A Curious Little Blog

What is it with Qaddafi?  He's been dictator for over 40 years, and he's still only a colonel?  Did it never occur to him to promote himself to general? I enjoy issues like Libya -- not for their content (killing is bad), but because neither liberals nor conservatives have pre-conceived notions about what should happen.  Therefore, both sides are divided and everyone is scrambling to come up with a coherent position.  It gives everyone a chance to think, which is nice for a change.

I regret, in a way, that Terry Jones did not go through with his plan to burn the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11.  I normally prefer to avoid provocative gestures, but the overreaction to his announcement was so thorough that I found myself rooting for him to complete it.  It was hard, I imagine, for liberals to condemn him in good conscience, since they have such an absolute ideal of free speech that includes, even promotes, provocative gestures against Christianity; nevertheless, they did so.  Conservatives have long advocated positions of "you have a right to say it, but I don't think it a good idea" (along with "I don't think the government should fund you"), so I wasn't surprised to see them objecting.  I was surprised, however, at seeing Jones condemned so uniformly in such drastic language.  National Review was all over him, including editor Jonah Golberg, who called it "stupid, irresponsible, and repugnant." Let's think about i...

I don't try to be disagreeable, but I seem to come out on the minority side of issues an awful lot.  Two such issues came up in the past week, so I thought I would give my side of the story in both of them. The first is the article Portis voices ugliness in NFL culture by Dan Wetzel.  The issue concerns comments made by Redskins running back Clinton Portis about having a female sports reporter in the Redskins' locker room after a game.  After playing football for 3 hours and getting sweaty and dirty, the first thing players do in the locker room is get a shower and change into regular clothes.  Male reporters have been going into locker rooms for years to get interviews right after the game, but when female reporters started to enter the scene, some players objected.  This is not a new issue:  there was an incident back in 1990 involving the New England Patriots' locker room and tight end Zeke Mowatt .  Some Patriots' players complained that report...

My eldest son, who is 10, has become extremely intereted in professional wrestling.  This is bad for so many reasons.  Even the good guys on wrestling make terrible role models for the most part, especially the constant bragging and trash talk.  Even worse is the false idea of violence that wrestling gives.  I'm not opposed to violence in principle, but I don't want my son to think that you can hit someone over the head repeatedly with a blunt object and he will still be able to get back up a minute later to keep fighting.  I fear that such a false impression might cause someone to do permanent damage under the impression that he is just doing normal wrestling stuff. I also enjoyed professional wrestling when I was 10.  It's understandable at that age.  But when the camera pans around the audience and shows normal-looking adults in the audience, it concerns me.  I'm not sure which is worse:  that they think the fighting is real, or that, th...

One thing I look out for in politics is people saying something that makes no sense.  Okay, people say things that make no sense all the time, but I'm referring to an argument that becomes a stock political weapon in one side's arsenal.  To take an example, there is the idea that prohibiting gay marriage is contrary to the Constitution. I want to make it clear one can make a strong argument in favour of homosexual marriage.  I'm against it, but I see an argument on the other side and I'm willing, even interested, to engage in debate about it.  But for a judge to rule, as Vaughn Walker did recently, that not allowing homosexual marriages is a violation of constitutional rights, is contrary to all reason.  Until recently, no state in America had ever recognized homosexual marriages.  Wouldn't that mean, by Judge Walker's logic, that the entire country has been in violation of the Constitution for the entire history of our nation?  Or at least since the...

Since Democrats frequently accuse Republicans of "hate," I thought it would be appropriate to have a regular feature highlighting examples of Democrats demonstrating hate speech.  The qualifications are that the speech must use the word "hate" or some synonym, resort to non-political name-calling (i.e., calling someone an extreme conservative doesn't count, but calling him a jackass does), or wishing someone dead, injured, or humiliated. The first award goes to Democrat Keith Halloran, a candidate for New Hampshire's state assembly, for saying that he wished Sarah Palin was on board Ted Stevens's plane when it crashed .  To his credit, the state Democratic party leader denounced the comment and called on Halloran to apologize, which he apparently has not done as of this writing.

Since I was in elementary school, I have liked talk radio.  I can remember listening to sports talk radio as my dad drove me to school in 5th grade.  I was disappointed when the station announced that they were going to move to more music and less talk.  I do listen to music in the car sometimes, but I am drawn to talk, which engages me more directly. Unfortunately, there are two major problems with talk radio.  To become a talk show host, and spend hours every day telling people your opinion, you have to have a certain amount of ego.  (Arguably, this is true for blogging as well , but probably not to the same extent.)  Talk show hosts therefore tend to be insufferably self-centered.  I suppose that many people get into news because they, too, like to tell people what they think, but the dynamics aren't the same.  In news, you are basically paid to tell people what happened; you may do so in a very biased fashion, but you can't just...