Archive for August, 2007
Non-resistance in the Face of Violence is not Always the Answer
I read about the grandmothers in a beauty salon who a href=”http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/11/parlor.attack.ap/index.html”were bludgeoned by a robber /awith a hammer this week: br /br /blockquoteA 41-year-old man stormed a beauty salon and bludgeoned four grandmothers with a hammer, fracturing one’s skull, before making off with less than $90, police said.br /br /Thomas Leyshon III, of Mountain Top, was arrested after a daylong manhunt Friday.br /br /The women, ages 56 to 76, did not resist but were beaten anyway, witnesses said. At least one required surgery.br /br /”It takes a coward to go after some old women,” said Andy Chopka, grandson of victim Jeanna Chopka./blockquotebr /br /Notice the sentence in the article making mention that the women emdid not resist but were beaten anyway./em It’s as if the writer of the article expected the very act of non-resistance to be met with non-injury. That’s what we’re always being told, isn’t it? a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2007/01/is-psychological-impotence-in-face-of.html”Comply with a thug’s wishes /aand you won’t get hurt. br /br /What would happen if women in a similar beauty salon robbery did fight back and instead of a hammer, the perp had a gun? Well, you can see for yourself–a href=”http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2007/08/on-her-blog-robyn-ringler-asked.html”thanks to Tam and her commenter’s/a for pointing this story out. a href=”http://video.aol.com/video-detail/id/1485287869″In a video outside a Shreveport, Louisiana beauty school/a, women described what they did to man coming in to rob the place at gunpoint and they were having none of it. “I tripped him,” said one woman. Then the rest of them pounced on him and beat him until he was the one being carried to a hospital.br /br /embed src=”http://xml.searchvideo.com/eb/i/1485426085/a/58ef677afb89fc040e3dec6de7dd6c26/p/1″ wmode=”opaque” FlashVars=”aID=12bb24c46a38fd165e34ac396cc3aa697site=http://uncutvideo.aol.com/” width=”425″ height=”355″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” /embed
Tipping is Mandatory but a Five Buck Co-pay is Infuriating
I a href=”http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/HeresATip20PercentIsTheNew15Percent.aspx”read at MSN money /athat 20% is the new 15% in terms of tipping: br /br /blockquoteI used to feel generous because I tipped 20% in restaurants. It was a shout-out, I thought, to my brothers and sisters on the wait staff: Been there, done that, so glad I don’t have to anymore.br /br /But it’s not just my imagination that 20% isn’t considered all that generous anymore. It’s become standard….br /br /One thing I won’t do is skimp on tipping out of a false sense of economy. I feel strongly that if you can’t afford to tip properly, then you need to curtail the activity that leads to the tipping. In the years when money was tight, I saved by eating out infrequently, going to cheap places to have my hair cut and taking public transportation rather than taxis. I didn’t try to save by stiffing the folks who provided me with services I opted to purchase./blockquotebr /br /I have always been a fairly generous tipper; like the author above, I have worked in a number of restaurants during my time to pay for school and living expenses–so I have some empathy for wait staff and others. However, the best tip I got was from a woman who came up to me at a healthfood restaurant who said, “You better get a better attitude if you want to make a career of this work!” I left shortly afterwards, realizing that what she said was true–with my personality, I had no future in waitressing. br /br /Anyway, I digress, the point I wanted to make in this post was that “yes, tipping can be important,” but it should not necesarily be considered standard. I tip for a job well done and if I am treated poorly, I see no reason to pay for the privilege. I have also noticed that hairdressers and spa services charge more than psychologists get for an hour of psychotherapy from Medicare, our share? 67.00 per 60-75 minutes. I went to my hairdresser yesterday, and was there an hour and a half–my total bill: $110.00. You could say that the poor hairdresser has to pay for being in the spa, but try the overhead of a professional office, it’s probably more. br /br /Anyway, I totally disagree that if you are on a budget that you should have to give up riding in a taxi, going to get a haircut at a spa, or a massage if you are stressed just because you can’t leave a whopping tip. If doctors and professionals can deal with people who balk at having to pay a five dollar co-pay for their care, then massage therapists and hairdressers etc. can tolerate not getting the whopping tip they think they deserve each and every time. Or perhaps the real lesson here is that many of those who snootily tell others that they owe whopping tips for service whether it is good or not, underneath it all think that luxury services are more important to pay for than healthcare.
Gay Marriage and the War on Terror
Think the two issues are unrelated? Not for Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon. "Because I am such an adamant adherent of gay rights, women's rights, human rights - the values that evolved out of the Enlightenment - I have to vote for the candidate I think will best carry forth that war (by whatever means appropriate at the moment) to defend those Enlightenment values."
M.C. Rove Rappin’ No More — Karl Rove To Quit, He Tells WSJ:
Karl Rove, President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist, plans to leave the White House at the end of August, he told Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot. President Bush was expected to make a statement Monday with Rove. (AP/Breitbart) Click "Read" for a continuously updated roundup of reaction...
Black Bart Rides Off Into The Sunset
PJM columnist Rick Moran offers his analysis on Karl Rove's legacy which, "like that of his boss, will probably be a mixed one."
Monday Morning Quarterback: Endless Summer in Iowa
There is no rest for the weary in the age of the permanent campaign, reports PJM political columnist William Bradley. Crisscrossing Iowa may not seem like the ideal destination for an August vacation - but the presidential contenders fighting to hold their own don't really have a choice.
The Power of Anti-Americanism?
I caught a bit of the new game show, span style=”font-style:italic;”a href=”http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/TV_This_Week_47/Warmup_Drew_Carey_on_Power_of_10.asp”The Power of 10/span hosted by Drew Carey/a last night while flipping through the channels:br /br /blockquoteThe show combines an element of pop culture with the classic pyramid approach, asking contestants to predict the answer to questions posed to thousands of Americans, such as “How many believe they are smarter than president George Bush?”/blockquotebr /br /As you can imagine from the question on George Bush above, the show is filled with subtle negative remarks guised as humor about Americans and the Bush Administration. For example, Carey implies in the a href=”http://www.tvguide.com/news/drew-carey-gameshow/070807-01″following interview with TV Guide /athat most white Americans are racists:br /br /TVGuide.com: Give me some examples of questions asked.br /Carey: “What percentage of Americans think they’re smarter than President Bush?” “What percentage of white Americans would never vote for an African American as president?”br /br /TVGuide.com: Even if it was David Palmer on 24?br /Carey: Even if it was Barack Obama.br /br /Another question from the show last night asked those polled if they thought Dick Cheney could beat them in a duel with a shotgun. Carey mentions the negative press Cheney gets and that people don’t like the Vice President. Even if true, why mention it so often? The questions seemed to be phrased in very negative ways to try to pull for laughs about the inefficiency of the current administration or the provincial nature of Americans. None of it seems terribly funny. br /br /br /When Americans do answer questions posed by pollers, Carey often made wisecracks to let the audience know what an enlightened being he is. When asked, “How many women consider themselves feminists?” only 29% of those polled considered themselves feminists. Carey’s response? The women who did not consider themselves feminists were riding off the backs of the feminists who came before and were basically too ignorant to know that this is what they were doing. Okay, fair enough but perhaps the way that the questions were phrased determined the outcome of the answers. For example, the women polled might have been in favor of equal rights for women, but not for the type of radical feminism pushed by Catherine MacKinnon or a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dworkin”Andrea Dworkin./a Many women are wise to this type of “feminism” and want no part of it. The questions may be phrased in a way that does not allow one to know why the pollee answered the way he or she did. br /br /This set-up might make for funny or more exciting tv, or a href=”http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSN0827699320070809″maybe not/a:br /br /blockquoteCBS’ new Drew Carey-hosted game show “The Power of 10″ faltered in its second outing while Fox won in the adults 18-49 demographic in Wednesday’s primetime./blockquotebr /br /I still have Carey’s hilarious book a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786885599?ie=UTF8tag=wwwviolentkicomlinkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0786885599″DIRTY JOKES AND BEER: STORIES OF THE UNREFINED/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=0786885599″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” / that I read a few years ago and it was much more politically incorrect, I wonder what happened to him?
Confessions of a Reality Junkie
PJM Columnist Sheryl Longin admits to spending too much time with the idiot box. Like a lot of us, she's become addicted to reality shows and she's trying to figure out why. Says Longin: "When I say addicted, I mean addicted."
MSNBC: Vote Democratic!– Uh, We Mean here’s a New Study about the US and Healthcare
Interesting propaganda/ a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20228552/”article over at MSN:/a “U.S. ranks just 42nd in life expectancy.” A major reason for this ranking according to the “experts” in the article? Lack of universal healthcare, of course! br /br /blockquoteResearchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say./blockquotebr /br /That’s funny, two decades ago without universal healthcare, the article says the US ranked number 11 in life expectancy. So isn’t it possible that something else is going on? Take a a href=”http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?boardid=476threadid=368265boardsparam=Page%3D6″look at some of the comments to the article/a, there are a few reasonable people writing in who have some good questions and explanations for why the US’s life expectancy stats tend to look low–here are a couple:br /br /blockquoteOne of the major reasons why the U.S. ranks so low on the list in life expectancy is because, unlike nationalized healthcare countries, we try to save our preemie babies no matter what gestational age they are. In many nations w/ nationalized healthcare babies have to be at least 24 weeks gestational age or nothing will be done to sustain life. So if trying our best to save preemie babies ranks the U.S. low on the list then I say so be it./blockquotebr /br /blockquoteWhat a pathetic study! There are no reported standards for controls.br /br / 1) US has a higher infant mortality rate and compares 13.7 for Black Americans as the same as Saudi Arabi. (Ummm, what about US teen pregnancy rates in the USA which are extremely high! Children born to teenage mothers are 1) under weight; 2) lower birth weights; 3) poor health to start life on; 4) live in substandard housing conditions. Nothing to do with “health insurance” as much as parents teaching their children to act responsibly and having a baby before one is educated w/jobs skills is not responsible behavior.); br /br / br /2) US has a large immigration population — both illegal aliens and naturalized. Was this accounted for in the study? For example, Asiatic-Indians suffer from an abnormally high rate of heart problems. Severe enough that the Asiatic-Indian community in the USA lobbied the US Congress for special funding for their community to address heart problems in this population.br //blockquotebr /br /There are a number of other explanations, none of which has much to do with insurance.br /br /Have you noticed how the media is starting up the bash America/vote Democratic meme really early this go-round? Every article now reads like a catastrophe waiting around the corner unless all come to their senses and vote for a Democrat, stat. Even your life expectancy could be at risk. And they say that Republicans use fear as a motivator. Yeah, right.br /br /strongUpdate:/strong The emNYT’s/em a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/opinion/12sun1.html”chimes in on the healthcare debate:/a America, we’re just awful and we’ll prove it to you one headline at a time.
What Baseball Needs Are More Barbers
The trouble with baseball, proclaims PJM columnist Burt Prelutsky, began the day the first major leaguer took the field wearing gold chains. Nowadays, the typical right fielder not only wears more jewelry than Elton John, but is even less likely to hit the cut-off man. And just as he was getting used to the baubles, along came the goatee.
Culture Bytes: Kitchen Chemistry and War Correspondents
On-screen chemistry and the Iraq War's literary legacy are explored in PJM culture writer David Freeman's notebook this week, as he reviews the Catherine Zeta-Jones film No Reservations, and the new novel %%AMAZON=0061189391 Last One In%% written by Nicolas Kulish, formerly an embedded reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
A Sporting Chance: The Dog Days of Summer
The oppressive August of the Midwestern summer is taking its toll as baseball season grinds past the midway point and NFL training camps whir into gear. While players, coaches, and tempers wilt, Rick Moran takes a moment to revel in the heat before the autumn wind comes blustering in, pillaging just for fun.
Hijacking a Ride?
A new study a href=”http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070809.LMACHO09/TPStory/?query=jaw”seeks to shed some light on why women pick men/a who breed but don’t stick around (Hat Tip: a href=”http://www.julescrittenden.com/2007/08/10/wheres-the-beef/”Jules Crittenden/a):br /br /blockquoteYet, how to explain women choosing those unsuitable, macho, alpha types? Many do.br /br /Ovulating women have an increase in masculine preference, Dr. Boothroyd says, as do women who are already in a committed long-term relationship, “the idea being that they’re already in a relationship, so they’re not looking for a long-term partner.”br /br /Women with high self-esteem also choose more masculine partners, which may be because “they’ve got more in the bank to negotiate.”br /br /But they’re not choosing them for their immunocompetence, Dr. Boothroyd says. Instead, they’re attracted for reasons more directly related to the man’s alpha-male status. Their genes might not technically be better, but since they belong to a socially dominant male, women perceive the men as having other desirable attributes.br /br /So the next step is to take a harder look at what those genetic benefits might be. The “sexy-son” hypothesis, which dates back to the 1920s, is one possibility, Dr. Boothroyd says.br /br /The premise: If a male is reproductively successful, it’s advantageous to mate with him because he should produce sons who are also reproductively successful. “Sexy sons actually give their mothers more grandchildren,” she says. These women are making a trade-off so their genes “can hijack a ride along with his and spread through the population.”br //blockquotebr /I guess that explains why a href=”http://www.pajamasmedia.com/2007/07/ask_dr_helen_doing_unto_others.php”serial sperm donors are so successful/a with women.
Merry Christmas! Now Go Vote
With the states on a race to set primaries and caucuses earlier than everywhere else, both major candidates will be probably known by the end of January, nine full months before the election -- or as much time as it takes to make a baby. It's a major change in the way the US has been electing presidents, and something that the Founders probably didn't have in mind, says Rick Moran.
Bargain-Rate Bribes
Why don't modern-day politicians feel compelled to defend their reputations? Burt Prelutsky blames the temptations of pork barrel politics. After all, even he's not convinced he could resist "$10 million to vote for some unnecessary bridge being built in Alaska." [Download Burt's reading of this story in MP3.]
It’s True
a href=”http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2007/08/it-really-is-valley-of-blogs.html”"You can’t swing a cat in this town without hitting a blogger.”/a
Wake Me Up When the Debates Are Over
Practically comatose after the endless parade of presidential forums which can hardly be called debates, PJM's political analyst William Bradley makes the case for fewer debates with fewer candidates.
Meet the Parents
How much responsibility do parents have for their children's achievement in school? A great deal, contends PJM's Aaron Hanscom, a former elementary school teacher in Los Angeles. Find out what Open House Night at his school taught him, in this first installment of a two-part series on parenting in America.
When Fighting Drugs Means Fighting Terror
PJM's correspondent in Brasilia reports on why there is more than one reason to celebrate the recent arrest of a major Latin American drug lord. A dangerous alliance is forming between drug traffickers and Muslim extremists as groups like Hizbullah are finding drug dealing an easy way to pay their bills. Shared hostility towards the U.S. means that some governments are looking the other way.
Stock-in-Trade
Jerome Armstrong, who blogs at My DD and co-authored a book with Markos Moulitsas, has agreed to pay $30,000 to the SEC to settle stock-touting allegations, Drudge reports. The SEC judgment is here. And bloggers chimed in...
Armstrong’s Troubles Explained
The arcane SEC rules and regulations that blogger Jerome Armstrong has run afoul of are a mystery to most of us. David H. Horwich, Managing Partner of Growth Capital Advisors, explains the level and context of the malfeasance in Armstrong's actions.
Who is the Real Feminist?
I saw a link on a href=”http://voxday.blogspot.com/2007/08/apparently-im-not-feminist.html”Vox Day’s blog/a to one of those silly quizzes that I often get suckered into taking for no other reason than curiosity or perhaps just procrastination from actual span style=”font-style:italic;”real /spanwork I should be doing. The quiz asked the question, “Are You a Feminist?” and if you are interested, here is my score:br /br /table width=350 align=center border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2trtd bgcolor=”#DDDDDD” align=centerfont face=”Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif” style=’color:black; font-size: 14pt;’bYou Are 91% Feminist/b/font/td/trtrtd bgcolor=”#FFFFFF”centerimg src=”http://images.blogthings.com/areyouafeministquiz/feminist-5.jpg” height=”100″ width=”100″/centerfont color=”#000000″br /You are a total feminist. This doesn’t mean you’re a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It’s a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action./font/td/tr/tablediv align=”center”a href=”http://www.blogthings.com/areyouafeministquiz/”Are You a Feminist?/a/divbr /br /I was recently at a get-together of academics and ran into a “feminist professor” who was also a blogger. I guess she had read this blog because she immediately informed me that I was “not a feminist” before I even had a chance to find out what her idea of a feminist was. Apparently, her definition of an anti-feminist was “someone who does not agree with me!” Perhaps I should forward my score to her so I can “prove” I am a feminist, but then, what good would that do? br /br /Equality between men and women is no longer the real issue with many “feminists”–it is more about special rights for women without responsibilities (like trying a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2007/08/more-of-nanny-state.html”to get rid of the word bitch/a but not prick etc.), “empowerment” without the work that comes with actually doing anything, and allowing women to do things to men that if men did to women, would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, you know, like a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-210-whole-days-in-jail-just-for.html”shoot them in the back while they sleep./a If that is the definition, count me out–that type of feminism sounds more like a Democratic political action committee than a real sense of justice between men and women. The idea of equality is not as simple as this quiz would have us believe, for in order to be truly equal, women must understand that they too, have the responsibility to see that equality extends both ways.
More Double Standards
A Kentucky woman finally a href=”http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20070807/NEWS0103/308070022″gets a short jail sentence of 60 days/a for raping a 15-year-old boy after school (thanks to the reader who emailed the story): br /br /blockquoteJeni Lee Dinkel will serve 60 days in Kenton County jail for having sex with a 15-year-old boy last year. She must also serve five years probation and register as a sex offender for the next 20 years.br /br /Dinkel, 51, was sentenced today by Kenton Circuit Judge Gregory Bartlett. She was charged in April with having sex with a friend of her son during a four-month period in 2006.br /br /Under the terms of the sentence, she must also undergo psychological counseling and substance abuse treatment. She will pay a $2,500 fine plus court costs. She must also serve 200 hours of community service and she is not allowed to sell her story or profit from the case.br /br /She must begin serving her jail sentence Oct. 5.br /br /The victim, now 16, did not attend the hearing but was represented by Joshua Crabtree, a lawyer with the Children’s Law Center in Covington.br /br /“He felt during the course of the proceedings … there was some assertion that he had pursued Mrs. Dinkel,” said Crabtree. “He wanted to make it clear that was not ever true./blockquotebr /br /In a href=”http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20070808/EDIT01/708080313/-1/jenilee”an opinion piece/a from today’sspan style=”font-style:italic;” The Enquirer/span, the sentence is said to be a “slap on the wrist:”br /br /blockquoteKenton Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders initially agreed to a plea bargain that involved no jail time, saying a “societal double standard” made a long sentence for Dinkel unlikely. Judge Bartlett put a stop to that deal on May 31, saying he wasn’t satisfied with the presentence reports and delayed the sentencing until Tuesday.br /br /Dinkel’s jail sentence will be only half as long as the four-month relationship she acknowledged having with the victim. She must also serve five years probation, register as a sex offender for the next 20 years, attend counseling sessions and perform 200 hours of community service.br /br /Comments posted on an Enquirer online message board during the past few months have ranged from demanding the harshest sentence to some willing to excuse the crime because the victim was a teenage boy and therefore somehow must not have suffered from the experience. After all, this line of flawed reasoning goes, the sexual contact occurred repeatedly over months last year, so the boy must not have objected. The fact that this was the calculated seduction of a 15-year-old by a 51-year-old adult seems to be lost on these people. This was an act of domination and exploitation of the adult/child relationship.br //blockquotebr /br /Though this sentence is short and no doubt, a male who engaged in the same behavior would probably be in jail for years, a href=”http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20070807/NEWS0103/308070022″I have to give Judge Bartlett some credit/a for trying to change the double standards a bit:br /br /blockquoteDinkel pleaded guilty May 31, in a plea deal that would have given her five years probation and no jail time. But the judge in the case rejected the plea deal, saying he wasn’t satisfied with the pre-sentencing reports.br /br /Bartlett said he had to uphold public confidence in the judicial system when weighing what sentence to hand down. “Equal justice is of the law is more than a slogan,” he said. “It has to be a reality, and as far as I’m concerned, it is reality.”/blockquotebr /br /Some fairness is better than none.
In Praise of Mighty Markos
Love him or hate him, you have to give Kos his due, argues PJM columnist Max Sawicky. He has, indeed, reinvigorated the Democratic grass roots - not with ideology but with clever use of new tools to take full advantage of the Republican crack-up and the resulting shift in the political spectrum.
Was Sean Penn Taken For a Ride By Hugo Chavez?
It was difficult to miss the "Sean and Hugo Show" last week, as international newspapers splashed photos of the Venezuelan president and the Oscar-winning actor roamed the countryside together in a Thelma-and-Louise jeep tour. PJM's Caracas correspondent reports how the show played at home.
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