Nothing To Cheer About

CNN has a video story up about high school cheerleaders who were kicked off the team, after it was revealed they had texted nude pictures of themselves to their boyfriends. Everyone CNN talked to was in 100% righteous fury mode, absolutely convinced the school did the right thing, lamenting how today's girls are sluts, and slamming the parents for trying to get their daughter's reinstated.

Can I try and offer a dissenting opinion here?* If you watch the piece, there seem to be two conflicting narratives being forwarded about the girls. The first is that they are victims of over-sexed boyfriends who "pressured" them into sending the photos. The second is that the girls are trashy whores, presumably because they sent the pictures even though they weren't so "pressured".

Not only are these claims inconsistent with each other, neither warrants the response given. If the young women are really victims here, then I'm confused why we should be punishing them, rather than turning our attention to the putative victimizers. And if there was no pressure, but this was totally voluntary and consensual activity between girlfriend and boyfriend, well, guess what? Having a sexualized relationship does not make one a slut. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that the school system should be punishing private, consensual sexual activity between students off of school property. I also have trouble believing that we'd come down this hard if it was known that the cheerleaders were having sex with their boyfriends, even though that is theoretically "worse" than exchanging nude photos with them. And I categorically refuse to buy into this awful social fiction whereby any sort of teenage sexual activity is met with apocalyptic sermonizing on the evils of the younger generation.

The only vaguely compelling argument I've heard is that the atmosphere of cheerleading caused the girls to view themselves as "performers", and assign their own value solely in terms of the reaction they can elicit from their "performance". The pictures are supposedly a product of this mentality, and thus they are being removed from the team, not as a punitive measure, but because it is leading to a damaging conceptualization of self-worth.

I think that's at least a little better, in that it doesn't berate the women and at least nominally ties the school's action to a legitimate educational purpose. But my feeling is that it is both insufficient and (more importantly) pre-textual. Insufficient, in that I don't think there is enough evidence to show the causal between cheering and nude photos (and there are many far simpler causal chains that could explain why a young woman might reveal her naked body to her boyfriend -- starting with "partner pressure" and ending with "we're in a relationship, part of which involves sexual expression!"). Pre-textual, in that the heaviest theme extant here is a feeling of moral superiority combined with heavy doses of slut-shaming. If we really were looking after the well-being of these young women, we wouldn't be so insistently screaming "WHORE!"

There are many things that can go wrong with teenage sexual exploration. And I'll concede that the fungibility of digital photos raises special concerns, given that the women may not have been aware of the risk that these pictures would get out into the public arena. But the mere fact that teenagers are engaging in sexual activity, absent anything else, is not something to get the vapors over. Aside from how hypocritical it is of, well, virtually all of us, if there is one thing this case is demonstrating, it's that the guardians of sexual morality enforce their code virtually exclusively through demeaning young women. And that will probably be more damaging than anything else.

* A caveat: I vaguely recall reading a similar story to this, which also alleged these girls were basically school terrors, openly flouting the authority of the teachers and administration, considering themselves above all rules and restraints due to their status. If this is that case, then obviously none of the above applies. I'm operating off the assumption that the nude pictures are the sole reason for punishing these young women.

Selling Votes

Matt Yglesias presses for DC statehood -- even going so far to demarcate the borders of a new "federal" district which would have the important governmental buildings but no residents (aside from the President himself). The Debatable Land (my blog had the initials longer!), noting that Republicans would never acquiesce to the basic democratic right of enfranchisement if it will lead to more Democrats, offers an alternative: exempting DC entirely from federal income taxes.

It may have some practical benefits, but check me off under the box that says voting rights can't be bought. No deal.

Via Andrew Sullivan, who says that under the latter proposal, DC could become "Hong Kong on the Potomac". I never realized Andrew was such a fan of China's model of governance.

Update: Some folks are really more excited about alternatives to DC statehood, namely, retrocession to Maryland or (worse yet) ceding the territory to Virginia, than is warranted. The retrocession proposal at least makes some sense -- DC was originally carved out of territory belonging to Maryland (and Virginia, but the latter already took its territory back). The Virginia proposal, by contrast, appears solely motivated by the desire to solidify VA as a "blue state" for the foreseeable future. In other words, it's nakedly partisan.

I don't think these folks get it. DC deserves representation in Congress because it has a right to democratic participation. Enhancing the political prospects of the Democratic Party has literally nothing to do with it, and is not a legitimate consideration. Now, as it happens, DC statehood would be very good for Democrats. That's fortunate for them, just as the ultimate borders of Wyoming have been a boon for Republicans. Since in neither case were the borders drawn with an eye towards partisan political advantage, the advantages that accrued are morally neutral.

But it would be an entirely different thing to deliberately redraw the boundaries of a political unit for such an advantage. It's bad enough in Congressional gerrymandering, and I'd like to keep the dragon in its cage, such as it is. How badly do we want to open the door to Texas Tots type thinking? At least the retrocession to Maryland can plausibly claim to be flowing from neutral principles (it helps that the partisan boon for Democrats would be minimal -- though not non-existent -- in that case). The Virginia plan has literally nothing going for it other than partisan considerations.

There's another consideration at work here, that's being nearly entirely ignored: the will of DC voters. Has anyone bothered to ask if they want to be ceded to another political unit? If it became a state, DC would become the only majority-Black state in the nation. Needless to say, shifting it to either Virginia or Maryland would eliminate that distinction. I think DC voters should be in charge of their own destiny, and just as their democratic rights shouldn't be held hostage to economic advantage, neither should they be made pawns of Democratic Party political strategy.

The Deepest Element

I finished the last set of readings for my "Elements of the Law" course today. The last excerpt was from Hobbes, which I liked. It's such a delightfully despondent note to end the class on.

UPDATE: Aw, man. Professor Strauss said he ended with Hobbes as an example of what type of argument we need to reject as lawyers. Lame, lame, lame!

It's Not What It Seems

I may have left Facebook's group "I support Israel's right to exist" solely because it listed as its home web page the risible Little Green Footballs, but it still feels odd. I hope it doesn't show up on my feed.

OPIRG Snubs Hillel

Many universities across North America have branches of "PIRG" (Public Interest Research Group) -- college based progressive grassroots organization. My girlfriend, for example, did a lot of work for Carleton's chapter of MPIRG (Minnesota-PIRG). They often team up with other campus-based organizations on various projects related to human rights and social justice.

At the University of Ottawa, the local Hillel (Jewish students group) thought it had just such an event: a speaker from the African Jewish community coming to talk about sustainable development projects and interfaith schooling for Jewish, Muslim, and Christian children. But when it asked OPIRG for funds, it received a shocking rebuke:

Hillel organizers didn't get a response to their request before the event, but later received an e-mail from the board of directors at the research group, saying it had researched Hillel and decided that though the event "seems very interesting," the board of directors had decided not to endorse or promote it.

"This decision was made because your organization (Hillel) and its relationship to apartheid Israel," said the e-mail. "Zionist Ideology does not fit within OPIRG's mandate of human right's (sic), social justice."

Pressed by the Ottawa Citizen, the organization refused to even identify who made the decision, but affirmed that "Our position is outlined in that e-mail you have." Given the attenuated relationship Hillel has to Israeli policies (it does generically support "Zionism" as the Jewish right of self-determination -- a far cry from any reasonable definition of apartheid), I'd say that there is a name for OPIRG's position: anti-Semitism.

Via The Z-Word. And I should note that MPIRG is entirely independent from the broader PIRG structure.

Birth Wrong?

I was all prepared to be worked up into a righteous fury by this article, alleging that Birthright Israel has been essentially highjacked by a big-spending right-wing donor. Then I read it and, well, there's nothing there.

Now, Sheldon Adelson was not my favorite person to start with, and his apparent support for Bibi Netanyahu certainly doesn't help matters. But absent some (any!) proof that Adelson is subjecting Jews on Birthright to "hours of propaganda" in favor of hawkish, anti-Palestinian policies, I don't think there are any grounds to protest his donation. And in the entire article, not a whit of such evidence is provided, or even seriously alleged. All we get is vague concerns about the power of "mega-donors" to bend charitable organizations to their will. Which may be something to worry about, but which so far is not happening on Birthright (so far as has been presented).

Modesty Patrols Under Attack

The Israeli government is finally responding to the terrorist actions of Haredi "modesty patrols" -- basically, ultra-orthodox Judaism's answer to the Taliban. Women have been assaulted in their homes, had acid thrown upon them, and faced constant threats and intimidation by (generally young) men claiming to be enforcing the strictures of their faith. There have also been violence directed at stores said to be selling irreligious items (in this case, media players with small screens which could be used to discretely watch adult movies).

The Orthodox organizations which organize the patrols do not explicitly endorse the violence, but do not condemn it either.

[Rabbi Shmuel] Pappenheim said the committee follows very legitimate and acceptable methods but is also willing to let street justice step in if its efforts are unsuccessful.

He says the committee does not approve of violence, yet it also doesn't necessarily condemn it.

"They are not sorry that this individual brought this upon himself, that he ignited his environs against him and caused himself to be beaten," Pappenheim said. "They say, 'You thought you were smart enough on your own and didn't want to understand us, so you got what was coming to you.'"

These people represent a massive threat to Israel's liberal democratic structure. It's well past time the Israeli government deal with the extremists running rampant throughout their society.

Via AAB's link farm.

Return of the Old Guard

Sexism on the rise in Italy. Unfortunate. But women's groups are hopeful that this generation of students -- who are majority female for the first time in Italian history -- will push back.

Is Iced Tea Tea?

There is a lot to dislike about this post critiquing those who would detach "oral sex" from "sex". It's not even the conclusion that grates, so much as the argumentative process that gets us there. Given that the whole thing is a product of the loose way in which we use the word "sex", I feel like we're dealing with a tempest in a teacup -- but the fury that the author seems to feel that this might even be an issue is bothersome to me.

So, does oral sex qualify as sex?

I had to chuckle when I first read the question because, for me, if it has sex as part of it's name, then yes, oral sex is sex. It's like asking "is the hot tea, tea?"

Well, no. That's not the way language works. If I invite you in for a "cup of tea", you'll be rather surprised if I pour a small dollop of Lipton's iced. "Tea" means different things in different contexts, and while we would admit iced tea to be a "type of tea", it would not be what we would consider to be "tea" given the very particular confines of the question. (Wittgenstein uses a better example: "teach the children a game" being taken to include blackjack. It's gaming! Right in the name!)

And so it is with sex. I would simultaneously say the oral sex is a form of sex, and not feel strange saying "I have only had sex with [X] number of people", where X includes only those I've had intercourse with (but not just oral sex). That's because, like with tea, certain types of questions imply a sort of shorthand that is understand by all. We can participate in that shorthand without actually excluding the other elements of the object. And insofar as we understand intercourse as a fundamentally different type of sexual expression compared to oral sex, this sort of understood distinction makes sense.

The author also claims that sex-as-intercourse is "heterocentric and phallocentric". The former is a stronger claim. To the latter: intercourse does not have to operate within rhetorical confines that cast men as active and women as passive. We can use words like "penetrate" or "pierce", sure, but we can also talk of "consume", "devour", or "envelope". Or (horrors upon horrors) we can use both. I think it's a dangerous game when we ossify heterosexual sex as inherently male-dominated, rather than seeing that domination as a product of particular patriarchal assumptions that can be contested.

As to the heteronormativity, I think this goes back to my point about meaning and context. If I ask a gay or lesbian friend (presumably after a few drinks) "how many people have you had sex with", we both understand that here the context is not restricted to PIV intercourse.

Humans are flexible creatures. We can handle this sort of ambiguity.

MacKinnon Appointed to Advisory Post at the ICC

Just a quick congratulations to feminist pioneer Catherine MacKinnon, who has been appointed as a special gender adviser to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. MacKinnon, who recently has won some major legal victories securing the rights of women in the context of war crimes, will make an excellent addition to the body as it seeks to enforce international human rights norms.

Get Down Again!

Adam Serwer comments on the machismo response tragedies like Mumbai elicit from some conservatives. Here's John Hinderaker:

I wondered earlier today how a mere ten terrorists could bring a city of 19 million to a standstill. Here in the U.S., I don't think it would happen. I think we have armed security guards who know how to use their weapons, supplemented by an unknown number of private citizens who are armed and capable of returning fire. The Indian experience shows it is vitally important that this continue to be the case. This is a matter of culture as much as, or more than, a matter of laws.

Serwer responds:

This is a really strange and immature coping mechanism that manifests on the right in times of high profile tragedy. Rather than contemplate being a victim of a terrorist attack, the subject imagines him or herself as the star of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. I'd say it's simple racism, but it really is fear masquerading as bravado, a cultural chauvanism that directs itself at other Americans as readily as it does at foreigners. It is the "short skirt" theory of violence. If it happened, you must have been asking for it.

Look, I admit to doing this too. I have my own little fantasies of disarming the baddie with a well placed strike to the wrist, downing him with a left hook to the liver, then grabbing the now-abandoned gun to give my compatriots time to escape and seek aid (I suppose it's my wussy liberalism that prevents me from systematically gunning down the remaining perps with my shirt torn masculinely asunder). The difference is that I don't explode these adolescent dreams into a full-fledged national security policy.

Anyway, as Serwer notes we saw this same thing after Virginia Tech (although Hokies apparently aren't "real Americans" to Hinderaker, presumably because they're attending college). I'd also like to add that a) your average security guard is neither trained nor equipped to counter highly trained suicidal terrorists bent on destruction and carrying automatic weapons and grenades, and b) a firefight breaking out between, say, the terrorists and hotel guests, will not only likely turn out badly for the guests, but will make rescue operations an absolute nightmare for the police.

Via Ezra Klein.

And You'd Prefer....

Douglas Kmiec, the pro-life Catholic stalwart who sent shockwaves through the conservative Catholic community due to his support of Barack Obama for President, is being floated by some for the ambassadorship to the Vatican.

Stephen Bainbridge and Feddie are not happy, calling an "insult". Which is odd, because my first reaction would have been "gesture of good faith". Professor Bainbridge draws an analogy to the appointment of Norman Finkelstein as ambassador to Israel. But the actual proper analogy would be President Finkelstein (shudder) appointing his inexplicable supporter, Richard Rubenstein to the post. As unhappy as I'd be with the election of President Finkelstein, I can't think of anybody I'd rather he appoint as ambassador than Rubenstein.

The Vatican ambassadorship is typically given to a prominent Catholic supporter of the President. Kmiec, however, is apparently disqualified because he is a "traitor" to the pro-life movement through his support of Obama. It's not that I don't understand why these folks were upset by Obama's move. I just fail to see what would be a preferable alternative. A non-Catholic? An avowedly pro-choice Catholic? What is the game plan here?

UPDATE: Henry Farrell chimes in with more.

Killing Americans

Speaking of things that kill Americans, perhaps Justice Scalia should read this piece by an American military interrogator about the fruits of American torture (H/T):

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

I'd say duh, but that would be too kind to the conservative enablers of this immoral and ultimately lethal regime.

Indeed, in the author's experience, torture isn't just dangerous, it's unnecessary:

Amid the chaos, four other Air Force criminal investigators and I joined an elite team of interrogators attempting to locate Zarqawi. What I soon discovered about our methods astonished me. The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules -- and often break them. I don't have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse.

I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they're listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of "ruses and trickery"). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.

Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq. Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money. I pointed this out to Gen. George Casey, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, when he visited my prison in the summer of 2006. He did not respond.

Perhaps he should have. It turns out that my team was right to think that many disgruntled Sunnis could be peeled away from Zarqawi. A year later, Gen. David Petraeus helped boost the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces, cutting violence in the country dramatically.

Our new interrogation methods led to one of the war's biggest breakthroughs: We convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader's location. On June 8, 2006, U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders.

But Zarqawi's death wasn't enough to convince the joint Special Operations task force for which I worked to change its attitude toward interrogations. The old methods continued. I came home from Iraq feeling as if my mission was far from accomplished. Soon after my return, the public learned that another part of our government, the CIA, had repeatedly used waterboarding to try to get information out of detainees.

I know the counter-argument well -- that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that's not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate."

Once again, folks could have figured this out from World War II.

The author (writing under a pseudonym for security purposes) is a 14-year military veteran with a background in special forces and counterintelligence. He'll freely tell you that torture is wrong. But it also is unnecessary, and gets Americans killed. Every day we allow this blot upon our constitution to continue, we dishonor his service.

Duh! Redcoats!

There are several BYU grads in my 1L class at the University of Chicago. All are very smart, qualified, intelligent people. I have to remember that upon reading statements like this:

David Hunsaker and his sister, Katie Hunsaker, traveled with the Brigham Young University Campus Republicans from Provo to help get out the vote. The group arrived in Clark County on Friday.

"We can't believe that Americans can be so blind as to chose socialism when that's what our founding fathers fought against," Katie Hunsaker said after Obama's victory was announced.

Umm....better take another look in your history book, Katie.

Via UCL.

Clearing the Pile

Stuff has been accumulating since Thanksgiving. Time to dump it on you.

The myth that Blacks were responsible for the passage of Prop. 8 has been debunked. But the need to engage that community remains as strong as ever. My friend Lauren sent me an interesting article trying to break down why Blacks (and specifically, Black women) voted overwhelmingly against gay marriage.

The breadth and scope of the Mumbai terrorist attacks made it feel churlish to focus on the specific attack on Jews. But as this Z-Word comment points out, the decision to devote resources towards Chabad House was actually remarkably inefficient for the terrorists. In other words, they went out of their way to kill Jews. Particularly given PG's explication of patterns of Indian terrorism (see comments), this is disturbing.

Echidne has the story of a woman, convicted of running errands for her cousin's cocaine ring, who was originally sentenced to four life terms. It got reduced to 12 years, but the government appealed and bumped it back up to 27 years. This is for a first time non-violent offender, mind you. As Echidne says, there are first degree murderers who get out faster than that.

Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone argues that the passage of Prop. 8 implicates Establishment Clause values, because at root it "enact[s] into law a particular religious belief." Rick Garnett dissents, and I think he has the better of the argument.

Following up on my previous posts, The Gaucho Politico sent me another link on the obstacles former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is facing to become RNC chief.

Saudi Girls love to rock. Or at least four of them do.

Should We Stay or Should We Go?

The Forward has a good article up on the tough decision President Obama has to make regarding the UN Anti-Racism Conference, Durban II. The last time around, Durban devolved into an orgy of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate, prompting a departure of Israel and the United States (as well as several Jewish NGOs who were being excluded -- solely on basis of religion/ethnicity -- from participation). Israel has already announced it won't attend the current version, whose draft statement currently is accusing them of "genocide". But the United States may wish to attend anyway in hope of providing countervailing pressure and stemming the anti-Semitic excesses.

It's tough for me to feel optimistic that a committee chaired by Libya is really going to accomplish all that much productive on issues of racism, regardless of what kind of pressure the United States provides. At the very least, it looks like we'll be playing defense, merely trying to mitigate some of the worst excesses rather than actually achieve a fair and balanced resolution. But at the same time, we can't just ignore these groups forever. At some point, the western community is going to have to dive headlong into this maelstrom and get the international community on track. And, not to take another swig of the Kool-Aid, but the time to strike might be while Obama's prestige is highest in the developing world.

It's a tough call, but I'm still leaning against participation. It's not that I don't think that, in the abstract, these sorts of conferences aren't important. It's just that I'm not convinced that, right now, the forces of good have the firepower to get a good, rather than perhaps palatable, resolution on the table. Without that, it strikes me as a waste of our time and prestige, and demeaning to boot. Countries that want spend the weekend ranting about the Zionist Juggernaut can do so on their own time.

(Via Antoine)

Brief Update

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure can go die in a fire.

That is all.

How Mumbai Indicts Iraq (Again)

Obviously, the horrifying attacks in Mumbai, India, continue to be in everyone's thoughts. It seems like the violence is winding down, but the repercussions are likely just beginning. India has faced terrorist violence before. But for some reason, this feels different. It was more organized, more coordinated, and (by the use of gunmen rather than bombs) more visceral than ever before.

Reading USA Today this morning, though, I was struck by how this attack really undermines a central component of how we've been prosecuting our war on terror.

Though it was unclear exactly who orchestrated the attacks, they appear to provide further evidence that the main battleground for Islamist extremists is shifting from Iraq, where violence has fallen dramatically this year, to the democracies of South Asia. Militants are inflicting heavy casualties on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, seizing control of territory from a fragile government in Pakistan and proving they can strike just about anywhere in India.

Some would look at this and say, "victory in Iraq"! And perhaps it is indicative of the fruits of American blood and iron in that country. But if so, so what? If the tangible impact of the Iraq war is simply to have terrorists shift terrain from Iraq to India, we've spent the last five years going in neutral.

The problem is one I brought forward in the very early days of this blog: the overemphasis on sovereign states as the arena for combating terrorists. This, I held, was misplaced, since the very nature of terrorist groups makes them transnational and relatively untied to traditional geographic borders. If we view al-Qaeda as seeking to disrupt the hegemonic power of the Western world (ideally to bring up a new Islamic counterweight), it can accomplish that through operations nearly anywhere in the world. Al-Qaeda could flee the field entirely in Iraq tomorrow, and it wouldn't accomplish anything if they merely reconstituted themselves in South Asia.

The signal of the Mumbai attacks is that we've been looking at the problem all wrong. Cowboy rhetoric of "force being the only language evildoers understand" notwithstanding, it is becoming more apparent that while force is necessary to react to terrorist violence, it is a relatively ineffective weapon for creating an offensive posture. We need to start looking into alternative strategies for stopping terrorist activity before it starts. That's an intelligence issue, in part, but (as much as conservatives hate to admit it) it also is a question of greater engagement with countries and peoples worldwide, and (perhaps more importantly) a greater commitment to inclusion in the world's bounty.

Iraq was the last gasp of the belief that American muscle, alone, could solve any problem. We went into Iraq with the deliberate view that we didn't have to account for any other place or any other people. This was where the terrorists were, we go in, we take 'em out, mission accomplished, let's go home. That has proven to be a fatal error in judgment. And the longer way take to learn from it, the more Mumbai's the democratic world will have to suffer.

Only the Real Thing

Eamonn McDonagh of the Z-word points out the importance of Palestinians receiving a "real state". By real, he means one with an independent and fully functioning military -- not the demilitarized option occasionally floated mostly by pro-Israel partisans:

[O]ne of the few things worse than the Palestinians not getting a state of their own soon would be them getting some kind of emaciated ghost of a state instead, an autonomous polity with a flag and an anthem but shorn of many of the basic rights and prerogatives of states.

The motive for restricting the powers of the new state would be to address the - entirely understandable - fears of Israelis that the new state would only serve as a stepping stone on the road to their destruction. That risk exist certainly exists, but the prevailing situation isn't exactly free of risks. I think that attempts to hobble the new state from the moment of its birth would do nothing to reduce the long term risks to Israel while serving as a perfect excuse for radical Palestinian groups to continue the struggle to destroy Israel.

I agree. McDonagh says (and I also agree) that a few very limited concessions may be reasonable (such as agreeing to an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley -- a key early warning region for attacks coming from Iran), but by and large restricting Palestinian sovereignty would be disastrous. An independent, functioning military is a source of pride to every nation -- Palestine won't be any different. And if Palestine is to live independently and peacefully with Israel, it will need a strong internal security force capable of fighting radical elements, Islamic and otherwise (several Palestinian terrorist groups are not Islamist at all, like the PFLP). Is it true that a Palestinian army could turn on Israel, or at least shelter rather than suppress its radicals? Yes, of course. But that's no different than the status quo, where the radicals are in essence the army, and there is no chance of checking them at all save by constant Israeli military intervention.

Printer Trouble

You think of all places, the University of Chicago could have seen this coming in advance:

Dear House System residents,

I write to update you about a decision that has been reached regarding printing in the residence halls. As you know, at the beginning of this quarter we launched a system that enabled all residents to print for no charge to the printers in the residence halls. We did this because of the failure of our own internal pay-for-printing system and our decision to participate in a unified printing system that is scheduled to be in place this year. Unified printing, a system whereby students could print at the libraries, at the NSIT clusters, and the residence halls from the same printing account, is something our students have been requesting for the past 3 years.

Within the first three weeks of this quarter we saw unprecedented usage of the residence hall printing system. 232,000 pages were printed in three weeks compared to 625,000 pages for the entirety of last year. In mid-October we sent you a message to enlist your help in encouraging students to limit the amount of pages being printed. Unfortunately, despite those efforts, printing continued a high rate and we decided to limit printing to half of the computers in each of the residence hall computer labs.

However, this measure has not resulted in the hoped for reduction of printing. Printing has continued a rate of 60,000 pages per week, and from the beginning of the year through yesterday there had been a total of 635,000 pages printed. We project that the quarterly printing total will exceed 800,000 pages. This amount of printing far exceeds what we had projected and therefore we will need to discontinue printing in the residence halls, at the end of Fall Quarter, until we have implemented the new unified pay-for-printing system. We expect the new system to be up and running by the beginning of Spring Quarter.


Sincerely,

XXXXX XXXXXX
Director of Operations & Communications
Housing & Dining Services

Libertarian economic theory, for the win!

Pre-Thanksgiving Roundup

I'm traveling tomorrow, and also kicking off the first tri-annual "study-for-law-school-finals-suicide-a-thon"! What fun! And what better way to start the festivities than a roundup?

Glenn Beck hates America.

CNN forced to rehire 110 workers fired for belonging to a union.

Yet another example of the Bush administration selling our wounded veterans short.

Ta-Nehisi: Saying someone is a "great Black woman" doesn't erase all the rest of their identity (American, intellectual, whatever).

Another Florida state judge has struck down that state's ban on gay adoption.

John Brennan has withdrawn his name from consideration to lead the CIA. Some have questioned whether Brennan was sufficiently opposed to torture and extraordinary rendition during his tenure with the agency.

Matt criticizes the appropriation of Jewish anti-Zionist voices by the gentile community.

The NYT deals with domestic violence in military families. Loved ones who return from war with PTSD, and aren't getting the counseling they need ... that's a problem we can do something about.

Continuing on the theme of calling a man's wife his "girlfriend" or "partner" ("I don't believe in marriage"), we also explore not letting adopted children use the term "mommy" or "daddy". What, do you want devalue natural reproduction and God's Will? (Courtesy of the same source as the last time).

Happy Thanksgiving, and enjoy your dead animal (as my lovely Jill would say)!

And How Are Your Sinful Cavortings?

A Marriage Manifesto ... Of Sorts:

I no longer recognize marriage. It's a new thing I'm trying.

Turns out it's fun.

Yesterday I called a woman's spouse her boyfriend.

She says, correcting me, "He's my husband,"
"Oh," I say, "I no longer recognize marriage."

The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years,

"How's your longtime companion, Jill?"
"She's my wife!"
"Yeah, well, my beliefs don't recognize marriage."

Fun. And instant, eyebrow-raising recognition. Suddenly the majority gets to feel what the minority feels. In a moment they feel what it's like to have their relationship downgraded, and to have a much taken-for-granted right called into question because of another's beliefs.

Via kath.A.rine. Unfortunately, I don't think I know any straight couples who oppose gay marriage. But as guerrilla warfare, it kind of rocks.

The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Spongy...Bruised

Minister who encouraged parishioners to have sex for seven straight days went only six for seven, claiming that one day he was too tired.

As to the "challenge" itself, I'm conflicted. The pastor is obviously approaching the topic of sex from an orientation that has some significant retrograde elements -- they're not front and center, but you can always taste them in the background. That being said, it does seem like his heart is in the right place: recognizing that sexual expression is an important part of human relationships, and trying to strip away some of the taboo and stigma that couples (particularly, I imagine, religious couples) feel about sexuality and potential sexual problems in their marriage.

Playing the Odds

CNSNews is reporting that Catholic lawmakers who vote for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) could face "automatic excommunication", if it is determined that such a vote constituted "formal cooperation" with the "evil" of abortion. This is a question of canonical law that I have no knowledge of, so I won't go into whether a FOCA vote actually warrants automatic excommunication.

What I am interested in is how much of a backlash the Catholic Church will suffer if it excommunicates a large number of high profile members. Obviously, this would be a very high profile act, sure to get lots of media attention. With more than half of all American Catholics holding the belief that abortion should generally be legal, it will be interesting to say how the American Catholic population writ large reacts to what amount to a huge escalation in the internal stand-off between pro-life and pro-choice members of faith.

It wouldn't surprise me to see many members simply leave the church as a result. That may not be a bad thing -- I know many more traditional Catholics would happily trade size for purity in practice. But it would definitely be interesting if an automatic excommunication triggered a significant chunk of the Catholic laity to leave their faith behind.

H/T: Southern Appeal

Essentially Married

French Court: Virginity not an "essential quality" for a bridge. Good to know.

UPDATE: Bride! BRIDE! God I'm an idiot. And here I am, trying to parse the double entendre behind PG's comment, when the real solution is (as usual) "David's a moron".

Goode to Seek a Recount

Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), down 745 votes in his race against Tom Perriello, is asking for a recount. Perriello's victory was one of the bigger upsets of the 2008 cycle, a fact made all the sweeter due to the nature of his opponent.

Yet, watch me be principled. Goode has every right to ask for this recount. If he requests it, it should be granted. Democracy means knowing who actually won contested elections. If it turns out Goode won, he should be re-elected. It's that simple.

Thai Win

Work those thighs, general:

A MAVERICK Thai general who has threatened to bomb anti-government protesters and drop snakes on them from helicopters has been reassigned as an aerobics teacher, the Bangkok Post said on Friday.

Major-general Khattiya Sawasdipol, a Rambo-esque anti-communist fighter more commonly known as Seh Daeng, reacted with disappointment to his new role as a military instructor promoting public fitness at marketplaces.

'It is ridiculous to send me, a warrior, to dance at markets,' he said, before launching an attack on his boss, army chief Anupong Paochinda.

'The army chief wants me to be a presenter leading aerobics dancers. I have prepared one dance. It's called the 'throwing-a-hand-grenade' dance', he said.

Via Hilzoy, who sees inspiration in how to treat unqualified Bush apparatchiks buried in the Justice Department.

Take a Pill

I wanted to post something substantive about this post, but never got around to it. Suffice to say, conservative contempt for "emotion" and "feelings" and all that jazz lasts right up to the point where they want to cry victim. It'd be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic.

"Leave the land so we won't rape you"

An Egyptian blogger points to comments by a female Egyptian lawyer (who apparently heads up a "human rights NGO") urging that Arab men "sexual harass", and possibly rape, Israeli women, as a form of "resistance" to Zionism. Excerpts from the interview:

Interviewer: Egyptian lawyer Nagla Al-Imam has proposed that young Arab men should sexually harass Israeli girls wherever they may be and using any possible method, as a new means in the resistance against Israel.

[...]

Interviewer: We have with us the lawyer Nagla Al-Imam from Cairo. Welcome. What is the purpose of this proposal of yours?

Nagla Al-Imam: This is a form of resistance. In my opinion, they are fair game for all Arabs, and there is nothing wrong with...

Interviewer: On what grounds?

Nagla Al-Imam: First of all, they violate our rights, and they "rape" the land. Few things are as grave as the rape of land. In my view, this is a new form of resistance.

Interviewer: As a lawyer, don't you think this might expose Arab youth to punishment for violating laws against sexual harassment?

Nagla Al-Imam: Most Arab countries... With the exception of three or four Arab countries, which I don’t think allow Israeli women to enter anyway, most Arab countries do not have sexual harassment laws. Therefore, if [Arab women] are fair game for Arab men, there is nothing wrong with Israeli women being fair game as well.

Interviewer: Does this also include rape?

Nagla Al-Imam: No. Sexual harassment... In my view, the [Israeli women] do not have any right to respond. The resistance fighters would not initiate such a thing, because their moral values are much loftier than that. However if such a thing did happen to them, the [Israeli women] have no right to make any demands, because this would put us on equal terms – leave the land so we won't rape you. These two things are equal.

[...]

I don't want young Arab men to be interrogated. I want these Zionist girls with Israeli citizenship to be expelled from our Arab countries. This is a form of resistance, and a way of rejecting their presence.

Yikes. Even if this was "limited" to sexual harassment, it'd be repulsive, and despite a mild backtrack by Ms. Al-Imam, it is clear that she thinks rape of Israeli women should be tolerated as legitimate "resistance".

I've been trying to figure out who Ms. Al-Imam is. Obviously, most of the google hits are in reference to this story. However, I did come across this story in which Ms. Al-Imam appears, in reference to Egypt's first successful prosecution for sexual assault. Ms. Al-Imam is cited as an attorney who initially supported the victim, but later turned on her:

Nagla Al Imam, a lawyer who initially voiced support for Rushdi, has also taken to the airwaves, claiming the young woman lied about her charges and argued that she is an Israeli and should be deported for "unsettling Egyptian sentiments".

Women's groups in Egypt have been scrambling in response to this "allegation", affirming that the victim is not Israeli while still stating that "Even if she were an Israeli tourist it wouldn't matter. She still got assaulted."

In any event, it's pretty clear that Ms. Al-Imam is a rather repellent individual, who is perfectly willing to let rampant anti-Semitism manifest itself in the form of violent misogyny. The fact that she styles herself a human rights activist makes matters only worse.

Via AAB

Boxing Blogging: 11/23/08

HBO put on a very nice card last night, featuring rising star James Kirkland, and a genuine #1 versus #2 battle in the junior welterweight division between Ricky Hatton and Paulie Malignaggi. Both were united by one quality: arguably controversial stoppages.

Ricky Hatton (45-1, 32 KOs) TKO11 Paulie Malignaggi (25-2, 5 KOs)

Round one was close. Rounds two through eleven were not. After rocking Paulie in round two, Hatton took over, repeatedly stunning Malignaggi and preventing him from ever establishing a rhythm. Malignaggi looked awful in this fight. He was clinching a lot, which is not his game, his movement wasn't there, he was leaning in, his jab was mediocre. Malignaggi has been showing problems against pressure fighters -- unsurprising, since he has absolutely no pop whatsoever. He struggled in fights against Herman Ngoudjo and his rematch against Lovemore N'dou, both of whom got inside and mauled him. When fighters don't have to fear your power, what's to stop them from walking through you and bullying their way inside? Of course, Malignaggi didn't help by deciding to grab on the inside instead of slipping away.

But let's not take away from Hatton here. This was the best he's looked in a long time. Screw Mayweather and Lazcano -- this was a better performance than he put out against Collazo, Urango, and Castillo (the last merely because Castillo was clearly a shot fighter). After a lackluster performance against "the Hispanic causing panic" Lazcano (what a great nickname), folks wondered if Hatton's age and terrible training habits had finally caught up with him. It appears not. A fight with P4P #1 Manny Pacquiao may be on the horizon.

Oh, and the stoppage! Malignaggi's trainer Buddy McGirt warned him that he'd end the fight if Malignaggi didn't show him more. Malignaggi did not oblige, McGirt threw in the towel, and Malignaggi was furious, shoving McGirt away when the latter attempted to embrace him. You can see it both ways: Malignaggi, who takes huge pride in his toughness, was upset that he has a stoppage loss on his record when he wasn't really hurt. But he wasn't showing anything, he was getting beaten up all night, and, as Tim Starks put it, "fight for real or don't fight at all."

James Kirkland (24-0, 21 KOs) TKO8 Brian Vera (16-2, 10 KOs)

The "mandingo warrior" (how's that for a nickname?) tore through the tough and game Vera, who spent most of the fight smiling through tremendous punishment until referee John Kerry (not really, but the resemblance was uncanny) stepped in to stop it in the 8th. Vera was protesting he wasn't hurt, but this stoppage I think was clearly the right call: he had accumulated a lot of punishment and was not the type to show it willingly. Vera hadn't won a single round and had gone down three times. His heart had been proven -- no need for him to absorb any more shots.

I think the commentators were a bit rough on Kirkland: there's only so much you can do to knock a fighter out when they have the will of a Brian Vera, and Kirkland did what he had to -- apply pressure and pressure and pressure until finally something broke. Kirkland appeared to take his feet off the gas in the middle of the fight, leading some to question his conditioning. Given the savage training methods employed by Ann Wolfe, I'm guessing that wasn't the problem. Rather, I suspect he watched tapes of Vera's upset win over Andy Lee and decided it would not be wise to punch himself out against the incredible damage absorbing sponge that is Vera, giving the latter fighter a chance to catch Kirkland with something big. I think folks are reaching: Kirkland was firmly in control, showed great instincts, landed an insane percentage of his punches, and eventually scored the knockout. Plus, his last knockdown was a nice little Roy Jones throwback. He's an incredibly bright prospect.

I had a minor debate with some other boxing scribes prior to the fight, as to whether it's proper to characterize Vera as having a great chin. Certainly, nobody can question his heart. But what do you call someone who, as the commentators put it, "only" had gone down twice (this was in the middle of the fight) despite taking flush shot after flush shot from Kirkland? It seems a bit weird to extol the chin of a guy who got knocked down three times in route to a TKO loss. But there's something to be said for the amount of punishment it took to get him to that point. Certainly, it reinforces just the type of monster puncher Jaidon Codrington was, who put Vera away in two rounds and didn't leave any question about it (though to be fair, Codrington is two weight classes heavier than Kirkland, who was easily the smaller man in this fight).

The Name Game

Even before he's sworn in, Barack Obama is already having things named after him. Such as an elementary school in New York. And, possibly, the tallest peak in Antigua.

Eugene Volokh thinks this is all pre-mature, and urges that we wait to see whether Obama actually makes for a great president or not. Wouldn't it be embarrassing to have a "Richard M. Nixon" elementary school?

Eh. I think that, unless you're an absolute abject failure and disgrace upon the nation, merely becoming President is sufficient to have some smaller-scale landmarks named after you. It's not a tough bar to leap: Warren Harding has a high school. Since I don't think we should assume that, like Nixon, Obama will be run out of office for rampant abuses of power, I'm not too cut up about him getting an elementary school named after him.

And the mountain in Antigua? Amazingly, that story touches more than anything else. Why would Antigua name its highest mountain after an American President? The answer lies in the hold America has, even over foreign countries -- particularly smaller and poorer ones. America still represents a beacon to them. The election of Barack Obama, after eight years of George W. Bush, is a sign that we as a people have not abandoned our pre-eminent position in the world, that we still are committed to securing opportunities and inclusion for all.

It may just be symbolism. But it's symbolism that matters. And as Americans, we should take heed that the eyes of the world watch our every move. We have a lot to live up to.

Hi Lani!

Lani Guinier, Foreword: Demosprudence Through Dissent, 122 Harv. L. Rev. 4, 9 n.19 (2008).

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(Here's the post).

UPDATE: In all the excitement, I should probably mention what the article is about. Essentially, it explores the capacity of "oral dissents" (that is, Supreme Court Justices reading their dissents from the bench) to foster democratic deliberation, particularly by encouraging the inclusion of excluded parties.

[O]ral dissents are particularly but not exclusively well-suited to fulfill the three demosprudential elements: where a conflict about democracy is a core issue, accessibility rather than technical proficiency is a stylistic preference, and engaging in a larger public conversation is an implicit goal. (54)

It's an interesting piece -- and one of the first I've read to really treat blogs as an integral piece of American legal and democratic conversation (at least, that didn't take that potential as its specific subject).

SOS Clinton

The NYT is calling it: Hillary Clinton will be Obama's nominee for Secretary of State.

It's an ... interesting choice. Obama beat Clinton in the primaries primarily because Clinton was wrong on Iraq. I.e., wrong on an issue of foreign policy. So it makes it a bit odd for him to turn around and make her the chief face of our foreign policy.

That being said, I'm not opposed to the pick per se. I think Hillary Clinton is a very smart woman who bring a lot to the State Department. She is a wonk without parallel, and that's something I appreciate. And she is a well-known and respected figure around the world, which is important.

So, I'm okay with this. I wish the New York Times didn't phrase the decision as Obama taking the high road and Clinton cravenly weighing where she'll have the most power, but what are you going to do?

Beware Taking Advice From Morons

Insofar as opposition is starting to crop up to the Eric Holder AG nomination, it's being centered around Holder's role in the controversial Marc Rich pardon in the waning days of the Clinton administration. The fact that Holder is liberal, by itself, is not disqualifying -- Barack Obama, rumor has it, is liberal (if not "THE MOST MARXIST/FASCIST SENATOR EVER!"). The National Review brings up the pardon in its editorial opposition to Holder, citing a Congressional report labeling his participation "unconscionable". What they don't tell you, but McCain supporter Orin Kerr does, is that the report was released by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), a rabid Clinton hater famous for not just insisting that Vince Foster was murdered, but actually "re-enacting" the event by shooting a pumpkin in his backyard.

I, too, came across Rep. Burton when I attended Congressional hearings regarding formaldehyde contamination in FEMA trailers. To pass the time, I gave grades to the various committee members. Burton came in dead last, with a D+, since his entire contribution was assuring the rest of the committee that he knew the CEO's of the corporations in questions and was confident they would never hurt a fly. If only Mr. Holder knew that all this nastiness could have been staved off with a cocktail party, we might all be better off.

You can take a look at Rep. Burton's wikipedia page, if you'd like. He's got all manner of crazy in his closet.

You Judge The Ballots

NPR has samples of some of the contested ballots in the Coleman/Franken Minnesota Senate election, and lets you vote on how you think they should be counted. Finally, a chance to prove you're smarter than a Floridian! Take a whack at it -- and remember, Minnesota operates under a loose "intent of the voter" standard.

My decisions:
1) Franken
2) Accept it (McCain)
3) Franken (this was, in my view, the closest call)
4) Franken
5) Franken ("Lizard People" wasn't bubbled in)
6) Franken
7) Coleman
8) Franken
9) Barkley
10) Barkley
11) Coleman

Drinker's Delight

I don't drink beer, or really alcohol in general, but pieces like this (about so-called "extreme beer" breweries like Dogfish) always fascinated me. I think I'm mentally linking it to alchemy, which is intrinsically pretty cool. I have the same reaction to mixed drinks -- I don't usually like them myself, but the appeal of mixing various liquids together and creating something always had a hold on me, which is why I'm so pleased with the positive reaction I get to the old 4th Burton hot apple cider/peach schnapps combination.

Cocktail Reception

Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, whom I earlier characterized as being the good sort of "affirmative action" pick for the RNC, is blasting GOP efforts at "outreach" towards female and minority voters.

"The problem is that within the operations of the RNC, they don't give a damn. It's all about outreach ... and outreach means let's throw a cocktail party, find some black folks and Hispanics and women, wrap our arms around them - 'See, look at us,' " he said.

"And then we go back to same old, same old. There's nothing that is driven down to the state party level, where state chairmen across the country, to the extent they don't appreciate it, are helped to appreciate the importance of African-Americans and women and others coming and being a part of this party, and to the extent that they do appreciate it, are given support and backup to generate their own programs to create this relationship."

"Outreach is a cocktail party. Coalitions ... a relationship. I'm going to look you in the eye. I'm going to be at your table. I'm going to sit and talk to you," said Mr. Steele, who has for the last two years been the chairman of GOPAC, a Republican political action committee.

Bingo. As I observed upon the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain's VP nominee, Republicans really seem to think that the only thing women or minorities care about is the face -- they blindly will follow their race or gender cohorts, and nothing else needs to be said. Steele, at least, is fighting back against this notion: he gets that if the GOP is going to make any true inroads with female and minority voters, they need to have a seat at the table, where their problems will be discussed fairly and real solutions will be offered.

There's a valid question as to how RNC selection committee will respond to this sort of rhetoric of course. It's not clear that they really want Blacks and women to have more voice at the table, if their voices will threaten policy or philosophical positions dear to the Party core (they might think that, but assume they can reign Steele in and make it so his changes are cosmetic, at best). And aside from the racial angles, Steele is definitely a relatively moderate candidate to be running, which is a major barrier in a Party that looks poised to make another rightward lurch. Of course, a Steele victory would signal a check on that instinct, which would certainly be positive.

But back to Steele's efforts to bring Blacks and other non-traditional GOP voters into the fold. Again, I'm not saying he'll be successful in his endeavor, even if he reaches out in good faith with full party backing. While a significant part of Black loyalty to the Democratic Party is based off the notion that the GOP is facially inhospitable to them, it's not ridiculous to think that Blacks actually have considered and agree with the Democratic Party when casting their ballots. But I think it's better, all things considered, for Blacks to be voting Democratic because they agree with Democrats, not because they consider the Republican Party to be a racist outpost.

The Racism Bank Shot

Though discounting the mythology that cases like Brown v. Board single-handedly exposed the evil of Jim Crow and promoted civil rights reform, revisionist (I mean that totally value-neutral) civil rights historians like Michael J. Klarman do concede that these largely symbolic measures did cause real progress by provoking a White overreaction. The intense White backlash to cases like Brown, broadcast to the North by television and other media sources, helped shock moderates out of their complacency and create the political will to enact meaningful reforms, such as the Civil Rights Act.

Other historians have observed the effort made by the Soviet Union to weaken American support amongst "non-aligned" and third world nations by exposing the horrors of American racism. Domestic civil rights battles in America were never far removed from the Cold War context, with progressives arguing fervently that America had a significant national security interest in dismantling Jim Crow, and conservatives shooting back that it was unpatriotic to tailor our domestic policy based on Kremlin critiques. This was a battle progressives would slowly but surely win. The United States government intervened for the first time in favor of desegregation activists when it wrote an amicus supporting the NAACP in Brown v. Board, specifically citing "the hostile reaction among normally friendly peoples" to anti-Black discrimination. The continuance of segregation and inequality in America was leading potential allies around the world to view the US as "hypocritical in claiming to be the champion of democracy while permitting practices of racial discrimination here in this country."

By contrast, evidence of meaningful civil rights progress was wielded by American diplomatic agents as proof of the superiority and fundamental righteousness of American ideals. From officially-sponsored world tours featuring Black Jazz musicians, to President Truman's famous maxim that "Democracy's answer to the challenge of totalitarianism is its promise of equal rights and equal opportunities for all mankind," it was well known to everyone that the question of racism had potent implications for American foreign policy interests.

All of this is prelude to al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri's mockery of President-elect Barack Obama, whom they call a "house slave" and compare derogatorily to Malcolm X. Spencer Ackerman responds:

Who would have known that electing a black president also turns out to have an information-operations component as a bonus? We should want to publicize, far and wide, that Zawahiri is a racist. Drive this discrediting message into the heart of the Muslim world. I wonder what the tens of millions of African and African-American Muslims think about Zawahiri's charming statement.

Yes, and yes. Obama, fair or not, is already somewhat of a hero in many places where the American brand had been faltering. One benefit of making even symbolic racial progress, as Klarman indicated, is that it makes racist reactionaries that much more visible. America learned that racial regressivism was a serious liability in its fight with the Soviet Union. Hopefully, it can take this opportunity to utilize racial progressivism to dismantle reactionary, totalitarian movements like al-Qaeda.

Life is Good

Snoop Dogg on Martha Stewart. I would have assumed they would explode on contact, like matter and anti-matter. Instead, it's just hilarious.

Delaying the Inevitable is a Good Thing

Publius lays out an interesting argument for the auto bailout. Even if the bailout is destined to fail, even if the companies don't deserve it, even if we won't see a penny of the loan ever again, even if all it does is forestall the inevitable collapse of General Motors -- it still might be worth it. Why? Because the companies won't fail now. And now, in the middle of a major economic crisis, is not a time to let a major sector of our economy sink like Atlantis.

If the Big Three go under right now, given all the other economic strains, I genuinely worry that Michigan is going to turn into some sort of hell hole -- like sub-Saharan Africa or Iceland. Of course, the counter argument is that there is never a "good" time for huge employers to fail dramatically, so you might as well suck it up and get it over with. But, granting that statement as true, I can still say that some times are probably worse than others, and now certainly qualifies as a worse time.

Return of the Tekken

Let's say you're casually playing boggle online with a bunch of random strangers. One random stranger's name is "Michelle Chang." Being an enormous dork, you immediately seize upon the name as from a character in the "Tekken" fighting series -- a very cool character at that. Is there any way to bring this into the conversation without it being massively awkward?

No, of course not. So you stew quietly.

DC to Legalize Gay Marriage?

D.C. Councilman David Catania has proclaimed he is confident D.C. will pass a bill legalizing same sex marriage next year. Dale Carpenter wonders if his confidence is misplaced, given the overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriage expressed by Blacks in California. My response was to note that, just as White voters in Maryland have different views on gay marriage than those in Alabama, D.C. Blacks may take different views on the subject than their California peers.

Obama to Nominate First Black AG

Congratulations to Eric Holder who, if confirmed, would become America's first Black Attorney General. Here's a quick bio for Mr. Holder:

* Columbia University, B.A., 1973; J.D., 1976 * Department of Justice, Public Integrity Section, 1976 - 1988 * Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia, 1988 - 1993 (nominated by Reagan) * U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, 1993 - 1997 (appointed by Clinton) * Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 1997 - 2001 (nominated by Clinton) * Acting Attorney General of the United States, 2001 (until confirmation of John Ashcroft as Attorney General) * Partner, Covington & Burling, 2001 - present

So naturally, he's going to be accused of being an "affirmative action" pick. But seriously, congratulations are in order for Mr. Holder. While we're on the subject of Obama legal appointments, congratulations to Greg Craig, who will be named White House Counsel. Craig, who represented Bill Clinton in his impeachment hearings, is currently a partner at Williams & Connolly, where I worked in the summer and winter of 2005. While Mr. Craig obviously would not remember me, in a victory for class solidarity, I actually don't remember him either. Take that, Mr. Big Shot!

Torts Quote of the Day

From Lombard Laws, King Luitprand, Law 136.VII. (A.D. 733):

...no blame should be placed on the man who owns the well [for a tort in which both the perpetrator and victim were third parties] because if we placed the blame on him, no one hereafter would permit other men to raise water from their wells, and since all men cannot have a well, those who are poor would die and those who are traveling through would also suffer need.

I love the matter of fact way the inevitable death of poor people is trotted out as an impact.

The Fruits of Their Labor

In general, academic performance has a negative correlation with juvenile delinquency. Which makes sense -- we assume that academic excellence both shows a commitment by kids to work towards socially sanctioned goals, and that the pay-offs of excelling in school make criminal activity less attractive.

However, new research by University of Washington Professor Robert Cruchfield indicates that for kids in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, this relationship is reversed: GPA actually has a positive correlation with delinquency.

This was an unexpected and obviously distressing finding, and folks are still trying to figure out potential causes. Several hypothesis were forwarded:

1) Kids with good grades in bad neighborhoods feel the need to "represent", countering the bad reputation they might get for being a nerd.

2) Kids with good grades feel like they have no potential for being rewarded for their accomplishments, and seek out the status that criminal activity brings.

3) Kids with good grades are more valuable to criminal organizations such as gangs, who value their intelligence and skill sets more than another dime-a-dozen brawler.

4) Having good grades acts as a "get out of jail free" card, causing authority figures to look the other way and making delinquent activity less costly.

All of these are worth considering, but I think #2 rings truest for me. One knock on the first explanation is, as one respondent noted, that it would seem simpler for smart kids to avoid the dilemma all together by underperforming in class. The fourth explanation I think would work better in high-income neighborhoods (where I definitely observe a "get out of jail free" effect). It's at best non-unqiue, at worst less effective, in poorer locales.

The third explanation seems slightly incongruous, but I think may be onto something insofar as we remember that modern gangs are rather sophisticated organizations which make rational "business" decisions. Still, the second example strikes me as the strongest. Kids who are high performers expect that they will see tangible rewards for their effort. Insofar as they don't see those rewards coming, either because they don't believe their work will pay off (i.e., even if they do well in school, they won't be able to afford college or can't imagine a good college will accept them), or because they don't believe they'll be around to see the benefits (i.e., they are fatalistic about street violence, or just assume they'll be taken in by the police on trumped up charges), the temptation to take immediately presented benefits rises dramatically.

Smart kids respond to rational incentives. The extent that criminal activity is the rational choice in many poorer neighborhoods worries me. A good anti-crime policy (indeed, a profoundly conservative one insofar as it deals with incentive structures) should be working holistically to make sure that other options are more fruitful than crime for disadvantaged youth.

It Must Be Nice Being Huge

Debates over how many adherents one can justifiably excommunicate from the ranks is a privilege of the powerful religions. Smaller players, such as my own faith, have learned that such intra-sectarian squabbling gets downright dangerous when your numbers are already rather tiny (and the other guys are going for your head).

Certainly, lots of ultra-orthodox Jews think I really suck at being Jewish, and some more extreme sects would go further and label me a heretic. Fortunately for me, they're in the minority. But by and large, Judaism has learned that we must hang together to avoid hanging separately. The majority of Jewish denominations in America, for example, do not hold that the Bible is the literal word of God. But yet, somehow we don't engage in cannibalistic theological warfare to expel the unbelievers. It must get tiring after awhile, and it's energy I'd really rather expend elsewhere.

Via Southern Appeal. Hey, President Obama -- if you're no longer Christian, we're happy to take you in! We can bond over how annoying it is for really self-righteous people taking it upon themselves to pray for our immortal souls.

That's New

I just got a push poll from, I believe, Ford Motor, asking whether I support the bailout (after regaling me with statistics about lost jobs and general hellfire and doom).

I told them I'm undecided. Which is true.

AFA Goes KKK

I can't handle this:

Let Your “Light” Shine For Christ This Christmas Season!

Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can…. with the “Original Christmas Cross” yard decoration.

That's the product description from the American Family Association. And this (I swear I'm not kidding) is the photo they attached:



Via Balloon Juice.

The Meritorious Choice

Conservatives are abuzz about selecting former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as the new chief of the RNC. One Republican leader put his appeal thus:

“He understands where the party needs to go, he has got a strong set of principles, he is well able to articulate a message in all the media forms, and can take that message to the growing areas of the country — youth and minorities — and he does very well with women. He is the future of the party.”

Michael Steele, in other words, would be an affirmative action pick.

I don't mean that as a knock on Steele. Much the opposite. I think that Steele demonstrates the way that affirmative action makes sense as a component of meritocracy. Republicans know that they can't keep winning if they get dominated competing for American youth and American Blacks. Ta-Nehisi Coates loves to harp on the point that African-Americans aren't actually that liberal, they just view the GOP as a racist party. Nominating Steele to the chairmanship of the party helps counter that sentiment, thus accomplishing something of tangible worth that they can't get with yet another old White dude. If Democrats, deciding they needed to work harder to appeal to Appalachian Whites, nominated someone like Heath Shuler or another Democrat with demonstrated appeal to hard-scrabble, mountain Whites, nobody would question his qualifications (they might question the strategy), even though Shuler is roughly as obscure as a one-term Lieutenant Governor of Maryland who got mauled when he made a bid for Senate.

Of course, whetheer Steele will succeed in appealing to young or Black voters is a dicey proposition. But the thought process is affirmative action personified, and not in a bad way.

I Like the Sound of That

The Prediction

Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) approvals: In the tank.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT): Strip Lieberman of his committee chair.

End result: Lieberman keeps his committee chair. Senate Democrats don't have the cuts to pull the trigger -- even for the ideal option, which is giving him the chairmanship of another committee, where he is more amenable to Democratic policies.

I don't blame them though. I could never be in politics. I'm too nice and forgiving. I always want to give people another chance. Even to people who don't deserve it.

Ignoring Facebook

In response to the Obama transition team's version of demanding every scintilla of factual information about potential administration appointees, Matt Yglesias observes that eventually norms are going to have to change about the relevancy of a dumb college facebook photo. I've thought the same thing myself. Even today, interviewers can't be shocked! that their prospects might have drank in college. Indeed, they themselves probably drank in college. But there being no permanent electronic record of it, they can delude themselves into thinking they were more responsible about it. As the facebook generation begins to consist of the hirers, however, eventually a more realistic view is going to surface.

Or so I hope.

Scalia Cares About Diversity

We read Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614 (1991) in civil procedure today. In Edmonson, it was held that race-based peremptory challenges in civil cases violate the equal protection clause. Much of the argument between the majority and the dissent grappled with whether peremptory challenges -- basically, eliminating a potential juror from the pool for no reason whatsoever (parties in civil cases generally get a limited number of peremptories) -- is a "state action" for constitutional purposes. The majority concluded that it was, as the selection of a jury is a state body whose composition is merely being delegated to the parties, while the dissenters argued that it was not, that jury selection was a function of purely private actors who were only using the court as a forum to resolve their dispute.

But Justice Scalia's separate dissent was interesting to me, because he spent much of it waxing poetic about the need and right of litigants to pursue racially diverse juries -- or at least select their jurors race-consciously. After noting his agreement with Justice O'Connor's argument that the majority is wrong "in principle" to assert that peremptory challenges in civil litigation are state actions, he continued to write that:

[today's opinion] is also unfortunate in its consequences.

The concrete benefits of the Court's newly discovered constitutional rule are problematic. It will not necessarily be a net help, rather than hindrance, to minority litigants in obtaining racially diverse juries. In criminal cases, Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), already prevents the prosecution from using race-based strikes. The effect of today's decision (which logically must apply to criminal prosecutions) will be to prevent the defendant from doing so - so that the minority defendant can no longer seek to prevent an all-white jury, or to seat as many jurors of his own race as possible. To be sure, it is ordinarily more difficult to prove race-based strikes of white jurors, but defense counsel can generally be relied upon to do what we say the Constitution requires. So in criminal cases, today's decision represents a net loss to the minority litigant. In civil cases, that is probably not true - but it does not represent an unqualified gain either. Both sides have peremptory challenges, and they are sometimes used to assure, rather than to prevent, a racially diverse jury.
[...]
Although today's decision neither follows the law nor produces desirable concrete results, it certainly has great symbolic value. To overhaul the doctrine of state action in this fashion - what a magnificent demonstration of this institution's uncompromising hostility to race-based judgments, even by private actors! The price of the demonstration is, alas, high, and much of it will be paid by the minority litigants who use our courts. I dissent. [500 U.S. at 644-45]

I find it interesting that Scalia appears to recognize here that stripping minority actors of their ability to use race conscious procedures is, in fact a problem. More than a problem -- morally objectionable; a bar to basic fairness! The move towards color-blindness, he's arguing, is qualitatively harmful to minority litigants, and that's a concern he wishes the court to be mindful of.

An interesting argument, and one that gave me pause when reading this case. Kind of incongruous with the bulk of Scalia's jurisprudence, though, no?

Boxing Notes

It's been awhile, but there's a few thoughts I'd like to get off my chest.

First, Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KOs), just coming off a decisive win over former pound-for-pound best Roy Jones Jr. (52-5, 38 KOs). Joe Cool has been talking retirement for awhile, and if he does, he's had a great career -- probably the best Super Middleweight of all time in the relatively new division.

But let's be clear on why Calzaghe isn't getting all the respect he thinks he deserves. For a long time, Calzaghe was perceived to be a typical sheltered European champion. There's a reason for that: he was. After winning the title from Chris Eubank in 1997, Calzaghe took a string of defenses against fighters ranging from solid to unremarkable. That's why when he took the fight against Jeff Lacy, then considered to be the next big thing in boxing, many were expecting Calzaghe to be smoked. To his credit, he proved everyone wrong -- dominating Lacy and essentially destroying the younger man's career.

Since then he has fought and won two more marquee battles: a wide victory against consensus #2 man Mikkel Kessler, and a split decision victory against Bernard Hopkins -- a win that, even if somewhat disputed, is significantly more impressive after Hopkins' subsequent demolition of Kelly Pavlik.

Those are all stellar wins. But by themselves, they are not enough for the living legend status Joe seems to covet. He really doesn't seem to understand that he hasn't been spending his whole career, or even most of his career, fighting the best opposition available. He really seems to think that his victory over a way-past-his-prime Roy Jones is a big deal. Is it true, as he says, that there always is and always will be some young gun coming up whom he "has to" fight (as an excuse to duck Chad Dawson)? Yes, but it's not like Calzaghe has spent the last decade fighting burgeoning superstars (let alone already established ones).

Contrast Calzaghe to current P4P #1 Manny Pacquiao, and the distinction becomes clear. After ascending to the elite levels of the sport, Pacquiao has been, over and over again, fighting the absolute best fighters he could find. Two fights against Marco Antonio Barrera. Three fights against Erik Morales. Two fights against Juan Manuel Marquez. Even his "easy" fights are still against pretty high level guys -- like Oscar Larios and Jorge Solis. And he continues to challenge himself, by stepping up in weight to thrash David Diaz, and then balloon way up in a fight against future hall of famer Oscar de la Hoya.

You become a legend by fighting, over and over, the best guys you can find. Calzaghe thinks he can slide into that status after a handful of (very, very) good wins. He doesn't get it.

.... Contender 3 champion Sakio Bika (26-3-2, 16 KOs) fights Contender 1 runner-up Peter Manfredo (31-5, 16 KOs) tomorrow night on Versus. I worry about Bika's ability to win a decision against the "Pride of Providence" in Providence. It's a good fight though, against two guys who (haters of The Contender notwithstanding) are properly labeled "fringe contenders" rather than "journeymen". Also on the card, Season 2 champion Grady Brewer (23-11, 13 KOs) taking on fellow Season 2 participant Cornelius "K9" Bundridge (28-3, 16 KOs). I expect Brewer, who really was a journeyman prior to his upset triumph, to struggle after a long layoff against K9, who has some career momentum even if we saw the likely ceiling on his talent after his thrashing at the hands of Joel Julio.

.... Finally, can I give out an ode to Teddy Atlas? He is under appreciated in boxing, I think, calling fights on ESPN. But he really knows his stuff, has a passion for the game and for the fighters, and best of all, always illustrates his points using delightfully bizarre sports analogies ripped from the athletic event of the day ("Speaking of the World Series, I think Smith needs to be the foul pole in this contest. Stay upright and on the outside -- tempt his opponent into going for the long ball..."). Plus, he rocks the Staten Island accident which makes him sound like he's been punched a couple too many times. He's really an asset to the sport, and that's no joke.

My Baby

I really relate to this story.

The Real Winner of Prop. 8: Mitt Romney

Nobody really was a direct "winner" stemming from the victory of Proposition 8. Gays and lesbians obviously lost. Anyone who knows and cares about gays and lesbians lost too. Everyone else is a wash, as their marriages are in roughly the same shape that they were a week ago.

But apparently, someone may have gotten a big boost from Prop. 8's passage, almost by accident: Mitt Romney. Recall that Romney's bid this time around was derailed in part by social conservatives who simply did not trust that he was "one of them" -- in part, it must be said, because Romney was actually rather socially moderate until approximately five days before he began his presidential campaign, but certainly in part because there is a lingering mistrust about Mormonism from within the conservative Christian community. But now Marc Ambinder notes that the LDS has purchased significant social conservative credibility due to its role in getting Proposition 8 passed -- credibility that will only be strengthened as the forces of godlessness, paganism, and equality continue to train their fire on the church.

Best of all for Romney, this occurs nearly entirely under the table. The only tangible impact is a lessening of suspicion conservative Christians have towards him on account of his Mormonism. He never took a front-line position on Proposition 8, and thus will see no more liberal backlash due to his anti-equality position than any other similarly situated Republican.

Romney's keeping his toes in the political water, and probably will run again in 2012. With the unabashed support of the Christian right, his candidacy will be far more formidable.

Six of One...

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) wonders if Barack Obama is going to "establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship."

I personally wonder how he's going to decide between Marxism and fascism. Heads, all property is redistributed for the glory of the proletariat, tails, every national endeavor is redirected for the glory of the volk.

Second Thing We Do, Objectify All The Men

The Apostate has a post about the tragic lack of nude men (at least, full frontal) in mainstream cinematic sex scenes, and why that is. The basic answer is that male bodies aren't objectified. Men aren't adjudged to be valuable based solely on their looks. Indeed, it is seen as weird and deviant to objectify male bodies. The Apostate urges that women start to break down the fiction that male bodies aren't the proper targets for objectification.

But wait, you say, if objectification is bad, then why is justifiable to do it to men? The answer is not that turnabout is fair play. Rather, it gets into the nuts and bolts of what it means to objectify someone, and how being seen as an object interacts with our sense of personhood and human dignity.

I've written before that, in contrast to what is maintained or implied by certain feminist theorists, being seen as an object -- the site of another's wants and desires, or a source of instrumentality to another's ends -- is an extremely important element of our personhood. Of course, it's not all we want -- we want also to be recognized as beings with inherent worth and human dignity, and we also want some level of control over how we are seen as valuable even as objects. But it is untrue to say that acknowledgment of subjective value is sufficient for our happiness. In order to be fulfilled, we need to be seen and perceive ourselves as being seen as both objects and subjects, at the same time.

In modern society, men (particularly White men) have many avenues through which both our objective and subjective value can be expressed and verified. The panoply of legal and moral rights, designed with men in mind, affirm that we are "God's children" and are beings worthy of inherent moral concern. The social structures we create also tell us, again and again, that we are useful creatures whose objective worth is articulated through prestige, awards, reimbursement, and acclamation.

The joke that is often laid about sexual harassment is asking a man "how would you like it if a woman told you you were attractive and she wanted to bone you?" It's an inapt comparison, though. Because seeing male bodies as "objects" (that is, entities which are wanted for the express purpose of fomenting pleasure in another) neither exhausts our dimensions of objective worth, nor operates to the exclusion of the recognition of our subjective value, it does not threaten to colonize male bodies in such a way that we are only seen as sex objects. A man whom women treat and talk about as hot still has fundamental ownership of himself, and is not limited to only that metric of worth. Taking it from another angle, it's not that women don't want to be seen as sexually attractive by men. What they protest is that being the totality of the avenues they have for attaining valuation.

I draw from all this that, in ideal circumstances, it is best for all parties when they are seen as objectively and subjectively valuable -- including on the axis of sexuality. Circumstances are not ideal when either element of valuation squeezes out the other -- as it is for women who are seen only as valuable along the object-axis (the definition of objectification). Men, though, by and large do exist in the land of ideals -- both of our objective and subjective value is pretty well established. So go ahead, women (hell, go ahead men) -- lust after me. I like knowing that I'm wanted, and I'm happy that you gain pleasure from wanting me. There's no threat here.

UPDATE: One more thing that came to me: it seems that people like to be objectively valued, but only if they have some degree of control over it. I might take pleasure in being valued for my contributions to Big Company, in part because I voluntarily chose to work for Big and can, if I choose, leave. Often times artists who are beloved by their audience members burn out because they get tired of only being seen as a tool for the desire's of the masses (think Dave Chappelle) and can never "turn it off". This goes back to the need for balance between objective and subjective valuation, and brings into play another dimension that must taken into account when noting the objective value of men.

Stanley Cup Winning Baby

Photo #11 is documentary proof of the cutest baby ever. I dare you to say I'm wrong.

Telling Numbers

The case for an independent Jewish state is rarely expressed as succinctly as in these American polling numbers, taken shortly after Kristallnacht:

Do you approve or disapprove of the Nazi's treatment ... Of Jews in Germany?

5.6% Approve
88.2% Disapprove
6.2% No Opinion

Should we allow a larger number of Jewish exiles from Germany to come to the United States to live?

21.2 Yes
71.8% No
7.0% No Opinion

The lack of rabid hatred is nice, but insufficient. Jews need a place where we get to make the decision as to allowing in Jewish refugees fleeing persecution.