obligations of ownership.
Labels: housing recovery
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Remy: Cough Drops-The Mandate (feat. Sandra Fluke)
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Support Don Manzullo in Illinois 16
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Friday, March 09, 2012
Shearwater - Breaking The Yearlings
