Category: Old Dish

This is what early morning is like? The sleep study was fascinating. They basically stick electrodes all over your head and body, connect them to a little forest of wires, put you in a strange room, fix a remote camera directly on you and then tell you … to go to sleep. Thank God for Ambien. And then half-way through the night, the nurse comes in and puts this big mask over your nose and mouth. The mask blows a steady stream of air into your nasal passages and throat, and they can regulate the pressure remotely, depending on how your readings are. It really wasn’t that uncomfortable. And I have no idea what my readings were or what my diagnosis is. The nurse isn’t allowed to say. But he did hint that if I didn’t have sleep apnea, he wouldn’t be putting a mask on me at 1 am. And then there’s how I felt waking up. Usually, I need about nine hours sleep to feel vaguely fresh. And it takes about an hour for me to caffeinate, rouse myself and generally emerge from slumber. Not this time. I went to sleep around 10.30 pm and woke up around 5.45, feeling fresh as a daisy. I could feel the change instantly. Psycho-somatic? Maybe. I’ll get data soon. But I’m really excited at the possibility of having to sleep less, and being more energetic in the day. Yes, I know it seems as if I never sleep sometimes. But that’s the deceptive nature of a blog. More importantly: I really recommend this for people who seem to stop breathing intermittently in the night, or have really bad snoring, or feel listless and tired in the day. Sleep is so important to health. I may be finding that out all over again.

“Dates are not sacred. what is sacred is the process.” – Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki, on the Iraq elections. Mulki was appointed by an unelected monarch.

Kudos to the Family Research Council for intellectual honesty. Here’s a frank argument by one Allan Carson, conceding what is now obvious: it is very hard to hold the line against civil marriage for gay couples on the grounds that they cannot procreate. The reason is that civil marriage is available to any straight couple, regardless of their willingness or ability to have chidren. And this national consensus is now decades old:

It is now clear that the “right of privacy,” conceived by the Supreme Court nearly four decades ago, is the enemy of both marriage and procreation separately, and is especially hostile when they are united. It is also clear that we lost the key battles in defense of this union decades ago, long before anyone even imagined same-sex marriage. And we lost these battles over questions that–to be honest–relatively few of us are really prepared to reopen. How many are ready to argue for the recriminalization of contraception?

Well, yes. The basic problem for the anti-gay marriage forces is that they are upholding a marital standard for gays that no one any longer upholds for straights. And this obvious inequality – recognized even by Scalia, for example – cannot withstand judicial scrutiny under any reasonable standard of equal treatment under the law. Thats why I think it’s hyperbole to describe the Massachusetts court of judicial “activism.” The argument of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was that gays couldn’t marry because they couldn’t procreate. Once it was obvious that this standard did not apply to heterosexuals, the court had no choice but to strike down the inequality. It was not a radical decision at all. It was an inescapable one. And that’s why even a conservative court like Alaska’s upheld it. And that’s why you really do have to amend a state constitution to prevent its guarantees of equality from being applied to gay citizens.

SO PROCREATE: The social right’s intellectually honest option, then, is obvious. And Carlson deserves praise for airing it. In order to prevent gays from marrying, the state must deny non-procreative straight couples from having the full rights of civil marriage. Maybe these non-reproducers can have civil unions until they reproduce. Maybe they can get married, but have their licenses revoked after five years if no babies are forthcoming. Carlson has another suggestion:

Perhaps we should restrict some of the legal and welfare benefits of civil marriage solely to those married during their time of natural, procreative potential: for women, below the age of 45 or so (for men, in the Age of Viagra, the line would admittedly be harder to draw).

That works too. And when you see the issue this way, you can see why the current effort to focus only on excluding gay citizens is so unfair. If non-procreative, companionate marriage is the civil norm, then you simply don’t have a case against gay couples having marriage licenses. And if you keep this standard for straights, while forcing gays alone to bear the burden of your battle against four decades of marital evolution, then you are being deeply, deeply unfair. So which is it? A new standard? Or equality now?

Not for anything serious, mind you. I’m a terrible snorer and my boyfriend, who has the misfortune of falling asleep after me sometimes, also thinks I have sleep apnea. That’s what happens when, for some reason, you don’t breathe right when you’re asleep, appear to be dead for a while, and then rouse back with some sort of splutter to get enough oxygen to your lungs. Of course, I’d never noticed it myself. So I’m going in overnight for tests. I guess I’m a little unnerved. I’ve never spent a night in a hospital, mercifully. But my main worry is that you check in at 8.30 pm. At that hour, I usually have half a workday in front of me. And then they kick me out by 7 am. Seven o’clock only happens once a day in Sullivan-land. Well, maybe all these nocturnal hours contribute to my sleep disorder. Or maybe I have no such thing. But my doc tells me that he had it, and, after treatment (it varies according to the case), he slept much better and had far more energy. So maybe I’ll become more productive. Is that Glenn Reynolds’ secret? See you in the morning. Wish me luck.

A marine gives his own account of what happened. Extraordinary.

“I’m a great admirer of your writing, and consider myself an evangelical Christian. The article that you cited as a Derbyshire award nominee “Do you have a Pitbull Attitude” by Doug Giles I think may have been misunderstood on your part. This seems to me (I’ve never read anything by Mr. Giles before) to be a piece that is representative of a small fad in evangelical writing. The most prominent of this fad is “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge. The concept is that the current church has been feminized as men have not lived up to their role as depicted in scripture. To counteract this trend, these authors depict the spiritual life as one that can be seen as a masculine challenge rather than passivity. The challenge in this article by Giles is to live authentically what you preach, and to not insulate oneself in a christian bubble. You may object to his machismo style, but it’s likely targeted to those that see the christian life as too feminine for themselves. I don’t think that this article deserves a Derbyshire as it’s not concerning public policy or bullying anyone, just to have courage to practice what you preach, be authentic, and break through your bubble. How is this not like Jesus?”

Gregg Easterbrook says that big changes are ahead in energy policy – whether the president wants them or not.

A first hand account from the photo-journalist who witnessed the Marine killing of a wounded man in Falluja.

“In the ideological and military clash of Christian fundamentals with Islamist fundamentals, the western media are simply off-limits to the latter. I am still getting emails every week from viewers demanding why we are not in Falluja, Tikrit, Amara covering this war properly and showing the other side.” – Alex Thomson, of Britain’s Channel 4 News, arguing for more embedded journalists with the Jihadists, to present their side of the conflict. (Hat tip: Clive Davis).

LIDDY AND HITLER: A pretty amazing interview with the radio host, G. Gordon Liddy.

News flash: we need more troops in Iraq. Duh. The truth is: we needed far more from the very beginning – and this incremental increase, which reflects the enemy’s tenacity as much as ours, is exactly the kind of mission creep we should always have avoided. I’m still dumbfounded by the political branch’s refusal to acknowledge this before now, and the lame excuse that the only justification for more troops would be if the commanders demanded them. The level of troops – like the war in general – is far too important to be left to the military. Such decisions require political and strategic judgments that can only be made by the commander in chief. Bush’s limitations as a real war-leader are nowhere better illustrated than in this passivity on a matter of supreme importance. But better late then never. The important thing now is to win.

READING KRISTOL: One of the real skills of many neoconservatives is their message discipline. Their private concerns about the dreadful post-war planning in Iraq, and their frustrations with Rumsfeld in particular were kept absolutely under wraps until the election. These are intellectuals whose first calling is political power, rather than intellectual candor. Win first, cavil later: that’s the motto. This is not to say they are intellectually dishonest, merely that they have learned the benefits of silence when their political masters are caught with their pants down. But now the election is over, you can read the following missive from the Politburo head, Bill Kristol, with some interest:

The president presented himself for the judgment of the American people with 150,000 troops in the field, taking real casualties and on the verge of launching a major offensive. The people didn’t flinch. They showed fortitude and judgment, sticking with Bush and the difficult path he has chosen, a path in some respects made more difficult by mistakes his administration had made, but not one his opponent could be counted on to follow to success.

Translation: Bush screwed up monumentally but at least he didn’t waver; and we were able to keep the full truth of the Iraq mess from the people long enough to survive. Yes, Bush’s record did not merit re-election; but Kerry would have been far worse. (That’s why Kristol barely wrote a word about Bush for months, and wrote ceaselessly against Kerry.)

SLITHER, SLITHER: There’s more:

What remains to be done is to announce new leadership for the Department of Defense. This, surely, would be an opportunity for a strong, Bush Doctrine-supporting outsider, someone who of course would be a team player, but someone who could also work with the military and broaden support for the president’s policy. Is John McCain, or Rudy Giuliani, or Joe Lieberman too much to hope for?

Translation: Rummy’s obsessive short-staffing of the war, his reluctance to endorse the nation-building, democracy-installing agenda of the neocon right (mine too!), and his presiding over Abu Ghraib, all mean he should go. But we’re not going to say that outright, because, er, we don’t want to lose our access. Finally:

Meanwhile, the offensive in Falluja has gone better than expected, and we are following up in Mosul, Ramadi, and elsewhere as necessary. The president is clearly resolved to mobilize all available military, political, and diplomatic resources to bring off elections in Iraq, and successfully to prosecute the larger war on terror and hasten the transformation of the Middle East.

Translation: for frickin’ sake, get more troops over there! Kristol really is a master of the art of Washington suck-up, clear criticism, and keeping himself in the game. This one’s a minor classic.