A reader writes:
In Muslim countries, guess what they call Islamists?
Islamists. ("Islamiyyin")
In response to those offended by the term Christianists, all I can say is that they can all be proud that they are the first segment of the West to be outpaced by Muslims in honest political/religious dialogue in centuries.
My theory is pure, cynical expediency. He needs the Christianist vote to win the nomination. But there is another possible explanation: the Mormon church altered its position in the last decade and has become one of the most viciously anti-gay marriage organizations in America. I knew of the millions they have poured into anti-gay marriage initiatives. But an LDS reader fills in more history:
You’re right: Romney’s changed position about protecting the civil rights of gays and gay domestic partnerships is NOT a cave-in to Christianists. Instead these are a reflection of his being a devote LDS Mormon. When Romney voiced his earlier stances back in the mid-90’s, the LDS had not become active in its political battle against same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships. At that time most educated, urban LDS Mormons I knew had a "live and let live" attitide toward same-sex marriage and partnerships – even while believing that the "practice" of homosexuality was a sin. All that changed around 1997 when the LDS Church began to join the battle against gay unions of any sort.
A good friend of mine in NYC was an emotional mess when the LDS Church asked her to accept an "assignment" to begin networking with other groups – religious and political – to lobby against legislation that would legalize same-sex unions of any sort. This "assignment" came directly from LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. My friend was told that although this was NOT a Church "calling" (which would imply that the LDS Church was involved in politics), she could nevertheless use LDS Church buildings for meetings, could use LDS Church office supplies and that she could ask her local LDS Church priesthood leaders (bishops, stake presidents, etc.) for advice and help if she needed it. The purpose of labeling this activity an "assignment" instead of a "calling," was to give the impression that she was more or less acting on her own as a concerned citizen and that the LDS Church was merely supportive of her efforts.
Romney is now the most public member of one of the most famous LDS families in the world. He is going to "follow the counsel of the Brethren" (do as he is told) on most issues – especially those that the LDS Brethren have made their central focus over the past decade. Among those issues, homosexuality is now number one.
So he’s obeying his church. That would explain the shift on gay relationships. It doesn’t explain the ENDA flip-flop, though.
Rich Lowry uses the "f-f word" to describe Romney. Not all of the Corner writers are as intellectually dishonest as David Frum.
Rather than defend Mitt Romney’s inexplicable u-turn on gay rights (because he can’t), David Frum tries to make the issue about me. Power Line piles on. Surprise! Whenever neocons have to defend the indefensible, they attack the enemy as a form of distraction. But they’re both factually wrong and need to issue a correction. Frum cites my own long-held opposition to employment discrimination laws, as reiterated in Virtually Normal and more recently in the Advocate, a position that does not exactly endear me to the gay establishment. Then he claims I have recanted this. But I have never recanted this as such (and didn’t today), although I have given up fighting actively against ENDA, because the principle of non-discrimination is so widespread, exempting only gays from it seems a somewhat quixotic crusade. Meanwhile, the priorities I have long argued for – marriage and military service – have indeed become central to the struggle for gay equality, and so, in many ways, the central argument in Virtually Normal won out. I wanted to focus on the way the government discriminates against gay citizens, not the private sector. And that should hardly surprise anyone given my libertarian leanings.
But, to repeat: I haven’t recanted anything on ENDA. I was never for it. I’m still not. Mine is a lost cause, as a huge majority of Americans support it, every other minority has employment non-discrimination rights, and only a handful of gays agree with me. So I have reconciled myself to its inevitability, but won’t support it. If I were in Congress, I’d vote against it. No flip-flop here. But both Frum and Mirengoff ignore the central question. My point is that Romney specifically cited ENDA as federal legislation he once supported and now doesn’t. The question is: why? Frum is uninterested in Rommey’s answer. Another surprise.
How dare Michael Crichton insult Michael Crowley’s manhood? By heterosexual standards, Crowley can swing with the best of ’em.
James Wood is brilliant. And it shows.
"I think we’ll see less of him than ever. Iraq is now Bush’s baby, and Cheney doesn’t want to be tarred with it in the eyes of historians," – an anonymous former associate who worked closely with Cheney for years, in U.S. News.
A well-endowed nerd writes:
Of course I am pleased by this result but the statistical part of my brain is more skeptical. One concern is that the sample sizes for homosexuals and heterosexuals are quite different. If the distributions are positively skewed (fewer observations on the positive end of the distribution, sigh) then it’s possible that the higher mean in the smaller sample is an artifact of the distribution. It would be nice to know if this result holds when equating for sample size, or when calculating medians. I didn’t see any note of this in the manuscript. Can your readers help?
I have long been mesmerized by Michel Gondry’s astonishingly elaborate and imaginative music videos for Bjork, Chemical Brothers, Kylie, et al. Their astonishing complexity and choreography – without CGI, for the most part – suggest a mind capable of almost autistic genius. Well, here’s some more proof. Gondry solves a Rubiks cube in this video in two minutes. With his feet. Enjoy:
(Hat tip: Jump Cuts.)
It’s an interesting concept and this reader thought of it reading this post yesterday on blogging:
The main components of ‘Lost Intimacy’ are ‘Forced Intimacy’ and ‘False Intimacy’. This phenomenon is something relatively new to our society and it’s a result of such things as the internet, instant information, blogs, tabloid and tabloid journalism and the culture of celebrity among other things.
Something about your post reminded me of this idea and it’s one of the reasons I can’t really bring myself to become a blogger – even though I find them fascinating. The fact of the matter is, I don’t want to become that "intimate" with people I don‚Äôt really know. And I take your comment that you DO feel very close to your readers, and that is very commendable, but my question to you is: Isn’t it a false intimacy? Granted, one can become ‘intimate’ with a person through a series of letters while never actually ‘meeting’ that person physically ‚Äì history is filled with such literary dalliances ‚Äì but even those relationships I would call a ‘false intimacy’.
I posted on a blog site once and challenged everyone as to why they were being so insulting and calling each other names and told them they would never use such language if they were in the physical presence of that person. To a man they pretty much agreed. They were, in my opinion, caught in a ‘false intimacy’ with each other.
The internet has allowed rampant ‘false intimacy’ and it is slowly being taken for ‘true intimacy’, that coupled with the ‘forced intimacy’ of all the other media and cell phones and blackberrys that hail down on us endlessly, I believe, has beget ‘lost intimacy’ and may in the long run become ‘the death of intimacy’.
I wouldn’t call the intimacy that a blog creates between a blogger and readers "false". There are about a dozen readers whom I have really gotten to know over the years and correspond with often. I feel I know them. I rarely meet them, but when I did recently in L.A., it was a delight. The physical meeting merely solidified a virtual friendship that was real.
But then there’s the geniune false intimacy in which I think I know someone like Glenn Reynolds and even call him by his first name, but I’ve only ever met him once. In that sense, I’d say my sense of intimacy isn’t false. Rather, I am genuinely intimate with a persona – "Instapundit" – rather than a person – "Glenn Reynolds." That’s why I really don’t take blog-flames and personal insults personally. Because they are directed at the blogger me, not the full me. The flamers are intimate with the mask all writing demands. Occasionally, I realize how false the mask can be. Some people I’ve met who only know me from the blog are surprised that I come off rather differently in person. The intimacy they felt from the blog was merely with the persona, not the person.
As for forced intimacy, I couldn’t agree more. I routinely remove phones from their jacks and rarely answer my own cell-phone. I use it almost entirely for out-calls and meeting up at airports and the like. I’m amazed by how many people have become slaves to their devices and to the needs and demands of strangers and friends. These are just my impressions. I’m sure readers have other ones.
The Dish 