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Your morning smile

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Courtesy of the Onion:

WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation’s broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, “It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.”

Happy voting day, America!

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Vote, and get a free coffee.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2J8KJDsqqY]

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Andrea notes that coffee helps me to care. Every single day. I’m probably at about 3 cups of caring already, and it’s not yet 9 am.

In other news, water is wet and bacon is bad for you

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A study from the usually serious RAND concludes that slick and successful TV programming that portrays teen sex as cool, fun and consequence free can influence teenagers’ decisions about sex.

In findings that covered 718 teenagers, there were 91 pregnancies. The top 10th of adolescents who watched the most sexy programming were at double the risk of becoming pregnant or causing a pregnancy compared to the 10th who watched the fewest such programs, according to the study published in the journal Pediatrics.

Is anybody really surprised that media consumption influences behaviour? The multi-billion dollar advertising industry is built entirely on the link between what people read, watch and listen to, and what they buy, do and think. Government restrictions on broadcasting content aren’t the solution (although watch for someone to advocate just that). Parents and pressure groups have been fairly successful in getting graphic violence out of prime time TV. This is laudable.  But why not pay the same attention to other causes of suffering and social breakdown? Far more innocents are harmed when kids are taught that it’s fine for them to have sex than are harmed by gun violence, for instance.

On a more encouraging note, buried in the second half of the story is this tidbit: “Living in a two-parent family reduced the chances of a teen getting pregnant or causing a pregnancy.” Again, this won’t be news to most of us, but it bears repeating. And it’s good that pediatricians are getting involved – perhaps if we can frame teen sex, pregnancy and STDs as a matter of health, rather than a matter of sexual freedom, we can begin to mitigate some of the suffering that is so well documented by Maggie Gallagher, Kay Hymowitz, Theodore Dalrymple, and the other invaluable writers who have been telling the stories of teenagers set adrift.

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Tanya balks: Bacon is BAD FOR YOU???

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Véronique adds: What about a bacon chocolate bar? Two negatives HAVE to make a positive, right?

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Andrea is concerned about bacon and chocolate, together, advertised as follows:

Breathe…engage your five senses, close your eyes and inhale deeply. Be in the present moment, notice the color of the chocolate, the glossy shine. Rub your thumb over the chocolate bar to release the aromas of smoked applewood bacon flirting with deep milk chocolate. Snap off just a tiny piece and place it in your mouth, let the lust of salt and sweet coat your tongue.

They conclude rather more pragmatically with the words “Consume within eight weeks.”

A providential Sunday afternoon

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Yesterday afternoon I went to work. Yes, that’s too bad. But if I had not gone to work, I would not have been in downtown Ottawa. And when the reminder (bing!) of the conclusion of 40 Days of Life came up, I might have said–it’s too far away, I’m not going.

I might not have met, then, with about one thousand others, standing silently in the cold night with candles outside the Bank Street abortion clinic at six pm last night.

The long procession wound it’s way in complete silence to St. Pat’s church on Kent. There will be no room for wondering about how many came, because the church was full. So however many people fit into St. Pat’s–that’s how many came out to stand up for an end to abortion at the Bank Street clinic, in Ottawa, in Canada.

There’s a strength and a peace in silent protest, in the unity of people, young, old, families–shuffling forward. And the Mass inside the church was beautiful–guitar music and singing, a call for humility, for continued prayers to end abortion, and a welcome for all who are not Catholic. (Speaking as one of those, I did feel welcome.)

This was an encouraging event. (Interesting, as a small aside, was the man wearing a large Barack Obama t-shirt, with a cross around his neck, too. I think he was making some sort of point.)

And the point of my story, is, of course, that we should all work on Sundays. Ok, not really. My point is that we should, at least in small moments, feel hopeful because an end to abortion is possible.

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Andrea updates: Fair report of the event, here.

A change in our attitudes toward disability

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This story from the UK highlights how a woman felt after she aborted her first pregnancy, because of a diagnosis of Trisomy 13. She regrets her actions, and I’m sorry about that, and I do feel for her. But of equal interest to me is the societal implications–where I believe she is correct:

But the real issue is that ordinary society has changed in its attitude towards disability. After all, antenatal testing (and its consequences) is now so commonplace and standardised that when it was revealed last month that a new blood test has been developed to detect Down’s syndrome – the most common form of trisomy- the news was greeted with seemingly universal delight.

I often am forced to convince on this point: Why would a private decision–abortion–affect anyone else?

It does–it changes the community we live in, visually, because we see fewer different people. It changes our attitudes all told toward pregnancy, too, not just disability. (But that fundamental change has already occurred.)

The gloves come off

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The kid-glove jargon, I mean. Usually the pro-choice side is very careful to focus on the whole “my body – my choice” point of view. Abortion is meant to terminate pregnancy, they say. They argue that a woman should not be forced to remain pregnant.

But Obama cuts through that rhetoric, shall we say. And in so doing, he makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. (In a bad way, for all those left wondering.)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZF-_EZ8mb0]

One more thought: If a baby is not the correct “punishment” for a mistake, is an abortion?

Knock me over with a feather

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I really like Licia Corbella. And I’m not going to stop liking her. But I heartily disagree with this column, slamming McCain mainly because of his choice of Palin for running mate.

It is more than that, though, she likes Obama’s rhetoric:

But it’s not just McCain’s negatives that lead to an endorsement of Obama. If the pen really is mightier than the sword, then how and what a leader says is of great importance in a world filled with bloodthirsty, warmongering men. Obama’s pen isn’t just mightier than a sword, it is a howitzer to the heart.

Critics of Obama keep saying his words are indeed beautifully delivered, but when they are dissected, they don’t say much. What is it, I am asked, besides his words that makes me think he deserves to hold the most trying and important public office in the world? Well, what else does any other politician offer, but words? Problems and ideas have to be articulated before they can be solved or brought to life.

So when it comes right down to it, Licia likes Obama’s proposed policies, as much as she dislikes Palin. Which makes her reason for hoping Obama wins twofold, actually. Is it really about Palin, or just support for Obama? Which would be fine, if still surprising to me, from her.

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Rebecca adds: I just don’t understand the dislike so many conservatives seem to feel for Palin. She’s not highly polished, nor at the very top of her game in foreign policy, but until two months ago it wasn’t her job to be – she’d probably be remiss as governor of Alaska if she’d spent her time studying counterinsurgency and guerilla warfare and diplomacy. If she’d been grooming herself for the job for decades she’d know it, but I see it as a plus that she hasn’t been.

She’s 44, has 5 kids, is a governor, seems to have a happy marriage, lives her values, and has an approval rating of 80% in Alaska, which is always impressive, I don’t care how small the state is. (Not many Canadian premiers are that popular.) Why aren’t more people, but especially women, admiring of that, even if they don’t agree with her completely on policy?

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Andrea found another naysayer: Mark Milke writes here about all the bad choices, but starts with Palin, this also at the Calgary Herald.  I like his concluding assessment, however, because lets face it, love her or hate her, Palin ain’t running for President. So Milke rightly concludes with an assessment of Obama:

Similar to Carter, Obama thinks differences between nations are often about misunderstandings. The remedy for that is communication. But the divide between nations is more often about differences in real interests. Such interests can occasionally be bridged (Carter, in one of his rare successes, brokered the Israeli-Egypt peace accord) but not without first recognizing what is at the core of disputes.

This is why French president Nicholas Sarkozsky has been privately critical of Obama on Iran. The Israelis leaked Sarkozsky’s musings and they’re not positive: the French president apparently views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and sees Obama’s rhetoric as “empty of all content.” Sarkozsky is worried that once in power, Obama might break the united front on Iran which now exists among the UN’s five Security Council members by starting an Iran-America dialogue without preconditions.

If Obama believes international differences are more ephemeral than real, then he and the world are in for a rude shock when the realities of different interests are again made obvious. The Democratic Party’s protectionist bent combined with Obama’s foreign affairs naïveté has ramifications for Canada, and for the current sweet hope many Canadians have for the Obama presidency.

The few words I bolded remain my gravest concern about Barack Obama–yes, on par with his views on life. Because you can’t resolve global problems if you don’t understand what they are. That’s where hypocrisy has taken hold, largely in the media. Because a woman who is not running for President is being torn to shreds for a naivete that will in two days be the norm in the White House.

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Rebecca adds: Mr. Crittenden chimes in, and largely gets it right:

As readers of this space know, I have been very critical of the selection of Sarah Palin. Yet I do not regard her as a reason to cast aside the principles of my life on voting day. She may not bring much knowledge to this ticket. Yet she is obviously no fool. Indeed, using the favored metric of Joe Biden (”I think I have a higher IQ than you”), my guess is that she would probably outscore the Democratic vice presidential candidate on a standardized aptitude test. To his credit, Biden has conscientiously worked to familiarize himself with the great questions of national policy. To her discredit, Palin has not. But on Tuesday, I will trust that she can learn. She has governed a state – and she did risk her career by defying the corrupt leaders of the Alaska Republican party.”

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Andrea chortles: “Mr. Crittenden.” Good one.  (Readers should be aware if they aren’t already that David Frum and Danielle Crittenden are married.)

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