Damned If You Snooze …

The latest in sleep research:

Lack of sleep can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, too much sleep doubles the risk for non-cardiovascular-related deaths.

Er, thanks. On the other hand, there’s good news for the sleep-deprived (which is how I feel today after crashing a deadline). The less you sleep the trippier your dreams.

The Free Market and Gay Rights, Ctd

A reader writes:

One of the most astonishing (and underreported) instances of this phenomenon is the defeat in committee of the marriage ban in the Indiana legislature. This past April a group of major corporations (Cummins Engine, Wellpoint, Dow AgroSciences, Eli Lilly, and Emmis Communications, etc.) lobbied against the measure and won.

While I’m not surprised at the lack of coverage, I think it’s important to note smaller victories like this in the civil rights movement.  Obviously, a committee defeat in a low-key state doesn’t have a news hook big enough to attract a general audience, but for people who grew up in the state or know its often dismaying history of cultural retrenchment, this is huge.  Other than corn, college sports, The Jackson Five, and David Letterman, most Americans probably know Hoosier State as the onetime home of the modern KKK and the first state to be colored red on election night (often before polls close).  But it’s also one of the few remaining conservative states remaining that did not write discrimination into its constitution.  As a progressive Democrat with a strong populist streak, (as much as it may pain me to admit it) I really have to give credit to big business for doing the right thing on this one.

Rudy and Other People’s Cell-Phones

Big surprise: he doesn’t like them. In fact, in one recent speech, he humiliated a woman in the audience whose phone went off while he was talking. Here’s Hanna Rosin in the Atlantic last year:

In Iowa, Giuliani was up to principle No. 2 ("Follow your hopes and dreams") when he was interrupted. From down in the audience, just beyond the stage, he heard a cell phone ring. He stopped in the middle of telling a story. "It’s okay, you can answer your cell phone," he said. "You won’t interrupt me." The woman whose phone had rung was mortified; he had just embarrassed her in front of 18,000 people.

In the "town hall" meetings he used to conduct as mayor of New York, through a radio show, Giuliani was not known for his good-natured populism. He was known for making fun of constituents who called him with what he thought were petty problems. This is the dark Giuliani, and here he was, making an unwelcome appearance. He shifted to a long digression about the scene in Dr. Strangelove where General Buck Turgidson answers a call in the middle of a crisis and whispers sweet nothings to his girl on the phone, as the nation’s political and military leadership looks on impatiently. "Just tell him you love him so I can go on with my speech," Giuliani said. No one was laughing. Giuliani actually waited for the woman to hang up. Then, after a painful minute or so, he was back in candidate mode, talking about Vince Lombardi and the mind of a champion.