We're having a little contest to see who can construct the single best sentence using the following words:

1. defenestration
2. serendipity
3. onomatopoeia
4. discombobulate
5. plethora
6. callipygian
7. juxtapose
8. persnickety
9. kerfuffle
10. flibbertigibbet

These were chosen from Merriam-Webster's list of Merriam-Webster's most popular words for 2004 according to dictionary fans.

Andrew was the first out the chute and gets bonus points for tying his sentence to an actual historical event.

The Commissar's sentence gets bonus points for mentioning the weblogs this started on, and for compactness.

Chicago Report's entry is the most amusing, and sounds like something that could actually happen.

Blog Jones only gets in nine, but it's a fine attempt otherwise.

* Update *

Tim Worstall weighs in with one that may be the funniest yet.

In the comments to an earlier post here, we also had the following entries:

There's More...

The authors of the conservative "Thinks Too Much" weblog propose reviving the Hollywood blacklists in order to excoriate members of the media who say outrageously hateful things about America and its leaders.

This is a bad idea.

Mind you, it's not like the left doesn't have its own blacklists; indeed, many on the left do have lists of people and organizations who repel them. I'm aware of more than one left-wing organization that maintains lists of conservative Christian organizations and leaders they don't like, gun-rights advocates they don't like, and so on. And honestly, if someone just wants to keep a list of people who espouse beliefs they find repugnant, well, that's their right as Americans. Left, right, or center, if you want to keep a list you can.

But conservatives, who tend to revere Reagan, should remember that Ronald Reagan dedicated a large portion of his career to fighting the Hollywood blacklists. He found them repugnant and unAmerican. In his years as head of the Screen Actor's Guild, he spend much of his time fighting against the blacklists---both to get people off of them, and to get the practice ended. He spent as much or more time on that as he did fighting communist infiltration of SAG and the other Hollywood unions.

And yes, by the way, it's more than possible to do both. Indeed, his position as a staunch anti-communist made him particularly credible as an opponent of the blacklists.

Reagan was a dedicated opponent of Communism. He saw firsthand the violence and dishonesty of the Communists who were infiltrating the unions in Hollywood---and despite what many people think, communist infiltration of Hollywood was quite widespread. Windows broken, arms broken, cars set aflame, lives threatened--all of this was practiced by Hollywood communists. Reagan himself had his life threatened, and also had threats to throw acid on his face to end his career. It was a nasty business, and it's too bad that so many people today have come to think of the Hollywood communists as a bunch of starry-eyed idealists. No, they were Stalinists, were often quite brutal thugs, and many of them were definitely engaged in clandestine efforts to take over the unions and insert Stalinist propaganda into the movies.

But Reagan also opposed blacklisting anyone: his view was that hurting someone's career simply because of what he believed was wrong. His objection to the Communists was their use of subtrefuge and their frequent use of violence. People who did not advocate or practice violence, people who were out in the open about what they believed, should be left alone. And Reagan was, in fact, instrumental in ending the blacklists in Hollywood.

I can't support blacklisting people. Making note of whatever vile, hateful, stupid, or inaccurate things, that's fine. The solution to speech that's vile is always the same: more free speech.

We have long known that men are more likely to commit suicide than women, more likely to be murdered than women, that infant mortality is higher in males than females, and that the vast majority of workplace injuries and workplace deaths are suffered by men. And, of course, that men live shorter lives in general.

Now a study published by the American Psychological Society shows that the most dangerous period for being male is in the period from adolescence to early adulthood, where young men die at three times the rate of young women. Indeed, the study's authors conclude, being male is now the single largest demographic risk factor for early mortality in developed countries.

Is there anyting to be done about it? Methinks not much so long as most people neither know nor care about such disparities. But who knows? Maybe it's just supposed to be this way. Males are the expendable sex, right?

As a pro-choice person, one of the things I have consistently noticed is that more of the women in my life are pro-life than men. National surveys I've seen show this to be a fairly consistent pattern; about half of American women consider themselves pro-life and a clear majority favor legal restrictions on the practice. That having long been the case, I often wince when I watch or listen to abortion debates by people who talk about this as a "women's health" or "women's rights" issue. Because if after 30+ years of abortion as a legal "right" you still can't get a majority of women clearly and unequivocally on your side, your argument starts to look a little weak and a little shrill after a while.

The most passionate pro-lifers in my experience are almost always women. They're often women who've had abortions. One thing about that that I can say I have in common with the pro-lifers is that of the women I've known who've had them, very few have said they had no emotional scars from the experience--or didn't manifestly show those scars when they talked about it. Thus I tend to be sympathetic with the view that women should be fully informed of all possible options and all ramifications before making such a decision.

One of the more interesting weblogs to read on this subjects is Annie, Emily, Peony, and Theresa's After Abortion weblog, all run by women who've had abortions and struggled for years with psychic pain over it, and are now involved in work counseling women who've had them who still haven't quite gotten over the pain. They've also recently expanded into helping women struggle with infertility issues.

They are usually very interesting to read. You might want to check out this Emily's recent review of infertility issues. Here she is on men and abortion (a piece I was deeply gratified to read).

You know, even though I am pro-choice (and I am), I know so many women like this that it really makes me angry how often they're portrayed as mindless slobbering fundamentalist jerks trying to oppress people. Civil discussions rather than angry bloviating would seem better to me.

I do still think the Supreme Court is mostly to blame. Without the stupidity of Roe v. Wade, as a nation we would long ago have come to sane compromises on this issue that most people could live with, and discussions like the ones the Emilys of the world want to have would be a lot easier to take.

About this time last year, Michael Lackner and Michael Medved had an interesting white paper on anti-American and anti-Israel attacks in modern comic books. I took some issue with Lackner and Medved's recommendations (and still do), but it was interesting reading and an interesting discussion.

I recently got a note from Lackner telling me that he had published a new piece on Anti-American hate-rhetoric in The Punisher, and suggesting that Dean's World readers might want to comment on it.

I must admit that in reading it I cringed twice. Lackner is so obviously upset at the use of the word "fuck" in a comic book marked for adults he feels the need to point it out a few times; you have to wonder if he's still stuck thinking of comics as kiddie stuff. He's also publishing his piece in Front Page Magazine, which is published by David Horowitz and is sort of like a right-wing version of The Nation.

For the record, I am rarely willing to link articles from such sources as The Nation, Common Dreams, Move On, Front Page Magazine, Drudge Report, Worldnet Daily, Lucianne.com, Free Republic, Democratic Underground, Indymedia, and so on, because I find all of these sources far too extreme, their rhetoric far too bilous. They tend to make my stomach churn.

On the other hand, I think David Horowitz' books Radical Son and Destructive Generation are two of the most important historical works of the last quarter-century. They will undoubtedly be read and argued about by people 100 years hence, and used as primary source material for many historians.

That said, Horowitz and his crew are firebrands who offend a lot of people, and the message too often gets lost in that.

I suppose that's a long-winded way of saying "hmmm." But still, all that aside, Lackner's article is worth a read, as it points out that a strong hate-America streak is still being published by some mainstream publishers i the comics genre.

I would of course not outlaw this, nor forbid my son from reading it. But I would protest it, and talk to my son about it if he were reading. Nor would I buy or read it myself. So from that perspective I'm glad Lackner's out there letting parents know they should be watching what their kids read.

Comic books contain more than sex and violence. They often carry hidden (or not-so-hidden) political agendas.

Ever since a recent spate of discussions in the blogosphere about domestic violence, I have been planning an article on women and violence. It's one of those things that's difficult at times to write about, as it's a subject I've seen way up close and personal in many ways, some of which I'm not at liberty to discuss publicly. (You may think I'm pretty revealing of my life here, and as a rule I am. But you really have no idea how much I don't share, mostly either because I can't or because I don't want to be seen as a whiner.)

I'll probably still write the article, but in the meantime, I think you should read these articles written by a friend of mine about her own experiences in this area. It is truly amazing what people are willing to reveal about themselves on the internet--and it's amazing how often you find folks who don't match up to the stereotypes we all swallow.

I very much hope you will find the time today to read about one woman's very l journey.

The Bogey Man: Preface
The Bogey Man II: The In Crowd
The Bogey Man III: Two down

I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

It's hard for me to say how moved I was by reading the series--and also by being called her dear friend. (Yes, that was me she was referring to. We sometimes disagree, but I gotta tell ya: that chick's got balls.)

* Update * The Bogey Man IV: A Rose By Any Other, the final part of the series, is done.

That's someone I'm proud to call a friend.

1) She was born in Dearborn, Michigan in 1968.

2) She speaks fluent one-way Polish; she understands it as well as a native, but has to go slowly and think carefully to speak it herself. She also speaks Russian, German and French with fair proficiency.

3) She collected Barbie dolls until she was in her late '20s, and only stopped because too many of them were accidentally destroyed by pets and children.

There's More...

Okay. I opened the whole "rape" can of worms yesterday, and I cannot stop myself from making a point about it.

I know women this has happened to. I've known men it's happened to. (Yes, I have, and no, I don't particularly want to tell you about it.)

When I quoted Paglia, I was surprised by how many thoughtful comments it brought up, and unsurprised at some of the (later mollified) rage it brought out.

Possibly the most upsetting thing Paglia said was, "...if you get raped, if you get beat up in a dark alley in a street, it's okay. That was part of the risk of freedom, that's part of what we've demanded as women. Go with it. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go on. We cannot regulate male sexuality." This is the only part I actually disagreed with Professor Paglia on--at least in any strong way. No, that is phrased in far too dismissive a manner. Nevertheless, sometimes the point of saying something crass is because you need to shake people up on a comfortable assumption.

One of the worst things I think our culture has done to rape victims (or, in the hideously stupid PC phrasing, "rape survivors") over the last 20 or so years is to treat the subject of rape as if it is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to any woman ever. Like it's such a sacred thing, like the vulva is the Holiest of Holies (no jokes, please) to such an extent that, somehow, it would be kinder to kill a woman or torture her children than rape her. As if having it happen to you is so severe, so horrible, so unthinkable, that, really, suicide might even be preferable.

Uh, no.

And I urge that, before mouthing off snottily to me about how "as a man" I personally "can't possibly understand," you ask yourself why you presume to know so much about me and my background.

I assert to you that I think I can understand it quite well indeed, thank you. I do not choose to tell you any more than that.

Now, to illustrate this point about "the most personal of all possible violations," I merely wish to tell you of two cases I personally know of.

Person A: I know a woman who, in her youth, had a habit of partying with semi-scurrilous sorts. Not vile gangsters or anything, but as a teen she enjoyed hanging out on the fringe, getting drunk, smoking pot, listening to loud music, and playing around with slightly scruffy people. One day, while all her other friends were passed out, she found herself wildly inebriated, on her hands and knees, while a man she barely knew was having his way with her. The next day, after realizing what had happened to her, she became emotionally distraught, and told several of her friends about what had happened to her.

This was, as it happens, how she lost her virginity. But, in any case, the police were never called.

However, several of her male friends, upon hearing the story, found the miscreant and beat the living shit out of him. After that, she never saw him again.

She has since gone on to be a vibrant, powerful, happy person, the light of many of her friends and relatives' lives, a mother who is deeply beloved by her husband. The memory of those events brings her very little personal pain. A bit perhaps, but quite well-balanced by her pleasure at her memory of the fate of the miscreant who wronged her.

I will not identify this person. If you feel like guessing, I urge you to keep that to yourselves.

Now, by comparison:

Person B: I know another person, a man as it happens. A gay man, by coincidence. He made the mistake of becoming attracted to a man he barely knew, and invited this semi-stranger alone into his home. While partying together, and entirely without warning, this semi-stranger suddenly pulled out a knife and stabbed him several times, calling him a faggot and other horrible names, and left him for dead.

Calling 911, he found himself in an Emergency Room, where his life was saved, although not without a great deal of pain and a lengthy, difficult recovery. The police were of course notified, although the miscreant was never captured and, apparently, got away with it without much of any comeuppance. Cosmic justice somewhere along the line we would like to suppose, but that is all.

Nevertheless, our gay friend has gone on to become active in politics: a proud gun owner, an advocate for self-defense, and active in 2nd-amendment advocacy. He remembers those horrible events of his earlier life with clarity, but remains a vibrant, entertaining person, well-liked by most who know him, with a great sense of humor and an admirable sense of aplomb.

You can read Jeffie's weblog right here, although he's on hiatus for the moment.

Now. I must emphasize that I do not wish to play the "who had it worse" game, to try to score cheap points. This isn't a variation of the old Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen skit. It is meant to make a point on our cultural assumptions, and to make you ask yourself some uncomfortable, but important, questions:

Can you honestly say, deep in your heart, that either Person A or Person B suffered the greater personal violation?

We need to stop treating rape like a religious matter, like a sacrosant event, like the most unimaginable possible violation. We need to look at it for what it is: a brutal, uncivilized, barbaric act, but one that any strong person can recover from, can move on from. Having a penis rudely thrust into an unwelcome orifice is a terrible thing. A terrible thing, but not the most terrible of things. A dishonorable and cowardly violation, one deserving (in my barbaric view) of literal castration as a fitting punishment in many cases. But we need to stop treating it in a puritan, semi-religious fashion, as a soul-destroying monster that can barely be understood.

It can be understood quite well, by anyone of either sex. And dealt with accordingly, like any other violent behavior.

Well that's just what I think. I could be wrong. (To paraphrase Dennis Miller.)

Just in case you missed it, I want to make sure everyone in the South hears this important message.

Last night, on Real Time with Bill Maher, came this:

New rule: Southerners have to at least consider voting for candidates from the North.

North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has a powerful argument in his bid to be the Democratic nominee when he says, "What I give people is a candidate who can win everywhere in America."

Translation: "We Southerners ain't gonna vote for no Yankee! You suckers up North will take our Clintons and Carters, but we just ain't buyin' Kerrys and Deans."

And that's a shame. Not just for Democrats but for democracy itself. And I feel bad for the millions of intelligent people who live in a region still dominated by so much prejudice that anyone who wants to be president better have a twang in his voice and pronounce all four E's in the word "shit."

Sorry, but responding only to people who look and sound like you is small-minded, so if Southerners don't want to have an inferiority complex, I say, "Stop doing things that make reasonable people think you're inferior!"

Like, getting rid of slavery was a good start. But don't quit there: Stop being the place that's always challenging the theory of evolution. What's next, gravity? Is that just a plot by the Jews up North to get people to drop spare change?

Southerners need to let go of the Civil War, beginning with those reenactments. First of all, you're reenacting something you lost. It's one thing to gloat about victory -- when you do it about losing, your front porch is a few couches short of being decorated.

The time has come to move on. The time has come to consider voting for a Yankee. Howard Dean's Vermont is no longer where carpetbaggers come from. Carpet munchers -- yes.

There's no good reason that America, at this late date, still needs to be a house divided. At bottom, we all want the same things: dignity, security -- and someone to slap the shit out of Janet Jackson.

Reprint courtesy of Salon.

The message: If you want people to stop thinking you're stupid, inbred, racist hicks, then you should vote for people who think you're stupid, inbred, racist hicks...like John Kerry. (By the way, did you know that he was in Vietnam?)

Hat Tip: Ara

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?

It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors. ---Lazarus Long

Robert Heinlein, probably my favorite author, penned the above lines. Glib and clever, they seem. Whether he believed them or not I don't know; he put them into the mouth of a fictional character named Lazarus Long, who often said outrageous and occasionally contradictory things.

But I believe that, whatever superficial truth there may be to those words, on the most fundamental levels they are utterly wrong. For, while prostitution may be an inevitability, there is very little in this world that is more sick or awful.

I suppose my Libertarian-minded correspondants will be scandalized for my having said so. Ditto my atheist friends. Yet, as a non-theistic naturalist, I stand by it: there is very little more degrading to the human soul than prostitution. To refer to it as "a profession" demeans humanity even more.

A grammatical note here: a man who solicits the services of a whore is generally referred to as a "john." That's how the whores refer to him, and that's how the cops refer to him. "I arrested two hookers and a john," a cop might say. "I got three johns tonight," a whore might say.

The gender-feminists (or, as Tanya would call them, the "feminists") are, as usual, utterly full of it. Prostitution is not about "exploitation of women." Indeed, in most ways, that is the exact opposite of the truth. Leaving aside the role of the pimp or madam, we should be adult enough to acknowledge a fundamental truth:

If anyone is being exploited in the whore/john relationship, it is the john.

A whore is a predator. She feeds upon her john's loneliness, insecurity, and need. Meanwhile, by paying her, he trivializes her humanity.

I do not condemn women who fall into prostitution. At all. Nor do I hold in contempt men who use their services. In all the years of my life, I have done many things I am shamed by, and I do not consider myself above other human beings. In fact, the whole notion that I am "better" than most other people is rather repulsive to me.

But prostitution is a sick, and sickening, relationship. No matter how you look at it, and no matter what veneer that you may put upon it, it cannot do anything but degrade those who take part in it.

Yes, even for the high-class, highly-paid variants. Or the watered-down versions of it that you find in strip clubs.

It is mostly women who wind up being whores, although certainly the world has its gigolos. They are rarer, but they exist. Indeed, there is a whole stratum of young boys who make their living servicing the sexual needs of wealthy men. But still, ultimately, you are dealing with a profession where one preys upon another person's loneliness. It is not, and never will be, a simple matter of a biological rubbing together of moving parts in exchange for pay.

And what is the life of your average whore? A cluster of venereal diseases that eventually end your life. If you're female, perhaps a half-dozen or more abortions, unless you decide not to have one--in which case your career ends a few months before the baby arrives. Or you raise the child in the most dyfunctional of environments.

In any case, if you are a whore, you prey upon other people's most deeply-felt needs and insecurities--and you do it for money. If you hire a prostitute, you are paying for something you wish you didn't have to pay for at all.

While there may be a tiny percentage of women who are cut out for such a life, I suspect that, in the vast scheme of things, it can only end in misery and regret.

Or am I wrong? If so, tell me how.

In 2000, political conservatives backed George W. Bush, knowing perfectly well--if they were paying attention at all--that he was a moderate centrist, with a few positions to the right, a few to the left, and most of them right down the middle.

Now they're mad at him for governing exactly like that.

Political liberals are even more amusing, for they continually try to portray Bush's fundamental centrism as "hard right wing" extremism. But anyone who actually looks at the record knows that, on all but a very tiny handful of issues, Bush is virtually indistinguishable on a policy level from Bill Clinton. Hell, even on the war issue, not only did Bill Clinton make it the stated policy of the U.S. government that we needed regime change in Iraq, but Clinton was very supportive of the Iraq invasion when Bush was proposing it.

So was Al Gore, by the way.

So when I read things like this John Cole article, or this by One Fine Jay, I merely crack a little smile and laugh.

Bush is a moderate centrist who is actually to the left of his own party on several major issues, guys. He ran his entire 2000 campaign that way, and now you're baffled and angered by it? Did you, you know, even bother to listen to what the man said when he was running for President, or look at any of his campaign literature?

Indeed, here's my prediction for this year's election: Bush will spend a good bit of time trying to outmaneuver Democrats on the left on the issues, forcing them to take more extreme positions than they want to, while Democrats try to outmaneuver Bush on the right in exactly the same way.

That most people will be utterly clueless about this will be amusing to watch. Indeed, I don't know which will be more amusing: watching the left continually try to portray Bush as a "hard right winger" while anyone with a working brain will be able to see that he isn't one, or watching the right bloviate about how "betrayed" they feel by a President who has governed according to every one of the principles and policy proposals he laid out in his 2000 election campaign--indeed, a President who has quite obviously worked hard to keep all his major campaign promises, promises he made when conservatives showed up by the millions to vote for him.

Politics sure is a funny beast. Especially when you step back and take the long view of the parties and candidates.

Occasionally, on this weblog, I express the fact that I hate certain people.

Hate them.

Every time I express this, some friend tells me that hate is a bad emotion, that it's destructive, that it's hurtful. That it does nothing good, and just sickens your soul. They are--usually--mistaken.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace. --Ecclesiastes 3

You think that hate is, all by itself, a bad thing? If so, I would like to ask you a few simple questions:

Can love become perverse and destructive? Can joy ever be inappropriate? Can weeping ever become excessive? Can nurturing reach a point of excess? Think hard on it before you answer those questions.

Without doubt, Hate is a powerful and dangerous emotion. It is a deeply destructive emotion. But so is love. So is despair, and so is elation. Every one of these emotions can be perverted and twisted. Every one of them can come to dominate your life, and every one of them can sicken and twist your soul, if you let them overcome you.

Including love.

That said? In its place, kept under control like any other emotion, I assert that Hate is a healthy emotion. An utterly appropriate emotion, in fact, so long as, like all other emotions, it is kept in its place.

Indeed, I go further: if you cannot hate, then there is something fundamentally wrong with you. If you tell me that you cannot or will not feel hatred, then there are only two possibilities: you are either a liar, or there is something dark and twisted about your soul.

If you cannot hate Mao, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Stalin, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Castro, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Arafat, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Mugabe, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Mengistu, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Amin, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Saddam, there is something wrong with you.

If you cannot hate Kim, there is something wrong with you.

In fact, if you cannot or will not ever feel hate, then I assert that, ultimately, you are perverse. Because hate is an entirely normal, entirely healthy emotion. When, like all other powerful emotions, it is kept in its appropriate time and place.

You don't agree? Then tell me why I am wrong.

Women have always been enormously powerful, throughout human history and especially in Western history. Those who fail to recognize this are guilty of misogyny.

Discuss.

There's another excellent piece on the increasingly religious and pseudoscientific nature of the environmentalist movement in the Telegraph today that you might want to read.

Reading it has reminded me that I really ought to write that piece on why overpopulation fears are utterly unfounded. The last time I wrote on that people I knew went into a frenzy. But it's true, you know. Not only is the Earth not overpopulated, but we could fit the entire current world population within the contiguous 48 states here in America, not be particularly crowded, and still have room for growing plenty of food and for large expanses of wilderness. Yet when you tell that to people, most of them don't believe you, and, in my experience, at least one in ten of them goes practically berzerk. Which tells you something interesting about human nature, doesn't it?

I recently read a weblog by a girl (gasp! yes! a giiiiiirlll!) who declares herself a proud anti-feminist.

Anyway: since she describes herself as a whore, I feel free to conclude that she's a weak, meek, retiring, submissive chick who is just begging to be dominated by a big strong man. Because, after all, if you aren't a "feminist," ultimately you reject the notion that you're actually a person in your own right, and are begging to be dominated and made to submit by a big bad nasty man. Right?

Well? Do you have strategies to help bring me back to sanity? Or are you just going to wait me out?

From what I hear, before feminism, women were jjust weak, pathetic victims who weren't fully human. After all, how does the old bumper stickers go? Oh yeah, and there's this actual quote:

"Feminism is a radical notion that women are people too."

So, let's remind these chicks of their fundamental flaw. If you reject feminism, it must mean you don't think you're a person.

Funny, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother all rejected feminism. Yet, for some odd reason, they were strong, independen, willful women who were utterly in control of their own lives and destinies. I guess it must logically follow that they all viewed themselves as non-persons, right? After all, before Betty Friedanm and NOW, women simply weren't treated as persons .

That's what they tell me, anyway. I could be wrong I suppose.

You know what I like best about living in the early 21st century? That it's becoming possible, more and more often, to have sane discussions about women and men again. The shrieking "feminist" harpies are steadily losing their power to intimidate. They're still around, mind you, but they're steadily shrinking in influence. It sure wasn't like that when I was growing up in the 1980s.

Anyway, back in August, I published a fun conversation with Venomous Kate that made a couple of resentful "feminists" (who later got even more vicious with me) go ballistic, but which most women who read it told me they found both funny and insightful.

I still stand by every word I said in that conversation. Thus I was fascinated when Jerome du Bois (proprietor of the art-blog The Tears of Things) pointed me out to this article in Salon: Backstabbers, by Laura Miller. Which I found myself nodding all the way through.

As I've pointed out when I've written about female bullying before, I think one of the more unhealthy things that the so-called "feminists" brought to our culture is what I think of as "the kneejerk cringe." We aren't supposed to think of men and women as fundamentally different, and even if we do, we are supposed to put it all down to how supposedly oppressed females are. It's a sort of instant-obeisance we're expected to pay any time we question "feminist" dogma.

Well, I don't believe women in this country have ever (that's right, I said ever) been more oppressed than men. That alone is enough to get me treated like a pariah in some circles, but I'm increasingly fine with that. That's how female bullies work anyway: ostracizing, demeaning, and badmouthing someone who dares to question them. But if I have an opinion you don't agree with, and you treat me like garbage instead of asking me why I came to my conclusions? Good. That tells me that you're just a closed-minded, kneejerk reactionary, and that I shouldn't bother wasting my time with you.

What's more interesting to me is to discuss these things with open-minded and decent people. Because I do believe women are fundamentally different from men in many key areas, that this is rooted in biology, and cannot be eliminated. What can be done, however, is to channel it in creative and positive directions. In order to channel it creatively and positively, however, you have to first acknowledge that it's there. Which is why I find articles like Cathy Young's so fascinating. It's nice to see self-described "feminists" questioning their own dogma and openly examining issues like this for once, rather than hiding their heads in the sand or blaming "the patriarchy."

While we're on the subject of "feminists" challenging their own dogma, I'd be remiss in not pointing out this amazing article on domestic violence in the Boston Globe that the redoubtable Kathy Kinsley (proprietor of On The Third Hand) recently pointed out to me. Which dovetails quite remarkably with all the rest of this. You really should read it. It's already caused me to put this book on my wish list.

When it comes to relations between the sexes, it makes me feel good to contemplate that my son will (probably) grow up in a far more tolerant world than the one I grew up in. Now if only I could say that with the same confidence about race issues.

One of the ways in which Christians are routinely smeared by secularists of various stripes is to sneeringly refer to The Crusades as an example of Christian aggression. The assumption is always that Christianity showed its "true face" in the bloody and horrible Crusades, which are often even portrayed as vicious aggression toward otherwise-peaceful Muslims in the Holy Land. This view illustrates two things:

1) The horrible level our nation's education in history has sunk to, and

2) the widespread Christian-bashing bias that began infecting our universities starting in the early to mid-20th Century.

Indeed, the latter problem has gotten so bad, even many devout Christians have internalized such misinformation about the Crusades as if it were axiomatically true. It isn't.

The truth, for anyone who's really studied the historical record, is more like this:

1) The Crusades were not particularly bloody or violent by the standards of warfare in that era. Indeed, they were a good bit less violent and cruel than countless wars of the ancient world.

2) The Crusades were almost entirely defensive on the part of Christians, who faced centuries of onslaught by Muslim conquerors. Conquerors who were often known to force conversion to Islam by the sword.

3) With rare exception, the Crusades almost all ended in victory for Muslims. The defeats for Christianity were often humiliating, and the few victories were almost all short-lived. Indeed, the Crusades were such losing affairs for Christians that near the end they looked like the last desperate gasp of a dying civilization--and a dying faith.

In short, by the standards of their era, the Crusades were not particularly awful, were mostly defensive, and mostly ended in defeat for Christendom. The view of the Crusades as having been a case of bloody minded, greedy, barbaric Christians wantonly slaughtering peaceful Muslims and Jews is almost entirely a creature of the popular imagination. It is not supported by the vast majority of scholars who've actually studied the Crusades.

Wandering over to Donald Sensing's site, I found a reference to a terrific article that covers much of this ground in more detail. Sensing himself has some further info on the Crusades that you might want to read afterward. Still more interesting info, that gets into even greater nitty-gritty, can be found here.

All good reading for a Sunday, I'd say.

Theism means "there is a God." Atheism means "there is no God." Agnosticism means "there is no way to know God." Maltheism means "there is a God, but he is fundamentally evil."

Michael Williams explains why I long ago rejected evangelical, Bible-literalist Christianity as a maltheistic movement. He does so clearly and succinctly.

It was when I fully grasped and accepted Michael's fundamental point about Christianity and the Bible that I finally decided to reject the Bible as the inerrant, fundamental, final, and unquestionable Word Of God. That was also when I decided that evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity was, itself, rather repulsive--even if I knew, loved, and respected many fundamentalist evangelical Christians. Because, whatever may be said of the positive aspects of their epistemology, their view ultimately comes down to a view that paints God is fundamentally, breathtakingly evil. Quite honestly, if I truly believed what these folks believed, I would hate God with an unrelenting passion.

Seriously, how could I not? He makes Stalin, Mao, and Hitler look like Tinkerbell.

Thanks for reminding me why I'm not a Christian, Mike. Even though I love and respect you anyway. ;-)

Mrs. du Toit has an excellent analysis of the fundamental problem with our current Social Security system that, really, more people should read. Her analysis of how the system is set up, and why it's neither fair nor sustainable in the long term, is spot on.

Her recommendation on how to fix it is, in my view, both unnecessary and unattainable politically: simply cut off benefits to everyone born after a certain year, and leave everyone younger than that on their own. While such choices may be appealing to the hard-core Randites and uber-conservatives out there, such a prescription is a recipe for failure politically and further entrenchment of an already-flawed system.

However, it is absolutely the truth that Social Security, as it is now structured, robs from our children and grandchildren. Those of you currently collecting Social Security are taking money straight out of your children and grandchildren's pockets. Now, perhaps I don't mind helping to support my parents and grandparents, but I for one want something better for my children and grandchildren. My idea of "gracefully growing old" is not "taking money from my children but pretending I'm not."

The truth is that when Franklin Roosevelt first proposed the Social Security system, he proposed that it should be moved to a privatized, equity-based system within a decade. Subsequent Presidents and Congresses failed to enact that part of his vision. Instead, they continued the stopgap system that FDR envisioned, and as a result, a "temporary" system developed into the deplorable Ponzi scheme that Connie describes.

The real solution is to move the system to private accounts. This has numerous social and political benefits, not the least of which being that even the youngest and poorest Americans who manage to get even part-time jobs will have an actual investment in our economic system, something they own. If you believe in free enterprise, and if you believe in helping the disadvantaged, there is no more obviously great idea than moving the Social Security system to something that individuals own and control, rather than some vague promise the government makes you.

Fortunately, a majority of Americans now support the idea of privatization. Moving toward such private accounts is going to be long and difficult and, yes, expensive. But it's the right thing to do. Not only does it move us toward FDR's actual vision of what Social Security was always meant to be, but it finally moves us toward taking this horrible burden off the shoulders of our grandchildren.

It's also a compromise that I think that people from all over the political spectrum could live with, and even get enthusiastically behind. From a left-wing pespective, from a right-wing perspective, and from a centrist's perspective, the benefits of such a moderate move are powerful. I really wish more people would get actively behind such an initiative. From both political parties.

Daryl Van Horne: Do you think God knew what He was doing when He created Woman? Huh?

No shit! Because I really wanna know!

Or do you think it was another one of His "minor mistakes?" Like tidal waves, earthquakes? Floods?

You think women aren't like that? S'matter? You don't think God makes mistakes? Of course He does. We all make mistakes. Of course, when we make mistakes they call it "evil." When God makes mistakes, they call it "nature!"

So whaddya think? Women: A mistake? Or did he do it to us ON PURPOSE!?!?

(In case you missed it, this is the "Why women are annoying" thread I promised last week. All are welcome to participate.)

One of the more interesting articles Donald Sensing ever wrote was his "Technology Beyond Belief" piece back in May of this year. You should read the whole thing, but I want to focus on this part for the moment:

Compared to almost all the rest of the world’s militaries, ours is remarkably informal. Rank is important, make no mistake, but there is a much higher level of collegiality among officers and NCOs than civilians imagine. Moreover, the US military is near-ruthlessly results oriented and so is much quicker to jettison unworkable procedures or methods than others. Commanders are generally thirsty for their subordinates to discern better ways of getting things done, and reward initiative. American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are taught to worry first about results - getting the job done - and not to adhere slavishly to the letter of an operational plan. Hence, sergeants will take over platoons if need be, lieutenants will take over companies, and they’ll do it without anyone telling them to.

The American military is the best educated in the world, and this reinforces the ability of differing ranks to work together as co-professionals rather than superior-inferior. It’s not so easy for a colonel to feel terribly snooty over a platoon sergeant when both certainly have BA degrees and the odds are not bad that both will have MA degrees as well. Compound this fact with the fact that since the 1970s the professional education, inside the services, of the noncommissioned ranks has been dramatically improved with centralized, better schools so that their education progression rivals that of officers. Always the NCO corps has been America’s ace in the hole, and today’s NCOs are the best in history. The number of other nations whose NCOs compare is very, very small - only Britain, Israel and Germany come to my mind, maybe Canada, too.

All this serves to “flatten” how America’s military communicates, plans, resources and conducts all it programs and operations. The military is much more horizontally than vertically integrated.

For those of you who don't know, an "NCO" is basically a sargeant, which is a rank most any enlisted man can aspire to.

I remember how, in my youth in the '80s, I occasionally toyed with the idea of joining the military. Since I'd left home at the age of 15, and had little support system to fall back on--even lived on welfare for a while--the military looked attractive at times, even though I was very much a bleeding heard soft-shelled socialist and Reagan-hating Democrat. But I've always been a stubborn, cranky, speak-my-mind type, and don't take well to being talked down to. I figured the military would hate someone like me and I'd hate them. If I'd been hearing things like this back then, I probably would have joined up.

Recently, Juliette made some similar comments about the modern American military, as have some other friends of mine who've been in the military in the last 10-15 years.

It got me to thinking: the entire concept of organizing military forces along the lines of officers vs. enlisted is a tradition that goes back thousands of years. It goes that far back because it's been functional for that long. But it came about because in centuries past, the vast majority of people were illiterate or only rudimentarily educated. Only a small percentage of the population was educated, and they were the ones who needed to be officers.

Given how advanced the modern American military is, and given the truth that these days a non-com may actually have more education and experience than people commanding him, I do find myself wondering: does the modern American military even need to keep the strict distinction between noncoms and commissioned officers anymore?

Mind you, I'm not suggesting--at all--eliminating rank, or changing everything immediately. I'm not a moron. I just find myself wondering why there's still a need for two separate hierarchies and career paths, one for officers and a separate one for enlisted.

I'm curious if any current or former military people have any thoughts on that question.

IreneQ has a good piece that people who fear and resent Christians should read.

It is very fashionable for people to point to everything bad ever done in the name of Christianity in the last 2000 years, without ever mentioning the positive things it's brought to the world. Worst, sometimes they'll dismiss the positive out-of-hand as fluff or propaganda.

Yet other religions all have their own negative side, except for those young enough not to have found one yet. Atheism may be trendy, and may even be correct, but if the history of the last 100 years is any guide, atheists and rigid secularists murdered and oppressed more people than any of the world's religions over the last 100 years.

Meanwhile, while we worry about the oppressed peoples around the world, how is it that we miss the fact that tens of millions of Christians have been slaughtered, and still more imprisoned, in the last several decades. All simply for practicing their faith?

Today is Sunday, and not a bad day to contemplate such things.

I've been waiting almost two years for someone to give me a non-hyperventilating description of what's so awful about the PATRIOT Act, which avoids "this could happen if we aren't careful" rhetoric, snide remarks implying that John Ashcroft is secretly a racist misogynist fag-basher who fantasizes about concentration camps, or pushing up examples of a dozen or two people who got hassled by the INS as proof that we're collapsing into a police state. I won't even go into the silliness about PATRIOT ACT II, which half the bloggers I know are terrified of, but not one of which has been able to tell me what's in it exactly or when it's scheduled to come up for a vote, but are happy to provide me with badly-xeroxed digitized photos of a partial draft of proposed legislation that may or may not actually be real or contain anything that might actually be in such hypothetical legislation.

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So. Last Friday I asked women to tell us what they liked about men. I found the overwhelming majority of the comments from women to be very positive, and highly enjoyable to read. Also, be sure to check the trackbacks.

Now I open up the discussion for the other set. Men, tell us what you like about women. Serious answers only are allowed. No bashing, no snarkiness, no bullshit. The question is simple: what do you like about women?

Yes, gay men may answer.

I'm already formulating my response, but I'm looking forward to hearing other men's responses. Note: I strongly discourage females from responding to this thread. A couple of men responded to the women's thread, which I wasn't entirely happy about, but it was kept to a minimum. I expect female responses to this to be similarly restrained--I want to hear men's voices.

I obviously hit a hot button with that "Question for Women" thread. Over 30 comments and 10 trackbacks, all on a Friday night, which is normally a time of very low traffic around here. I know a few of you were uncomfortable with generalizing, but it's pretty clear to me that most women do think men are psychologically different, and find much to enjoy in that difference. I must say that I have found that heartening, because I'll let you femmes in on a little secret: much of the time, we men think you really don't like us much.

Then, I got into a fascinating discussion with Venomous Kate who is, despite her nom-de-plume, actually one fo the sweetest, kindest, and most generous people I've ever run across online. She's also smart as a whip.

We started talking about the "What Women Like About Men" question, and then swerved into a conversation about women. Here's a lightly-edited transcript:

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Going into the weekend, I would like to ask this question:

What do you like about men?

I'm not even kidding. I seriously want to hear the answer. Even if you're a lesbian. I want to know what you like about those of us who were born with testicles.

Serious answers only are allowed. No bashing, no snarkiness, no bullshit. The question is simple: what do you like about men?

I look forward to reading your responses.

So far as authentic American conservatism is concerned: strictly speaking, there is no such thing.

Discuss.

Some time ago, I wrote an article called Kicking the Old Man Around, in defense of Robert Byrd. Alas, I do not think that people will stop picking on Byrd for his 60-years-ago KKK membership until the political Left in general stops acting as if the Republicans are the source of most racism in America. Which probably won't happen any time soon, although it would be nice to see.

If I might make a suggestion to my old party (I am still a registered member), Democrats could start by ceasing to spit on the grave of a 100 year old man who ended his segregationist fight almost 40 years ago: Strom Thurmond.

Jeff Quinton has put together a lot of articles about the life and death of Thurmond, and the increasingly hideous grave-dancing over the last couple of weeks in the wake of Thurmond's demise. I suggest you start here and then perhaps read this and this.

Then I will repeat my plea: isn't it, seriously, just about time we give up on these old hatreds? With malice toward none and with charity toward all?

I won't hold my breath. But I'd like to see it. I really would.

(I'll give Jeff one tip though: public delinkings are bound to get you talked about and generally don't accomplish much, buddy. Michele's okay, she really is. You two should kiss and make up.)

When two males of the species are fond of each other, they insult and mock each other. The more rude and offensive their insults are, the closer their friendship is likely to be.

When two females of the species insult each other, they're pretty close to maiming if not killing.

Anyone who thinks I'm kidding is not very observant.

In issuing his (quite thoughtful and reasonable) dissent on yesterday's ruling on sodomy laws, it appears that Antonin Scalia was Dowdified. He was quoted several places as saying "I have nothing against homosexuals," which makes it sound like he was being defensive. But what he actually said was, "Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means."

In other words, he was taking the quite reasonable position that this was not a Constitutional matter, and should be dealt with democratically. Now, why is it that I suspect he will continue to be pilloried as a horrible backward mean-spirited jerk, and that few corrections and retractions will be issued?

(Source: Best of the Web.)

Jake is 5. He's just finishing up his first year of Kindergarten. He had a pretty rough winter, with first his dad then his mom in the hospital. His mom's recovery was particularly awful, with two midnight rushes to the hospital. But he's a champ.

So anyway, today he comes up to me before I take him to school. He's drawn a can of his mother's favorite beverage. He's drawn the word "Coke" on it. The "C" looks a little like an "E" but it's perfectly legible.

Wait. We don't have any cans of this in the house at the moment. He's doing it from memory, right?

Wait wait, here comes the good part.

He remembers that his mom usually drinks DIET coke. So he draws another can, from memory. Then he shows it to me and asks if he's spelled it right. Here's what the can said:

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First, I want to thank those of you who took part in our recent Ebonics discussion. Yes, I sat there bloviating and saying that most of you were wrong. I even got a little huffy about it, which I shouldn't have. But all of you who participated were well-spoken and thoughtful and refused to descend to the juvenile. You have no idea how proud I am to be able to host such discussions, and I thank all of you for that. I've put the thread in our Best Discussions archive as a result.

Having said all that, I'd like to plug a book, and bloviate some more:

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Have I ever mentioned that I honestly believe that Ebonics really is a language and that we made a huge mistake not to teach about it in our nation's inner-city schools?

Because I really do think that.

Before you tell me I'm wrong, might I mention that most people who tell me I'm wrong have never actually read up on the issue?

We've had quite a few comments and trackbacks so far on our only-women-allowed discussion of women in combat.

My count of the opinions rendered by female readers so far:

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Reader Gene Thug recently submitted a fascinating site. Run by Rudolph J. Rummel, Ph.D., is is a treasure trove of information on the relationship between democracy, dictatorship, famine, war, and peace. It has copious amounts of information--you could spend literally hours in there.

Some of you, maybe most of you, will start to read it and think that it's ideological twaddle. Look more deeply, and longer. The time invested will be worth it.

Quote:

...In "Global Frequency," Wildstorm Productions portrays the U.S. military in the most vicious terms and throws in gratuitous Israel-bashing for good measure. The U.S. Air Force is shown mutilating its soldiers into bionic killing machines. A female Global Frequency agent, with old battle scars, speaks to the bionic monster-soldier. "Let me help you. We're here because we know what it's like to be abused by commanding officers and forced to do the wrong thing. I'm from Israel, for God's sake. None of us ever meant to be like this. Let us fix this." The monster-soldier replies, "They took my genitals away. Can you make that better? There's a wire in my brain that simulates sexual pleasure when I kill people. That's all I have now." ---As quoted in "The Betrayal of Captain America"

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I post the following with some trepidation. I wasn't planning to say anything about it, but some of the comments on the Armenian Genocide article have got me thinking.

To be clear, those comments came from multiple perspectives. Most--most--of the comments were thoughtful, even when inflammatory. In fact, I've never been prouder of Dean's World, because the level of commentary, even when heated, was as well reasoned and civl as