Gotta clear the build-up off my desktop….
- Not really new material, but a post on Left2Right nicely sums up some of the ways Republicans made the 2004 election about masculinity.
- And another post on Left2Right brings up the “shouldn’t we give up on defending late-term abortions?” idea that I think we’ll soon get tired of. (There’s a long post by me far down in the comments.)
- Hey, have you read Lynne Cheney’s lesbian frontier novel? Here are some outtakes. For real. Some of the stuff could have been written by Andrea Dworkin at her most radical:
[Men, including husbands] indulge themselves selfishly, sensually, with no thought of the consequences for us. For their own pleasure, they condemn us to early graves, murdering us as surely as if they had knotted a cord around our necks.
- Philobiblon argues that the historic working week was actually much less work-filled than we imagine nowadays.
- A good post on Wicked Thoughts comments on my recent “being fat and being gay” post.
- Penn State’s Michael Bérubé details how he works, day in and day out, to keep those darn conservatives out of the academy.
- Michael Kinsley writes:
Today’s near-universal and minimally respectable attitude — the rock-bottom, non-negotiable price of admission to polite society and the political debate — is an acceptance of gay people and of open, unapologetic homosexuality as part of American life that would have shocked, if not offended, great liberals of a few decades ago such as Hubert Humphrey. […]
This is also scary, of course, because there is no reason to think that gay rights are the end of the line. And it’s even scarier because these are all revolutions of perception, as well as politics. That means that all of us who consider ourselves good-hearted, well-meaning, empathetic Americans — but don’t claim to be great visionaries — are probably staring right now at an injustice that will soon seem obvious — and we just don’t see it.
My guess is that either animal rights or transsexual rights will be the next big movement.
- This really interesting article explains why the meidcal marijuana case before the Supreme Court is, first of all, the most interesting case they’re now looking at; and, second of all, is far, far more broad-ranging than the issue of medical pot.
- C.S. Lewis on religious vs. civil marriage. “A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine…”
- An interesting article in The Bend Bullitin about the legal limbo the thousands of lesbian and gay Oregonians who got married before the gay-bashers amended the Oregon constitution are in. Since Oregon’s anti-SSM amendment wasn’t retroactive, the Oregon Supreme Court still has to decide what happens to the already-existing marriages – and perhaps, about the civil unions issue as well.
- I really enjoyed this comixpedia article about how geek women are presented in comics: Geek Women – Your Little Standards-Compliant Fantasy.
- In order to teach kids about World War 2, the correct thing to do is to present both the Nazi side and the anti-Nazi side, and then let the kids make their own decision. Right?
- Right now, I’m listening to an interesting, powerful cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine” by A Perfect Circle (click on “music” – it’s one of the iconic links near the top, you’ll find it – and then on “listen”). Via Brutal Women.
- CultureCat looks at some very sexist responses to a female student’s critique conteroversial article in the student paper.
cool!
/A Perfect Circle/ is one of the best outfits going today, for my money. /Tool/ for the somewhat less angry. I would never have expected them to make an appearance on your link list…
If you’re really anxious to check out Lynne’s novel, you can download the whole thing here: http://archives.annatopia.com/000970.html
The thing that annoys me about Velleman at L2R isn’t that he’s opposed to abortion after around week 19ish. I don’t particularly agree, but as a famous ethicist, I’d be interested in hearing him defend his position on ethical grounds. But it’s a bit rich to propose it, especially via “letting Roe go” in hopes that then the perfect law that fits with his ethical theory will magically emerge, is good strategy. If we’re going to be serious about proposing strategic policy initiatives, we have to do a bit more to sublimate our own personal political preferences for that process.
Without having yet read (shame) Michael Kinsley’s piece in its entirety, I’ll just share my thoughts on your excerpt.
Yes, at first blush it IS both exhilarating and unsettling for us as liberals to note the rapid advances of the gay rights movement – and to wonder what might be the mote in our own collective eye that will be so easily seen by future generations.
But I think if you just follow basic liberal principles and affirm the dignity of the individual, you will stay on solid ground. To worry excessively about “what’s next for liberalism?” comes dangerously close to the social conservatives’ “slippery slope” argument: If a man can marry another man, then what next – can he marry his sister, his pet, etc?
The whole point of the gay rights movement, of course, is that a lesbian or gay relationship is NOT like the kinds of things mentioned above. Perhaps it is closely analogous to a heterosexual relationship. (To digress a bit further: the danger here is of repeating the fallacy once adopted by some feminists that “to be equal to men, we must be LIKE men” – which laid the groundwork for some deep-seated anti-transsexual prejudice in the feminist world.)
Another point: I think liberals need to learn to be comfortable with the idea of success! Many people see the current popularity of the GOP as a sign that “the country is moving to the right”. I rather think the opposite: it is because the prejudices of the past are being so effectively defeated, even among nominal conservatives, that the Republican Party can now feel like “home” to moderates and liberals like myself.
Liberals should remember that change is a means to an end – not an end in itself.
So is it true that ‘all of us who consider ourselves good-hearted, well-meaning, empathetic Americans … are probably staring right now at an injustice that will soon seem obvious’? Well, I could probably think of one or two. But I’ll save that for my own blog.
This is kinda silly, but, the NRA ad is misleading. Poodles were bred in Germany for hunting waterfowl. That ridiculous haircut serves the utilitarian purpose of allowing them to swim without their absorbant fur slowing them down, or sinking them. The puff on the tail acts as a marker to make them easier for the Jager (hunter) to spot. They trimmed off the fur (some claim hair) not needed for keeping the vitals warm. Also, what is ironic is standard poodles are one of the smartest dog breeds. So you really have the perfect analogy: It appears froo-froo, but is really a hunting dog, and is much more intelligent than “tough” dogs, like Rottweilers. Bush=Rottweiler. Oh sweet, sweet irony.
Funny; I was already thinking about C.S. Lewis, in connection with the definition of personhood.
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