The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

More Sex, Less Babies?

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 24 Comments

Reader Matt K. calls to my attention the compare-and-discuss juxtaposition of two items at Instapundit. Item One:

NOT SURE THIS APPLIES IF YOU’RE MARRIED: How the ‘price’ of sex has dropped to record lows.“Women are jumping into the sack faster and with fewer expectations about long-term commitments than ever, effectively discounting the ‘price’ of sex to a record low, according to social psychologists.”

Item Two:

PHILLIP LONGMAN: Actually, The Children Aren’t The Future: The World Will Be More Crowded — With Old People.“The U.N. now projects that over the next 40 years, more than half (58 percent) of the world’s population growth will come from increases in the number of people over 60, while only 6 percent will come from people under 30. Indeed, the U.N. projects that by 2025, the population of children under 5, already in steep decline in most developed countries, will be falling globally — and that’s even after assuming a substantial rebound in birth rates in the developing world. A gray tsunami will be sweeping the planet.”

(Emphasis added.) What I see here, as a pro-life father of six children, is how the economics of sex and reproduction have been distorted by the Contraceptive Culture.

Perhaps you see something else in this Rorshach inkblot test.

ADDENDUM: To explain what I mean by “the economics of sex and reproduction,” this phrase doesn’t refer strictly to monetary values, but rather expresses an understanding of the processes of sexual behavior from a market perspective.

The old saying that a man will not “buy a cow if he’s getting the milk for free” — i.e., that promiscuous women undermine their marital prospects — expresses this supply-and-demand concept of sex. But the truth of this adage an individual basis can also be extrapolated to the larger society: When women are generally promiscuous, men will be generally reluctant to marry.

This explains why, in every culture, sluts are stigmatized. The rational basis of what feminists derogate as misogynistic “slut-shaming” is seldom articulated, but it is this: Promiscuous women make it more difficult for all women — including chaste women — to get and keep a husband.

As female promiscuity flourishes, the incentives for men to enter into and remain in monogamous relationships are diminished. Furthermore, the men for whom monogamy is most discouraged by widespread female promiscuity are the men most desireable as husbands. Affluent, confident, attractive men — Alpha males — are those whom women commonly dream of marrying, but in a society that tolerates (or even encourages) female promiscuity, such men are also magnets for tramps, floozies and bimbos.

Because these Alpha males never lack opportunities for low-investment sex in a promiscuous society, more chaste women find themselves under pressure to “put out” if they wish to attract the interest of a successful man. And even if a woman can manage to land a real “catch” of a husband in such a society, his fidelity is always jeopardized by the floozies, who don’t give a damn whether their one-night-stand is married or not.

This unfortunate situation is an inexorable consequence of the Contraceptive Culture, which hurts women far more than it hurts men, although ironically it is feminists who most zealously defend the Contraceptive Culture.

Contraception transforms the nature of the sexual act and, as contraception becomes a routine matter, the ways in which we think about sex — that is to say, our cultural expectations — are likewise transformed. Because cultural expectations are seldom examined in any genuinely objective way, most people never question the assumptions of their own cultures. And when you try to explain to such people that life can be lived in other ways, they often become angry and irrational, as if you had insulted them. And speaking of feminists . . .

Feminists are not the only “progressives” who lack the curiosity to question whether any particular element of their political agenda is genuinely “progress.” But offending feminists is just so much fun that I can seldom resist the temptation of pointing out their errors.

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Category: Contraceptive Culture, Feminism, Instapundit, Sex

Politics as Show Biz

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 29 Comments

“Hours before last week’s presidential debate in Orlando, [Fox News] anchors sat in a cavernous back room, hunched over laptops, and plotted how to trap the candidates. Chris Wallace said he would aim squarely at Rick Perry’s weakness: ‘How do you feel about being criticized by some of your rivals as being too soft on illegal immigration? Then I go to Rick Santorum: is Perry too soft?’
“ ‘That’s going to get some fireworks going,’ said managing editor Bill Sammon, grinning.”
— Howard Kurtz, “Roger’s Reality Show,” The Daily Beast

About 15 years ago, I read two excellent books by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and The Disappearance of Childhood. Postman was a liberal, but his analysis of the ways in which television shape our culture — including politics and education — was praised by many conservatives. When Postman died in 2003, it was an honor for me to be asked to write an obituary feature for the British Guardian:

Postman was a disciple of Marshall McLuhan, who famously declared that “the medium is the message”. He was appalled not so much by the specific content of television as by the very essence of the medium, which he saw as an enemy of literacy and serious thinking. Television, he wrote, “serves us most usefully when presenting junk entertainment; it serves us most ill when it coopts serious modes of discourse — news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion. We would all be better off if television got worse, not better.”

You can read the whole thing. My point in citing Postman today is that if you don’t learn to view television critically — if you don’t attempt to see the ways in which the medium dominates the message — then you will be manipulated without your consent or knowledge.

Postman repeatedly emphasized that we intellectually process the written word in a different way than we process the spoken word or especially the visual imagery of television, which is always a matter of show biz spectacle, for good or ill. People who obtain most of their political information through television will have entirely different beliefs and attitudes than do people who get their information from newspapers, magazines or books — or blogs, for that matter. (Postman also did some prescient debunking of fashionable nonsense about the wonders of the computerized “information revolution,” and if you want to think more deeply about that, I would also recommend The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts.)

Unless you actively seek out knowledge beyond the frame of the mainstream narrative, you are surrendering control to the producers of media — of whom, in some minor sense, I am one. What I have tried to do from time to time, as someone who has spent 25 years in the news business, is to de-mystify the media by explaining what goes on behind the scenes. Hell, I used to edit Bill Sammon’s articles at The Washington Times, which gives me rather an unusual perspective on Sammon’s work as executive editor at Fox News.

Sammon and the other people at Fox obviously understand the show-biz aspect of TV news and they are very good at it. Even when they are “fair and balanced,” the inherent bias of television toward visual spectacle — which is why Sammon grinned at the prospect that Mike Wallace’s question would “get some fireworks going” — shapes the nature of the information you receive.

Think about that. Hit my tip jar. And read more books.

UPDATE: While we’re on the topic of media analysis, here is a phenomenon that puzzles me. Three years ago, I sort of reverse-engineered the Memeorandum algorithm, which was the basis of Rule 3, a bit of knowledge I hope has helped other bloggers. It was via Memeorandum that I found this Kurtz item, but it’s also listed at the affiliated MediaGazer site:

Here’s what puzzles me: My posts are routinely linked at Memeorandum, but when I do media criticism, I’m never linked at MediaGazer. Look at some of the sites they include in the MediaGazer aggregation: Media Matters, HuffPo, Gawker, Mediaite, Washington Monthly, etc. How is it that I rank on Memeorandum with those sites when it comes to political commentary, but I don’t rank with them on MediaGazer?

Readers probably don’t give a damn about this kind of inside-baseball stuff, but in the eternal quest for more traffic, more influence and more money — because there are bills to be paid — shameless capitalism requires me to ponder these things.

Category: Books, Debates, Fox News, Media Bias, Rule 3

Herman Cain on Obama: ‘I’m Listening to All This Bulls–t That He’s Talking About’

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 30 Comments

The winner of the Florida straw poll gets “worked up” in an interview with my young friend Chris Moody:

After a few caffeine-heavy refills at our corner table, I asked him about President Obama’s new effort to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Cain just about blew a blood vessel–especially when I mentioned the part where Obama says it’s about “math” not “class warfare.”
“Can I be blunt? That’s a lie,” Cain said, before the sound of his voice began to rise noticeably higher. “You’re not supposed to call the president a liar. Well if you’re not supposed to call the president a liar, he shouldn’t tell a lie. If it’s not class warfare, it’s highway robbery. He wants us to believe it’s not class warfare, oh okay, it’s not class warfare. Pick my pockets, because that’s what he’s doing!”
Cain paused, took a breath and looked at me.
“I’m not mad at you, I just get passionate about this stuff,” he said. “I have to tell people because I get so worked up . . . . I’m listening to all this bulls–t that he’s talking about, ‘fairness’ and ‘balanced approach’ to get this economy going.”

Read the whole thing. Cain tells Moody that on two days, he thought about quitting the presidential race: “That’s how frustrating a campaign can be . . . But think about the number of days we’ve been on this campaign. Two ain’t that bad.”

There are times in life — and obviously, Herman Cain knows this very well — when survival is victory. He was counted out and ignored, and certainly it must have been discouraging. But he kept showing up, until he found himself at a proverbial intersection, as I explain in today’s American Spectator column:

What Herman Cain did in Orlando this weekend was both completely unexpected and entirely predictable. As late as Friday afternoon, none of the pundits expected the Atlanta businessman to win the Florida GOP’s “Presidency 5” straw poll. But if what it took to win was a dynamic speaker who could bring a roomful of grassroots Republicans to their feet, Cain’s victory was in some sense inevitable.

“Send Washington a message!” Cain thundered from the stage of the Orange County Convention Center, prompting one of seven standing ovations he received Saturday in his speech preceding the vote in which he stomped Texas Gov. Rick Perry so badly that the Republican front-runner may never recover.

Perry’s disastrous debate performance Thursday — in which he said opponents of college tuition subsidies for illegal immigrants “don’t have a heart” — was the precipitating event of Cain’s triumph. As the old saying goes, luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity, and Cain was perhaps uniquely prepared to take advantage of the opportunity Perry’s stumble presented. . . .

Please read the whole thing. We all must deal with discouragement, and Herman Cain’s persistence against the odds is an inspiring example.


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Category: Election 2012, Florida, Herman Cain

Shock And XAU

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 2 Comments

by Smitty (via Galt’s Girl)

It isn’t clear whether this will be more than a promotional stunt:

However, the Swiss Stock Exchange has not been deterred from new involvement with the yellow metal. Together with Scoach Switzerland, the stock exchange for structured products, the management has the plan to introduce the listing and trading of products in so-called XAU gold units – which have an exact value of one troy ounce of gold – in October. Gold will act just like a currency: paying the profits of investors from speculative transactions. The same applies if an investor had to pay the bill on losses from transactions in Swiss financial markets – in this case the difference could be offset in the form of gold. Investors who want to make use of the new gold currency must open an account with Swiss financial services provider Six Securities Services. All transactions made through this account will subsequently be calculated in the XAU gold units that work in the same way as any other paper currencies such as the US dollar or the euro.

If nothing else, this development may help that slow-learning head of the Federal Reserve figure out if gold is money.

Interesting times. We may need to End the Fed before the Fed ends us.

Category: End The Fed

The Saucy IowaHawk

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Past the humor, though, is the caution against loss of financial sovereignty. Or, perhaps, some encouragement for us to regain our own.

And, it looks as though the European Can Kicking Club is fastly, furiously doing what they do.

Category: humor

Underscoring The Wisdom Of The Founding Fathers

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 31 Comments

by Smitty

As we approach the endgame on this administration, the clear winners: the Founding Fathers, who recognized the frailties of human nature and poured so much wisdom into the Constitution.

The two-year turnover of the House of Representatives has done a marvelous job of checking the power of a President whose international credentials clearly mean he hasn’t had clue #1 about what really makes America tick. And tick off.

Jimmie Bise, amongst the mellowest fellows I’ve ever met, is Volcanically Pissed Off at the President’s antics in California:

I don’t like to use the word “lie” much when I write about politics, because the word has been so poorly-used by the left over the past eight years. In this case, however, I believe it is entirely warranted. Barack Obama said something he knew was not true. He did it intentionally and for his own personal political gain. What’s worse is that his lies were clumsy and delivered with all the political skill of a six-year old child explaining to his Mom that an invisible monster broke into the kitchen and stole the cookies from the jar.

Then again, consider the audience, and read the whole thing. Also take a glance at the Conservative Commune, who links Bise but offers a great deal more background on the President’s anti-American campaign.

Via WyBlog, Larry Jackson offers more background.

As of today, he is making a three-day campaign/fund raising swing on the West Coast, ending in Denver. He is going on the attack during this trip, pulling no punches.

Again, read the whole thing.

Now, the Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution that at least affords us the chance for something better. They knew, having just crawled out from under an authoritarian thumb, that a similar leader could arise in these United States.
Couple of points:

  • Don’t make it personal, no matter how personal the Bad Man gets. BHO is symptomatic, but he is not the disease. Merely voting him out does less good than you’d think.
  • Keep in mind: the problems are economic.US energy policy sucks, the monetary policy sucks even more, and the entitlement mentality has sapped the American zest for liberty to an alarming degree. You’ve had a Presidential candidate tell the truth about Social Security in a very big way, and now he’s being thrown under the bus. Can Americans handle the truth?

I think the country is still half-awake. The growing awareness of what is wrong is there. What is lacking is the leadership and guts to take the pain of correcting the mess.

You cannot take a moderate approach to cancer; hence the disquiet with the smooth-talking blue-state RINO possibilities for President. They either give good concession speech to BHO’s second term, or continue to expand the federal government, to the detriment of liberty.

We must restrain this federal government, as the Founders would have it.

Category: Barack Obama, Jimmie Bise Jr.

‘Any Real Chance’

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 24 Comments

“Pawlenty . . . is widely viewed as the only candidate in Thursday night’s Fox News debate with any real chance of becoming the nominee of his party or President of the United States.”
— Ben Smith, Politico, May 6

Seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? T-Paw was “the only candidate . . . with any real chance,” and Ben Smith didn’t even bother to name the other candidates in the Greeneville, S.C., debate. But the other four are all still running, while Tim Pawlenty quit the race six weeks ago.

One of those candidates with no “real chance” was Herman Cain, who stomped Pawlenty like Godzilla stomped Tokyo that May night in South Carolina. And it was Cain’s victory that was the first hint that maybe T-Paw didn’t have “any real chance” after all.

Nobody at that time expected that Pawlenty was on his way to presidential oblivion and now, in the wake of another Godzilla-style stomping by Cain, another “real chance” victim is in denial:

Perry is little more than a month into the race, his advisers say, and he has proven that his message can resonate powerfully. Their view is that unlike Mitt Romney, Perry still has plenty of room to grow his support.
“We will continue to take our message of being a consistent conservative, who has a proven record of creating jobs and fiscal discipline to Washington,” said Perry strategist Dave Carney, pointing out that Romney came in behind Perry in the straw poll.

Yeah, Dave: That message that conservatives “don’t have a heart” really did resonate powerfully. But let’s go back to June 9, right after Dave Carney quit Newt Gingrich’s campaign:

Dave Carney, the former senior aide to Newt Gingrich who is also an adviser to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, says his departure from the Gingrich camp is entirely unrelated to growing speculation about a possible Perry presidential bid.
“This is totally unrelated to Rick Perry,” he wrote in an email just now.

Yeah, Dave: Totally unrelated. Which is why, a mere five days later, you were at Rick Perry’s side when he arrived for a New York meeting with the Big Money boys.  Wonder what they those Wall Street guys think of their investment now that the first drafts of Perry’s political obituary are already online. Here’s Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post:

Perry’s debate debacle was not an isolated event. It simply crystallized the quietly expressed worries that he lacks serious ideas and the ability to advocate them. Reaction from operatives, officials and other GOP insiders ranged from disgust to dismay.

And by the way, to paraphrase Michele Bachmann’s new fund-raising appeal, if you don’t hit my tip jar, you don’t have a heart!




Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Media Bias

LIVE AT FIVE – 09.26.11

Posted on | September 26, 2011 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Hikers: “We Were Hostages”

Josh Fattal, center, talks to reporters as Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer look on

American hikers say they were held for purely political reasons

Following Palestinian Bid At UN, More Talk About Talks
Quartet powers nix statehood for Palestine

Saudi King Gives Women Right To Vote
Drivers’ licenses still not on



POLITICS
Mitt Romney Dominates Michigan Straw Poll

Stock photo for stock candidate

Poll of party activists gives 51% to Romney, 17% to Perry, 9% to Cain

No Progress From Congress On Keeping Government Open

Hezbollah Leader Could Get Stateside Military Tribunal

Conservative Protesters Outnumber President’s Supporters As Obama Makes Cash Run To Silicon Valley

Pew Media Study: People Relying Less On TV, More On Internet For Information

Jon Stewart To Host Ron Paul; Feels Candidate Hasn’t Gotten “Fair Share” Of Media Coverage



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Stocks, Euro, Oil, Gold All Slip On Caution About Europe Crisis Moves
After Three Years’ Delay, Boeing Dreamliner Becomes Reality
Merkel: “Barrier” Around Greece Needed
Wall Street Protesters Cuffed, Pepper Sprayed During March
Upside Of Crappy Economy: Lower Gas Prices
Apple Presses For Samsung Tablet Ban In Australia At Court
Amazon, B&N Tablets Next Up To Challenge iPad
“Oldest Running Car” A Steampunk Dream
31% Of Android Phone Users Eyeing Switch To iPhone



SPORTS
Red Sox Cling To Wild Card Lead After Extra-Inning Win In New York

Red Sox manager Terry Francona

Ellsbury delivers with game-winning homer in 14th, Sox win 7-4

Cardinals Beat Cubs 3-2, Pull Within 1 Game Of Braves

Angels Blow 3-Run Lead In Ninth, Fall 3 Games Behind Sox In Wild Card


Rays Defeat Blue Jays, Stay One Game Behind BoSox in Wild Card

Aggies Officially Join SEC As 13th Member

Surprising Bills Prove They’re For Real

Michael Vick Breaks Hand In Eagles’ Loss

Nationals Shut Out Braves In Final Home Game Of 2011, 3-0



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Molly Sims And Scott Stuber Tie The Knot

Molly Sims and Scott Stuber

Host of “Project Accessories” and producer of “Battleship” get hitched

Slimeball, Tattooed Lady Split Again

It’s A Boy For Ana Ortiz!

Funk Legend Sly Stone Now Homeless, Living Out Of A Van In LA

Jennifer Garner: “It Would Be So Weird To Have A Boy”

Lindsay Lohan Is The New Face Of Philipp Plein

Blake Lively Offered “Pride & Prejudice & Zombies”

Jonah Hill On “Moneyball”, Idolizing Joe Pesci, And Being All Grown Up

TMZ Live: Bristol Palin’s Heckler Ashamed Of Himself

Naomi Watts Opens Up About Her Relationship With Heath Ledger



FOREIGNERS
Pakistan Defies US, Refuses To Attack Haqqani Network
Libyan Rebels Enter Gaddafi’s Home Town Of Sirte
Afghans Arrest Conspirator In Rabbani Murder
Russian Finance Chief To Quit Over Military Budget
VA Surgeon, U. Miami Professor Die In Nepal Plane Crash
100,000 Pilgrims Turn Out For Final Mass Of Pope’s Germany Trip
French Left Takes Control Of Senate
100,000 Evacuated As Typhoon Nears Philippines
Jamaica PM Golding Resigning



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: The Revolution Does Not Appear To Be Brewing
Don Surber: Anti-Palin Books Bomb
Via Meadia: EU Deer Still Frozen In Truck Headlights
The Macho Response: Liberalism On The March Parade
Moe Lane: NYT Notices That Small Donors Aren’t Into Obama Right Now
Andrew Ferguson: Shovel-Ready Shibboleths
Eric Raymond: Community Versus Collectivism
Blackfive: SFC Alwyn C. Cashe
Conservative Commune: Thug Boy Reaches For Internet Control


SOTD: Multi-Family Garage Sale

Category: Live at Five
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