Stubborn Jack's blog

For your amusement, have you seen this report in Psychology Today: "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature"? The way I reckon, it's the perfect kind of thing to be subjected to the rigorous analysis of Stubborn Fact-checkers. Well, maybe there aren't too many facts to check per sae, but I suspect the conclusions could use a healthy dose of logical examination.

Read the full report for the explanations, but here's the list:

1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
2. Humans are naturally polygamous
3. Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy
4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim
5. Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce
6. Beautiful people have more daughters
7. What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals
8. The midlife crisis is a myth -- sort of
9. It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but only if they're male)
10. Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist

Have at 'em, folks.

In a review for The Weekly Standard Roger Kimball describes it thus:

I first encountered this admirable work when it was published in London last year. I liked its retro look--the lettering and typography of the cover recalls an earlier, more swashbuckling era--and I thought at first it must be a reprint. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a book containing instructions on how to make catapults, how to hunt and cook a rabbit, how to play poker, how to make a waterbomb, was published today, the high noon of nannydom.

My favorite gross-out raison d'etre for the book was the following line in a recent Washington Post column by the author himself, Conn Iggulden: "I know there are women who can lift heavier weights than I can, but on the whole, boys are more interested in the use of urine as secret ink than girls are." The hilarious opening anecdote of the column made me nostalgic for the day when I was about eight years old and my 14-year-old brother convinced me how cool it would be for us to ride his bike down the terrifyingly steepest hill in the neighborhood, with ME ON THE HANDLEBARS. Disaster, of course, ensued. (Point being: read the whole column.)

I haven't purchased the book yet, but I've flipped through its very cool pages at the book store, and I'm just putting it off until there's an appropriate occasion on which to present it as a gift to my 11-year-old son, whom I will refer to here as "AJ" -- short for "Adventurous Justin."

AJ is the perfect boy for this book, or rather, the kind of boy who could probably write many of its chapters himself. By quick figuring, so far this summer, in the woods and bayou near our home, AJ has already caught, with his bare hands mind you, a dozen ribbon snakes, half a dozen diamond-back water snakes, two black rat snakes, and assorted lizards, turtles, frogs too many to list. (Not to worry: AJ, who learned his catching technique, but not his sense of caution, watching his idol, the late great Crocodile Hunter, knows every species, the dangerous from the harmless, like an expert.) With pole and net, he's caught catfish, redfish, croaker, sheephead, and enough blue crabs to keep his mom smiling all summer. And the other night he wiped me out playing Texas Hold 'Em.

I can't wait to see what other nifty tricks, adventures, and little-gentleman lessons this book holds in store for him. And me.

The reaction in the Muslim world alone has already transformed this little speech delivered by Pope Benedict at the University of Regensburg in Germany into an international news phenomenon. Apart from the controversy, however, I am convinced that the speech itself (and if you haven’t yet read it in its entirety, do so) will, with time, grow in significance to be seen as much more: a world historical and world-changing event, as well as one of Benedict’s finest hours, and on par with Pope John Paul II’s return to his native Poland amidst Solidarity’s challenge to Soviet Communism during the Cold War. But only if enough of us comprehend the depth not just of Benedict’s defense of the West, but also his challenge to it, and respond by offering him some solidarity of our own.

Read more below the fold ...

I don't particularly have much to add to the subject heading on this post. I just really have been wanting to hear someone say those words, then decided it may as well be me.

My quick point is this: no matter what happens now in the saga of ABC's "Path to 9/11" miniseries -- whether it's pulled or simply slightly bowdlerized -- the frantic actions of all those slamming it have already provided the American people with their biggest take-away theme: That when it comes to fighting terrorism, the Democrats just seem to have something to hide.

Anyway, for those looking to catch up, here's a nifty synopsis of the brouhaha related to the movie by John Miller at National Review.

UPDATE: For an all together different take on the film and the kerfuffle over it, and in the interest of fairness, see the NY Post's resident neocon (and sometime movie critic) John Podhoretz review, in which he defends both Berger and Albright (but not Clinton), and pans the film on aesthetics and substance.

In the context of a post in which he makes relatively benign, and banal, observations about becoming a new homeowner, the big-hearted progressive Markos Moulitsas Zúniga also makes what I think is a rather extraordinary, if inadvertent, admission:

And while I've been a homeowner for only four months, I've quickly learned just how important home ownership can be. For the first time in my life, I actually care about my neighborhood and neighbors.

Maybe this is just a kind of slip of the tongue, but I’m guessing it bespeaks a good deal. At least I’ve found it to be the case that in the angry left people I know personally, while they may be quite energized, it’s almost always in an abstract way and in pursuit of only political ideals, and never, in my recollection, in actual, concrete, personal service to their neighbor, neighborhood, community, or city.

So let’s have a little fun and start a game of our own, shall we? See who can come up with the explanation, analogy or allusion, historical or otherwise, that best captures and satirizes the phrase "Kos has cared about his neighbors for only four months." I’ll start us off with this line from a U2 song, itself both an analogy and an allusion to a famous quote: "And a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, when you’re trying to throw your arms around the world." Can you think of other examples? Or, simply supply one yourself. It’s fun for the whole family.

I admit it: I'm taking far too much pleasure in this editorial smackdown of Joe Wilson today in the Washington Post. Final paragraph:

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Of course, there are extremely serious problems, and there should be quite serious consequences, when the self-inflated Wilson acts to cripple a White House in the middle of its efforts to lead our nation in war. Recall, the wretched Wilson famously hoped to see Karl Rove "frog-marched" out of the White House in handcuffs.

But I for one find some solace in imagining the impact of this Washington Post editorial will hit someone like Wilson where it hurts most, as this public humiliation signals throughout town the need for his name to be deleted off the best guest lists and his pompadoured personage to be "frog-marched" out of the best Washington society dinners.

Ernesto, por favor. Amscray. Adios.

Please excuse my absence of late, folks. I was suffering from a euphoric hangover after my Yankees swept five from the BoSox. Based on how they've played since then, looks like the Yanks are still hungover too.

Actually, I've been working, and when not working I've mainly been studying with my 5th grader, who started school just a couple weeks ago but I swear already has had something like a dozen tests and quizzes. His latest was review of the world map -- latitude, longitude, the equator, tropical zones and all that.

Which brings me to the topic that's potentially freaking me out. You see, I live in south Louisiana, Baton Rouge to be precise. And, well, after the events of last year, just take a gander at the National Hurricane Center's latest track map for Tropical Storm Ernesto, which essentially has it by Thursday morning coming right for us at hurricane strength.

This kind of situation brings those of us in this part of the world into that recurring moral quandary. We desperately pray not to get hit again, while at the same time knowing that if our prayers are answered it almost certainly means someone else gets hit. Self-serving? Uh, yeah. Understandably so? Again yeah, in my view. I just take one look at my three kids and feel amply justified.

Anyway, if this thing enters the Gulf, we're all gonna freak. Happy Katrina anniversary, indeed.

Which brings us, inexorably of course, to the mouth to the south of us, Mayor Nagin, who has already done his worst to kick off this wall-to-wall remembrance weekend. Consider this an open thread for all things Katrina, Rita, and, now, Ernesto.

UPDATE: Looking back over what I just wrote, I should really clarify. Yes, we do pray for the storm to move elsewhere, but we include in that prayer a genuine hope for it either to avoid hitting any populated place or to simply lose steam.

UPDATE by Pat: Hello to all those searching for information about Ernesto coming here from Google and other search engines. For current tracking information about Ernesto, I recommend Wunderground. The Red Cross has excellent guides to help you prepare for a hurricane coming to your area.

Thankfully, it appears that Ernesto is weakening and will not pose too great a danger to human life in Florida. That's no guarantee, however, and we urge you to prepare for the worst, just in case. In the meantime, please remember that tens of thousands of Americans from Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana are still suffering from the incredibly vast damages of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which destroyed entire communities. If you need a reminder of just how dangerous a hurricane can be, please read the newspaper article I cite in this old post on Remembering Katrina. Also, you can still help those devastated by Katrina by purchasing the fund-raiser concert DVD I mention here, which features incredible performances from the Neville Brothers, Irma Thomas, Elton John, Dan Fogerty, Simon & Garfunkel, Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello, and many more. As a resident of Louisiana, thank you, and our prayers are with anybody in Ernesto's path.

Over at National Review Online’s The Corner a spirited debate has broken out over an essay by Heather Mac Donald (with the author herself participating in the debate), with the following thesis:

Skeptical conservatives—one of the Right’s less celebrated subcultures—are conservatives because of their skepticism, not in spite of it. They ground their ideas in rational thinking and (nonreligious) moral argument. And the conservative movement is crippling itself by leaning too heavily on religion to the exclusion of these temperamentally compatible allies.

Make more room for Atheist, agnostic, and secular conservatives, Mac Donald pleads. Speaking as a religious conservative who is also quite skeptical and analytical about most everything, I can sympathize with her point of view. Except, then I think of certain subjects that vex my inner diplomat, like: incest. It seems to me that from a political and public policy perspective, conservatives should rely on empirical evidence, data, and reasoned analysis to demonstrate not only that a certain policy position is beneficial to the body politic but also that when implemented it will successfully deliver a desired outcome. But what happens, hypothetically speaking, if at some point someone is able to prove empirically that incest has no harmful impact on society, and that the only thing holding people back from this “lifestyle choice” is, well, old-fashioned religious morality – which, if the pro-incest lobby existed, would blast as bigoted. The point is: it’s helpful with some issues to still be able to argue on the simple basis of “right and wrong.” If there’s a strictly rationalist argument against incest, I’d like to know what it is.

So I guess I’m being diplomatic after all. Seems to me that if the skeptical and religious conservatives hold a belief in common – share and benefit from each other’s approach to the issue. Don’t exclude what the other brings to it. Use the strength of each to attract and persuade the largest number of people to what you both agree is the correct position.

Mac Donald wades into deeper, philosophical waters in some parts:

Skeptical conservatives do not look into the abyss when they make ethical choices. Their moral sense is as secure as a believer’s. They do not need God or the Christian Bible to discover the golden rule and see themselves in others…. [and] … A secular value system is of course no guarantee against injustice and brutality, but then neither is Christianity.

Though I find these aspects of the discussion of far greater interest, I’ll hold off commenting on them for now.

Here we go again. Let me just get it off my chest now: I didn't care 10 years ago, and, though it hardly sounds possible, I care 10 times less today.

UPDATE: Just so everyone's clear about where I'm coming from on this (no leading-the-witness questions here), I feel so passionately about NOT caring about this that I don't want anyone else to care about it either. So I'm making a strong request that nobody comment on this post.

UPDATE II: Oh, I see there's already 1 comment. OK. But no more, ya hear? Thanks.

Writing in New English Review John Derbyshire answers, in effect, “not yet” …

but I do think it possible that, if we continue to permit the proliferation of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons—and all the evidence indicates we shall so continue—we could be in a crisis war in a decade or so. And Israel, a nation we regard as a friend, is in a crisis war right now, against an enemy that has sworn to annihilate her.

It’s a question one’s answer to which would appear to make “all the difference,” and I can’t say I agree with Derbyshire – about the “not yet” part, that is. For one thing, I’ve been doing a great deal of “what if” thinking since the London airplanes plot was foiled, and tried to picture in my mind what it would have meant had the plot been successful not only in its execution but also in its complete furtiveness. For example, I wonder if it would have been worse if the terrorists were somehow able to time the disabling of the jets during their descent, so that it was possible for the world to witness TV coverage of plane after plane after plane slamming into the land in sprawling somersaults of fire. Or, whether it would have been even more horrific if, literally out of the blue, 10 airplanes simply disappeared one by one from the radar screen over (-- and because they had splashed into and been swallowed up by) the Atlantic. Blip. Gone. Without a trace and without a clue as to why. And, because the wreckage is spread out for miles and at the bottom of the deep blue, the prospect of collecting clues and gaining understanding is bleak. The ensuing mystery causes cancellation of all transatlantic – perhaps even all domestic and international flights – for the foreseeable future. And the terrorists, apart from causing massive death and destruction, also succeed in bringing a tremendous amount of global freedom and commerce to a screeching halt.

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Posting at The Corner Jonah Goldberg wonders why he's never seen Bushism "described with the simple and direct 'Socially Conservative but Fiscally Liberal' tag," adding that it "seems to capture it perfectly, no?"

ME: Yes. But if we haven't seen it used, it might be because a) it's hard to fathom anyone in contemporary American politics wanting to be so designated, in the way that "social liberal but fiscal conservative" is worn like a badge of honor by many, quite prominently in the blogosphere by Andrew Sullivan among others, and b) it's also kind of clunky.

Both obstacles, however, seem to have been happily overcome in any earlier era with the coinage of "Red Tory."

Here's a definition from the AllExperts encyclopedia:

The notion of Red Toryism was developed by George Grant in the 1950s and 1960s who argued that Canadian conservatism was strongly influenced by ideals such as collectivism and community responsibility.... Red Tories were thus socially conservative supporting traditional institutions like religion and the monarchy but fiscally liberal with a strong belief in the welfare state.

That's the question William Butler Yeats famously used to end his poem "Among School Children." I raise it here because I think it's a theme touched upon in Simon's post about the "9/11 conspiracy mess at UW" and suggested in discussions of Mel Gibson's recent antics. And the theme has to do with whether or to what degree we're able to separate the message from the man, the private v. the public, and the actions outside v. inside the "arena."

One way of asking is this: whether you think Mel's actions reflect anti-Semitism or not, will you view his past work any differently with this episode in mind? Or, sticking with poetry, I can answer this with reference to Ezra Pound, who, although late in life became a rather crazy proponent of fascism, still ranks for me as a great poet, and I still love his poems.

Another, stretchingly related, example: should Pete Rose be admitted to the Hall of Fame based on his superlative accomplishments on the field, or was his transgression off the field of a certain stripe that should justifiably render him anathema to the game?

You get the drift.

So, where do we draw the line? It's a philosophical question I throw out there, ya know, for the heck of it.