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Obama Abolishes President’s Council on Bioethics
...with one day’s notice. I actually have no problem with this, except for the the lack of notice. A couple of reports--including a great one on organ markets--were about to be issued, and there was one more meeting scheduled for next week. In the gracious letter terminating my appointment, I’m reassured that "President Obama recognizes the value of having a commission composed on experts on bioethical issues to provide objective and non-ideological advice to his Adminstration." I’m also aware that those are three shots at members like me--mere faith-based amateur ideologues. This would be a great day for you to review the accomplishments of the Kass/Pellegrino Council at bioethics.gov.
Posted by Peter Lawler | Link to this Entry | Comments [21] | 6/17/2009 1:25 PM
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The President’s universalism
Reacting to the Iran elections, President Obama said: "That is not how governments should interact with their people. And my hope is that the Iranian people will make the right steps in order for them to be able to express their voices, to express their aspirations."
Good to see that he’s not a multiculturalist.
Posted by Richard Adams | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 6/16/2009 8:28 PM
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The City on a Hill in Action?
Might it be that Obama’s election helped to inspire the dissenters in Iran? Most Iranians, from what I read, believe that all countries rig their elections. The election of Obama disproves that thesis. Is Obama’s election, therefore, one of the things that has inspired the reaction we’re seeing in Iran?
If memory serves, during the Cold War, some of our enemies would show their own people news footage of demonstrations against the US government. They would say the US is so bad, that even Americans don’t like it. Sometimes, the audience reacted differently: Americans are allowed to protest without being shot?
Posted by Richard Adams | Link to this Entry | Comments [7] | 6/16/2009 8:01 PM
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More Studies . . .
Dogs are smarter than cats. It seems they can’t get a grasp on the concept of cause and effect in quite the same degree that a dog can. Cats could not get their treats in a consistent manner if there was a specific task involved in the getting of the treat. But cat owners know--as do dog owners who will not have cats--that the difference may only be that a cat prefers to be served. Of course, the researcher has practical wisdom. He would not say that dogs are smarter than cats . . . he would only say that cats are "just different."
Posted by Julie Ponzi | Link to this Entry | Comments [3] | 6/16/2009 7:39 PM
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The Good Ole’ Gals Network?
This is just funny. Sotomayor is defending her membership in an elite all women’s club by saying that she is unaware of any discrimination against any men who wanted to join. That is a stupid defense. Why not just ask what’s wrong with a women’s club? Republicans in the Senate: yes, we get the irony. We get the joke. We see the hypocrisy. Yes, if she were a conservative man belonging to a men’s only club (are there still any left?), there would be an infernal cry raised up to the heavens and angry feminists everywhere would raise their fists in sisterhood. The prophet Obama would be forced to revise his prophecy. But picking on Sotomayor for this won’t do. It is barking up the wrong tree. Sotomayor’s most vocal supporters don’t believe that women can be sexist any more than minorities can be racist . . . and normal people don’t see anything wrong with single-sex institutions when freely chosen. So the way to demonstrate the absurdity of the PC disapproval for men’s clubs is to embrace the good of women’s clubs. There should be more people, not fewer, who are happy to claim membership in single-sex organizations and celebrate their freedom of association and assembly.
Posted by Julie Ponzi | Link to this Entry | Comments [7] | 6/16/2009 6:58 PM
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Shameless Self-Promotion
It’s not to late to sign up to see and hear ME, Dr. Pat Deneen, and others this Saturday in Seattle.
Posted by Peter Lawler | Link to this Entry | Comments [2] | 6/16/2009 6:26 PM
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Perpetual Manned Flight?
The human mind is something, isn’t it? A new solar powered aircraft prototype will be unveiled on the 26th, with the first test flight later this year. If it works another version will be built and then fly at 10,000 meters and will be flown around the world. Short article worth reading.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [2] | 6/16/2009 1:05 PM
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Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss? During the Bush Administration, Democrats raised concerns about the ways in which political concerns could affect social service programs and about the allegedly improper firing of federal prosecutors (who, unlike the Inspectors General, actually do serve at the pleasure of the President). Where’s the outrage here? A search of the WaPo site turns up three Associated press articles, but no original reportage. I couldn’t find anything in the New York Times. Guess we’ll just have to take the President’s word for it. Our leading media outlets certainly aren’t acting as vigorously in pursuit of the whole story as they did when a Republican occupied the Oval office. Update: Here are the first bits of more or less independent WaPo reportage, as well as a
Washington Times editorial.
Posted by Joseph Knippenberg | Link to this Entry | Comments [4] | 6/16/2009 12:24 PM
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Today’s RAT CHOICE THEORY
"IT is easier to demonstrate for the rights and freedoms of one’s own group than to practice in daily iving the discipline of freedom and the patience of love for those who suffer, or, indeed, to bind oneself tosuch service for the whole of one’s life, with the concomitant renunciation of a great part of one’s own individual freedoms. It is noticeable that the motivating force to serve in the Church, too, has clearly become decisively weakened: there are scarcely any vocations now for Orders that dedicate themselves to caring for the sick and the elderly. One prefers to work in more ’pastorally’ ambitious services. But what is in fact more truly ’pastoral’ than the unpretnetious existence at the service of those who suffer? No matter how important the professional qualification for these services is, without a deep moral and religious foundation, they congeal into mere technology and no longer perform what is critical in human terms." [Ratzinger, "Faith’s
Answer to the Crisis of Values," A TURNING POINT FOR EUROPE?, pp. 26-27]
So one of the most important downsides of modern liberalism--or our inability to keep Locke in a Locke box--is the devaluing of voluntary caregiving. (Thanks to Paul Seaton for sending this quote to me.)
Posted by Peter Lawler | Link to this Entry | Comments [10] | 6/16/2009 10:52 AM
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Palin Problems
I confess that I have only watched the Palin/Letterman flap from a distance. But the longer it goes on, the more comfortable I am about that distance. Dennis Miller made a fantastic point yesterday on his radio show when he suggested: 1. Palin should be addressing world leaders and world events, not the likes of David Letterman if she means to be taken as a serious person. 2. This is not to say that Letterman’s joke was not in extremely poor taste or that it did not merit a response from the Palin family . . . but defending the honor of daughters against brutes like Letterman is something that is really more suited to purview of a father. Where is Todd? If HE had taken this on as the patriarch of the Palin family, I think Miller is right in thinking that the public reaction to it would have been a lot different than it has been to the reactions an angry (even if justly angry) mother. 3. Conservatives carrying on about this and calling for the resignation or firing of David Letterman are wasting their time and not doing themselves any favors. 4. Children are a mother’s most pliable soft-spot . . . mothers who want to be on the national stage in politics should not allow themselves to get played like this . . . especially by so minor and insignificant a figure.
Posted by Julie Ponzi | Link to this Entry | Comments [17] | 6/16/2009 10:16 AM
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Ahmadinejad Really Won
...according to George Friedman. I know George isn’t always right, but this analysis does right true. We’re stuck with a democratically elected anti-liberal, who rules the countryside with his promotion of piety, his opposition to (urban and urbane) corruption, and his tough stand on national security. Listen, I’m not expert, and so if this analysis is wrong, I want to know.
Posted by Peter Lawler | Link to this Entry | Comments [8] | 6/16/2009 10:19 AM
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Cheap Federalist
A guy in Indiana bought a first edition of the Federalist at a flea market for seven bucks (the first volume of two) in 1990 and is now selling it at auction.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [4] | 6/16/2009 8:59 AM
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Iran: What Could Be Going on Behind the Scenes?
My first inclination is to say that Obama’s reaction to the Iranian election and its aftermath is pathetic and shameful. Can anyone doubt that if this scene were, say, the South Africa of 1985, Obama and his administration would be extremely vocal in denouncing it?
On the other hand. . . Congress has supposedly made some serious appropriations over the last few years, mostly to the CIA, to assist an Iranian opposition. Is it possible that some of the dissident activity we are seeing is the fruit of this work? Although the Iranian government is shutting off cell phone service and internet sites (along with TV and radio, the first stop for tyrants in a pinch), apparently Twitter and other new means are allowing some organization of the opposition to continue. Could we and European allies have been helpful in arranging this? In which case, some discrete silence from Obama would be sensible?
I’m doubtful, but as a number of folks have drawn comparisons to Pres. George H.W. Bush’s muted reaction to the Berlin Wall coming down 20 years ago, and his subsequent "Chicken Kiev" speech, we learned only much later that there were good diplomatic and political reasons for these seemingly weak public positions that later played out to everyone’s advantage.
David Tucker, would you care to weigh in on the scene?
Posted by Steven Hayward | Link to this Entry | Comments [12] | 6/15/2009 7:08 PM
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This Is For Lawler
Bumper sticker, spotted today in the District, on the back of a GMC Suburban:
"I’d Rather Be Reading Flannery O’Connor."
Hope, after all.
Posted by Steven Hayward | Link to this Entry | Comments [2] | 6/15/2009 7:03 PM
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Diplomatic History declining
This won’t come as a shock to anyone, but the NY Times reports that diplomatic (also military, constitutional) history is declining and has been replaced by cultural history, women, minorities, immigrants, etc. Sample:
"How have some departments sliced up the pie? At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, out of the 45 history faculty members listed (many with overlapping interests), one includes diplomatic history as a specialty, one other lists American foreign policy; 13 name either gender, race or ethnicity. Of the 12 American-history professors at Brown University, the single specialist in United States empire also lists political and cultural history as areas of interest. The department’s professor of international studies focuses on victims of genocide."
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [6] | 6/15/2009 4:22 PM
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The Dilemma of Vampires
...may, thanks to regenerative medicine, face us all soon enough, as I explain HERE.
Posted by Peter Lawler | Link to this Entry | Comments [13] | 6/15/2009 1:33 PM
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The Error of Big Government
Yesterday’s NY Times has an interesting article about the dangers inherent in recent efforts to mitigate the financial crisis:
Executives and lobbyists now flock to the Fed, providing elaborate presentations on why their niche industry should be eligible for Fed financing or easier lending terms.
Hertz, the rental car company, enlisted Stuart E. Eizenstat, a top economic policy official under Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, to plead with both Fed and Treasury officials to relax the terms on refinancing rental car fleets.
Lawmakers from Indiana, home to dozens of recreational-vehicle manufacturers like Gulfstream and Jayco, have been pushing for similar help for the makers of campers, trailers and mobile homes.
And when recreational boat dealers and vacation time-share promoters complained that they had been shut out of the credit markets, Senator Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida, weighed in on their behalf with the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, who promised he would take up the matter with the Fed. . . .
Read the whole thing.
Update, here’s the link.
Posted by Richard Adams | Link to this Entry | Comments [16] | 6/14/2009 6:14 PM
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