Category Archives: Culture
Data Mine
Ever get creeped out when you’re researching patio chair slings and the next time you log on to your favorite site there is an ad for patio chair slings? We’re used to having our minds mined by the likes of Google and Facebook. So I guess we shouldn’t mind when the government does it to keep an eye on terrorists. The NSA would never abuse its power like the IRS or the DOJ, right? Trust us.
Those Damn Catholics
Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee’s geeky jokes finally got him busted.
The multimillionaire president once cracked that he hoped the multimillionaire football coach, Jim Tressel, “won’t fire me”. His comment that Ohio State doesn’t play “the Little Sisters of the Poor” put him in hot water with – the Little Sisters of the Poor. But the one Gee Gaffe too far for the board of trustees was his jab at “those Damn Catholics” at Notre Dame. He said, “the fathers are holy on Sunday but holy hell the rest of the week” and “can’t be trusted on a Thursday or Friday”.
As one of those “Damn Catholics” who roots for the Irish I really can’t quibble with Gee’s remarks. Well, maybe the one about the Little Sisters of the Poor – after all, the Buckeyes do play the Akron Zips.
As penance for his sins Dr. Gee must now be remediated. Sounds painful, but it’s just the usual college commie cant about “civility, inclusion, and collective aspiration”. In other words he’s about to become as boring as every other politically correct academic who isn’t advocating bestiality.
Update: No remediation for Gee. He’s retiring.
Holder
Attorney General Holder signed off on a warrant that allowed the FBI to spy on a reporter’s personal email, his phones, and his parents’ phones.
Now Holder says he feels just awful about the whole thing. The president must be upset too. He has ordered the A.G. to investigate himself.
Just Around the Corner
John Dickerson at Slate says Obama is making the case for conservatism better than Republicans do.
Guns and Abortion
The Roe v Wade decision of 1973 established a woman’s constitutional right not to bear children. The constitutional right to bear arms was ratified by 3/4 of the states in 1791.
As the president would say, the public’s views have “evolved” on social issues. People are becoming more tolerant of homosexuality in general and same sex marriage in particular. Ten states plus the District of Columbia now recognize same sex marriage.
Abortion is trickier. According to a Quinnipiac poll 63% still support the Roe v Wade decision. Yet in a USA Today Poll only 28% believe it should always be legal, 52% say sometimes legal, and 18% never legal. Eighty percent feel it should never be legal in the last trimester of pregnancy – Dr. Gossnell’s sweet spot.
Unfortunately, that last trimester is also the sweet spot for politicians like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. While scolding the gun lobby’s “willfull lies”, the president blindly supports an abortion lobby that leads to barbaric practices like Dr. Gossnell’s.
(Journalists have been shamed into providing more coverage of the case.)
