The National Review cover story, “The Case for Marriage,” draws an argument against same-sex marriage solely founded on the idea that marriage is for sexual relations, and that sexual intercourse between men and women makes babies. It is true that marriage is, in part, an emotional union, and it is also true that spouses often take care of each other and thereby reduce the caregiving burden on other people. But neither of these truths is the fundamental reason for marriage. The reason marriage exists is that the sexual intercourse of men and women regularly produces children. If...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Paul \”The Little Professor\” Krugman, who in his column \”The Angry Rich,\” highlights the...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Monday, 20 September 2010
Good morning, everybody. Lindsay failed another drug test. Now, your morning constitutional: The busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is finally plugged for good. President Obama will revive its defense and support of the health care reform passed earlier, with a number of changes taking effect this week, including the elimination of co-payments for preventative services and allowing people to stay on their parents\’ insurance until they\’re 26. The Sweden Democrats, Sweden\’s far-right party, won seats in the Swedish parliament for the first time, denying the ruling center-right coalition enough seats to form a majority...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week
It’s a gorgeous afternoon in the Midwest, sunny and breezy with that autumn something in the air. Here’s a poem. Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio by James Wright In the Shreve High football stadium, I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville, And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood, And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel, Dreaming of heroes. All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home, Their women cluck like starved pullets, Dying for love. Therefore, Their sons grow suicidally beautiful At the beginning of October, And gallop...
Continue reading...This is how bad it got: Poverty and Unemployment Insurance
This chart is pretty staggering, and gives a little more credence to the call to keep expanding unemployment insurance, even if Sharron Angle thinks it “spoils” the unemployed. This chart comes from Arloc Sherman from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who writes: The headline story in today’s Census Bureau report is the large jump in the poverty rate in 2009. But an exclusive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of the new survey data shows that unemployment insurance benefits — which expanded substantially last year in response to the increased need — kept 3.3 million people...
Continue reading...Nominee for Senate Christine O'Donnell thinks if you get AIDS, you deserved it. Also, thinks Joe Biden tapped her phones.
One of many 1990s-era videos featuring Christine O’Donnell, the newly-minted Republican nominee for Senate from Delaware, spouting crazy nonsense. Did you know that condoms actually facilitate HIV transmission? Also, Politico has some stories from former staffers from her failed 2008 senate attempt: Kristin Murray, who left her position in the state party to serve as one of several campaign managers for O’Donnell during that race, said warning bells went off in June 2008 when the two were discussing cell phone plans. ‘She told me that she thought Joe Biden tapped her phone line,’ she said. Alan Moore,...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Friday, 17 September 2010
Good morning, everybody. Did you know Lady Gaga is the most-searched-for woman on the Internet? Well, here\’s your morning constitutional: The success of the tea party groups is forcing Republicans to revise their playbooks for 2012. Karachi, Pakistan\’s largest city, is shut down after Imran Farooq, the exiled leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, was stabbed in London. President Obama is expected to announce today that he will appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer financial protection bureau. The Great Recession has driven the poverty rate to its highest in 15 years. The Senate yesterday passed...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Friday, 17 September 2010
Good morning, everybody. Did you know Lady Gaga is the most-searched-for woman on the Internet? Well, here\’s your morning constitutional: The success of the tea party groups is forcing Republicans to revise their playbooks for 2012. Karachi, Pakistan\’s largest city, is shut down after Imran Farooq, the exiled leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, was stabbed in London. President Obama is expected to announce today that he will appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer financial protection bureau. The Great Recession has driven the poverty rate to its highest in 15 years. The Senate yesterday passed...
Continue reading...Book Rec: Some Girls
Another entry in my I Judged This Book By Its Cover And Was Only Partly Wrong list. Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, by Jillian Lauren Sounds trashy, right? I thought it would be a guilty pleasure, a fast read. It was a fast read, but there was more to it than I expected. Instead of titillating tell-all or bad romance novel, Lauren’s book is really what it aspires to be: a great memoir. Some Girls is the true story of the time Lauren spent in the harem of the Prince of Brunei, but it’s also a coming...
Continue reading...In Praise of Blogging
Not V&V in particular — that would be just slightly too self-congratulatory, even for us. After I posted about the dog shooting at Adams Morgan Day, I heard from Simon Owens, who pointed me toward an interview he conducted with DCist Editor-in-chief Aaron Morrissey. The topic is DC bloggers scooping traditional news outlets, both with the aforementioned story and in regard to others (the Discovery Channel hostage situation in particular). It’s an interesting article, and you can find it here. As for the dog story itself, an update from Washington Post perhaps validates my hunch that the...
Continue reading...
Recent Comments