Going Off Script
Mind you, I am not defending Governor Sanford, not really. But I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised at his current stance, vis a vis his affair.
“I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate,” he said in an interview.
So many public figures indulge in affairs, get caught, and then drag the whole thing out in a back yard lot, pour gasoline on it, and set it ablaze in a spasm of self-loathing apologetics. I suppose the most dramatic was Jimmy Swaggart, weeping openly on television, going through a self-flagellation of Medieval proportions, at least psychologically.
And he was “forgiven” by his followers.
It seemed for a time that Sanford’s supporters were getting set to forgive him. “Okay,” they seemed to say, “you have a fling, it could happen to anybody, but now you’re back, you’ve abased yourself, your wife is going to forgive you, we can go on.”
But wait. Now he has come out and gone off-script. He was in love with Maria Belen Chapur, and still is. They met in 2001, at the onset of our eight-year-long Republican convulsion over public morality and national meltdown in global politics. The Republican Party named for itself the “high ground” of moral probity, condemning liberalism as somehow not only fiscal irresponbsible but the ideology of license and promiscuity.
Democrats have been caught in extramarital affairs, no question. But most of them did not sign on to any puritanical anti-sex purgation program. The Republicans, who stand foursquare in opposition to gay marriage, sex education, pre-marital sex, contraception, divorce, pornography, and just about anything that suggests an embrace of physical pleasure outside the narrow parameters of a biblical prescription for wedded bliss (all without obviously understanding just what biblical standards actually are) seem to be having more than their share of revelatory faux pas in this area. They are the party now of “Do What I Say Not What I Do”—a parenting stance that has long since lost any credibility.
Polls and surveys and studies suggest that conservatives generally have a bigger problem with pornography than do liberals. Likewise, it seems conservative men of power screw around a lot more than do liberals in similar positions.
Shout from your rooftop in solidarity with the people of Iran
I will never forget the images of Pope John Paul II arriving in Poland in June of 1979. The Pope descended from his plane, kneeled, bent and kissed the ground of his beloved homeland.
The Pope arrived as a pilgrim, news reports said. The Polish people saw more, perhaps a glimpse of freedom in the offing where their historic contributions and ties to the world were once again recognized as Polish, not as a Warsaw Pact satellite of the communist USSR.
Something similar is going on now in the Islamic Republic of Iran. After an historic election where the chosen candidate of the ruling elite was challenged, the results were announced mere hours after the paper ballots were cast, and current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared the winner.
Some say the Iranian voters’ ballots were not even counted.
Reports of unrest due to concerns of electoral fraud continue, although foreign media have been barred from Iran
Many of the supporters of the rival candidate for President have taken to the roofs and shouting, “Allahu Akbar!” which I’ve seen translated as “God is the Greatest!” and “God is Great!”
Without a doubt, there is continued opposition to the hard line polices of President Ahmadinejad which many in Iran believe do not reflect the country’s history and traditions.
It has become a staple of the ruling council to denounce protesters as incited by the West, mostly the UK, where two diplomats were thrown out of Iran. The UK responded by giving the heave to two Iranian embassy personnel. But, the Iranian government raised the ante on the UK, yesterday and detained many members of the diplomatic staff assigned to Iran in violation of international law.
It remains an issue is whether there what actions may be taken in solidarity with the aspirations of Iranians by supporters of freedom around the world.
First, one must caution forbearance.
If many take up the rhetoric of the far right in the US calling for swift, strong action against Iran there will be a backlash against the protesters in Iran. Such is already in the offing as the media have been closed down, and the government tries to spin the whole thing as a plot by the West and points to such rhetoric in support of its claims. Those which make such harsh statements and urge imprudent action give aid and comfort to the enemies of freedom in Iran.
So, what then for those worldwide which support the Iranian people’s return to the world community and to again recognize Iran’s past contributions and continuing ability to contribute to the world at large? I offer several ideas.
We could tie a green ribbon ‘round the old oak trees. Green is the color of the party of the opposition in Iran.
We could join in solidarity with the aspirations of the protestors and go onto our rooftops or just go outside and shout or say; “God is Great!” at midnight Tehran time (about 2:30 p.m. CST [+4 GMT]).
And ask that peace be with our Iranian brothers and sisters.
Catholic Answers: don’t even lie in the same bed . . .
Is it OK for unmarried adults to lie in the same bed, even if they don’t have sex. Quick answer: NO. That’s the advice I got here, at the Chastity Q&A. It’s a sexual catechism filled with all kinds of advice, such as how far you can go without committing a sin.
Is foreplay wrong? Here’s advice I had never before considered:
Perhaps the easiest way to find out if our actions conform to authentic love is to imagine God sitting on a nearby sofa watching us. If his presence would cause immediate shame or the desire to stop dead in our tracks, we need to ask ourselves why.
How creepy! Would a married couple have sex if God was sitting on a nearby sofa watching? And, BTW, isn’t God supposedly omniscient? Aren’t good Christians supposedly to always assume that God is on a nearby sofa?
Is it OK for homosexuals to raise children? No:
The impact of a mother in her family is unrepeatable, and the same can be said of the father. Two moms don’t make a dad, and two dads do not equal a mom. This is the way nature has designed it.
Oh, and don’t bother using condoms, because they cause greater numbers of unplanned pregnancies:
The fact is, increased condom use by teens is associated with increased out-of-wedlock birth rates.”
You’ll also learn that merely looking at women in swimming suits is akin to pornography and that “porn trains us to have mental polygamy.”
All of this advice was provided by spin-off (”Chastity”) site linked to a Catholic website (”Catholic Answers“) that provided so much Catholic esoterica that it left me disoriented in 20 minutes. Truly amazing that so many people are willing to discuss, as one example of many, the difference (if any) between the “holy spirit” and the “holy ghost.” Here’s another interesting question: Should rock music be allowed at church? Absolutely not, because “If you were before Christ being crucified on Calvary, truly there witnessing it, would you start up a rock band and clap and dance?” The argument seems to be that as Jesus was bleeding to death on the cross, he would rather have someone nearby playing solemn music on an organ.
If you want to be more than simply a good Catholic, “Catholicy Answers” is clearly the site for you.
Economics evolves into evolutionary economics
The July 2009 edition of Scientific American explores new ways of looking at economics in an article by Gary Stix entitled “The Science of Bubbles and Busts.”
The article explores the growing acceptance by professionals that people quite often are not rational when it comes to dealing with their finances. We are not homo economicus, as touted by many economists, including Milton Friedman.
Our imperfections are many. For instance, we are supremely overconfident. We overrate our ability to make decisions in the market. We are also prone to “herding,” following the crowd. We are also overwhelmed by our recall of recent events due to the availability bias. We are creatures who are strictly geared to the short-term.
As a result of this mounting evidence establishing that we are not able to rationally deal with the market, new approaches are inexorably working there way into economics. These new approaches include evolutionary economics:
“Economists suffer from a deep psychological disorder that I call ‘physics envy,’ ” [MIT professor of finance Andrew] Lo says. “We wish that 99 percent of economic behavior could be captured by three simple laws of nature. In fact, economists have 99 laws that capture 3 percent of behavior. Economics is a uniquely human endeavor and, as such, should be understood in the broader context of competition, mutation and natural selection—in other words, evolution.
Having an evolutionary model to consult may let investors adapt as the risk profiles of different investment strategies shift. But the most important benefit of Lo’s simulations may be an ability to detect when the economy is not in a stable equilibrium, a finding that would warn regulators and investors that a bubble is inflating or else about to explode.
An adaptive-market model can incorporate information about how prices in the market are changing—analogous to how people are adapting to a particular ecological niche. It can go on to deduce whether prices on one day are influencing prices on the next, an indication that investors are engaged in “herding,” as described by behavioral economists, a sign that a bubble may be imminent. As a result of this type of modeling, regulations could also “adapt” as markets shift and thus counter the type of “systemic” risks for which conventional risk models leave the markets unprotected.
How and why to repeal Don’t ask, Don’t tell.
How and why should we repeal Don’t ask, Don’t tell? Everything you need to know is here, in this presentation by Lawrence J. Korb, Sean Duggan, and Laura Conley of the Center for American Progress. Here’s the pdf. Here are some of the facts worth considering:
More than 32,500 gay and lesbian service men and women have been discharged from military service since 1980.
This policy may have cost the U.S. government up to $1.3 billion since 1980.
“No reputable or peer-reviewed study has ever shown that allowing service by openly gay personnel will compromise military effectiveness.”17
Twenty-four countries allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military. None of these have reported “any determent to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality,” according to the Palm Center, and “in the more
than three decades since an overseas force first allowed gay men and lesbians to serve openly, no study has ever documented any detriment to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality in foreign armed services.”
Even the British, whose military structure and deployment patterns are most similar to ours—and who fiercely resisted allowing gays to serve in the military—were forced to do so by the European Court
What is step ONE for ending the deplorable status quo? “Issue an Executive Order banning further dismissals on the basis of DADT and send a legislative proposal on DADT repeal to Congress.”
We’re waiting, Mr. Obama.
Cultural death in threes -
I am experiencing a rather weird feeling - three cultural icons whose flames burned brightest during my own youth have all been extinguished in the same week. First Ed McMahon, who, for years has been but a caricature of himself, died, essentially of old age, at 86. Not a big surprise, except I wonder how someone who was so vibrant when I was a teen managed to get that old?! A friend pointed out that deaths like his make her feel old, and I get that. But so do the deaths of Farrah and Jacko today - at least for me. Because I can still remember believing that only old people lose contemporaries in any large number - and perhaps because we lost a mom at my oldest daughter’s school to ovarian cancer this month - I’m feeling a bit too close to death’s doorway.
I was never a big fan of Farrah, but I know several men who, as boys, would glaze over just staring at her poster on their bedroom walls. She and her fellow Angels were early purveyors of girl-power - except it was the toxic kind, a power that came primarily from great bodies, beautiful faces and big hair. Oh, and yeah, they could kick butt against the bad guys, of course. Theirs was a cultural impact similar to Barbie’s - a completely unrealistic picture of femininity to strive for, girls! But still, they were women in formerly man-held roles, and they were part of my girlhood, for better or worse. Farrah, of course, was always the top angel. Not a role model, although back then some tried to paint her as such; just an icon, replete with faults that became more apparent as she got older and the media more intrusive. Like her or not, I am saddened by the long suffering she had to endure up to her end.
As for Michael Jackson, I simply don’t know how to feel.
