Over at The Anchoress, her commentators are vigorously tearing into Barry Petersen. For some reason I cannot embed the video, so here’s the story.
Mr. Petersen’s wife, Jan, suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. She’s only in her mid fifties and can no longer recognize him when he comes to visit. He has since moved in with a widow who helps care for Jan.
Most of the commentators over at the Anchoress seem infuriated about Mr. Petersen, while Rod Dreher’s seem more understanding. I’ve no idea what I’d do in if in Mr. Petersen’s shoes. But if I ever become crippled with Alzheimer’s, my future spouse has my permission to move on. When seeing me causes those who love me pain, they are free to stop seeing me. With improvements in technology, Jan Petersen could well be alive for another three decades. That’s a long time to be such a cross to bear. Were I in her shoes, I would not wish to be such a burden on somebody.
Hubbard posted this at 10:18 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Faith
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In terms of glorious viciousness in honesty, it’s hard to top Radley Balko on the passing of Senator Robert Byrd:
So if I’m correctly reading the various tributes to Sen. Robert Byrd floating around the web this morning, I’m supposed to celebrate how the man atoned for his bigotry earlier in life by devoting the rest of his life to public service . . . where he used other people’s money to build monuments to himself.
I take that back. There’s the following quote from George Mason University Professor Don Boudreaux on Rep. Jack Murtha’s death which — surprise, surprise — I also found on Balko’s site:
If Mr. Murtha on his own had traveled the country picking pockets, robbing banks, and burgling houses, only to bring the booty back to western PA and share it with his friends, he would have been rightly despised as a common criminal. But because Mr. Murtha joined forces with persons having similarly questionable morals, who together pass off their thievery as “lawmaking,” he’s celebrated in your pages – celebrated for doing, save on a grander scale, exactly what common thieves do.
Ouch.
Tom posted this at 2:45 PM CDT on Monday, June 28th, 2010 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
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From the Boston Globe, this really is something directly out of Episode 507:
The Provincetown school system will revisit its controversial policy of making condoms available to all students, with no age restriction, after Governor Deval Patrick expressed concern yesterday that very young children would have access to them.
A day after the new policy caused a media firestorm, School Committee chairman Peter Grosso said that Provincetown would probably limit condoms to fifth-graders and older. His stance stemmed from a conversation he had with Superintendent Beth Singer, author of the rule set to take effect this fall.
“She said the School Committee is going to have to revisit the policy and definitely reword it so it’s self-explaining, and possibly wording it so that maybe there would be an exclusion of the real young grades,’’ Grosso said.
Provincetown is, of course, somewhat what Massachusetts is to the rest of the country. But still…
Tom posted this at 12:48 PM CDT on Friday, June 25th, 2010 as Edjamacation, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Wicked Crazy Massachusetts
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From Commentary:
Charleston, South Carolina, was the cradle of the Confederacy. And come next January, barring unforeseen developments, it and the rest of the 1st District will have a black Congressman for the first time since Reconstruction. Tim Scott defeated Paul Thurmond for the Republican nomination last night, and the district has been a safe Republican seat since 1981. It wasn’t even close, with Scott trouncing Strom Thurmond’s son by 61 to 39 percent.
That a black man could beat the son of the legendary segregationist so badly in a district where the Civil War began — the district where Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861 — is a measure of just how much the South has changed in the last 50 years, and the country’s politics and race relations along with it.
But assuming Scott is elected, he needn’t apply for membership in the Congressional Black Caucus, of course. It’s a measure of how little the left in American politics has changed in the last 50 years that the Black Caucus — devoted to race-based politics and victimology — admits only liberal Democratic members.
Hubbard posted this at 3:54 PM CDT on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 as Politics, The Past Is Never Dead--It Isn't Even Past
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This speech from Jeff Sessions puts Elena Kagan’s expulsion of military recruiters from Harvard in a context I had not thought of:
Around the same time Ms. Kagan was campaigning to exclude military recruiters—citing what she saw as the evils of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell—Harvard University accepted $20 million from a member of the Saudi Royal family to establish a center for Islamic Studies in his honor.
A recent Obama State Department report concerning Saudi Arabia and Islamic Shari’a law noted that:
“Under Shari’a as interpreted in [Saudi Arabia] sexual activity between two persons of the same gender is punishable by death or flogging.”
Ms. Kagan was perfectly willing to obstruct the U.S. military—which has liberated countless Muslims from the hate and tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.
But it seems she sat on the sidelines as Harvard created an Islamic Studies Center funded by—and dedicated to—foreign leaders presiding over a legal system that violates what would appear to be her position.
Perhaps she would have let military recruiters on campus if they gave her $20 million?
Apollo posted this at 8:44 PM CDT on Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Kulturkampf, Running with the antelope, Veiled Threats
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Today’s most multicultural moment? A Vietnamese-American Congressman representing a majority-black district advises oil executives that they might want to commit Japanese ritual suicide, like they would in “the Asian culture.”
If the game is “Asian Culture Mashups,” I’d like to play. After the suicides, the executives’ wives should be burnt, and their children should study very hard and become doctors. That’s how Asians would roll.
Apollo posted this at 4:40 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 as Amer-I-Can!, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
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I’m a bit rusty on my quantum mechanics, but I think they just figured out inertial dampeners.
Warp Drive is only a few decades away.
Jamie posted this at 3:51 PM CDT on Monday, June 14th, 2010 as Science!
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No.
Update:
What’s harder to read than Bill’s wounded self-righteousness? The starry-eyed vapidity of his biggest cheerleader.
Geoff posted this at 12:06 PM CDT on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 as Faith
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Helen Thomas deserves everything she’s getting, but this bit from Lanny Davis is a neat reminder that there are some people who, even when right, can never manage to be correct:
However, her statement that Jews in Israel should leave Israel and go back to Poland or Germany is an ancient and well-known anti-Semitic stereotype of the Alien Jew not belonging in the “land of Israel” — one that began 2,600 years with the first tragic and violent diaspora of the Jews at the hands of the Romans.
Republican Romans heeped much unjustified scorn on the monarchs, but I’m not sure even Brutus himself ever accused the kings of kicking the Jews out of Israel.
Apollo posted this at 12:31 AM CDT on Monday, June 7th, 2010 as Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!, Running with the antelope
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How stupid was McCartney’s Bush bashing?
After the last eight years, it’s great to have a President who knows what a library is.
Of all the possible idiotic Bush is Stupid comments, I think this is the most idiotic yet. Why? First, As Human Events points out, W had two degrees, which is exactly two more than McCartney. More fundamentally:
Not to mention Bush is married to a librarian.
P.S. At what point in the future will “the last eight years” not refer to the Bush presidency? W was only president for 6.5 of the last 8 years. And when discussing fault for current problems, it never dawns on anyone that Democrats have now been in control of Congress for almost four years. I suspect that in the mid-2020s we will still hear “the last eight years” used to describe the Bush presidency.
Apollo posted this at 9:37 PM CDT on Friday, June 4th, 2010 as George Bush Rules!, Pop Culture Is Filth
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