Wow! An update and a link!

This cross-linking thing is sometimes gratuitous, and I imagine it's for folks with a lot more time on their hands than me. But anyway, here it is:

Proudly Neocon

Blogging Hiatus

I haven't posted for a while. Here's my explanation: blogs are getting out of control with personal attacks, piling on, and basically not adding to a constructive conversation.

Sure blogs have introduced much needed media criticism, and have been responsible for exposing some important bias that would otherwise be whitewashed over: Raines at the NY Times, or forged memos from CBS. But other topics border on talk-radio bitterness. Who cares if a bald, gay hustler is also a reporter for a conservative web site? Why does the whole nation need to beat up on him? Who cares if some stupid, obscure professor (who even I have commented on below) is an offensive, stark raving mad Marxist poser? When the president of an ivy league university (who I've also commented on) suggests that we should be open to any and all reasons why women aren't in more science and math roles, why does immediate knee-jerk opposition to even thinking about the issue need to be heard around the world?

Blogs that allow reader comments on their stories are the worst perpetrators of the personal attack piling on. Just try wading through the conspiracy ravings at the Democratic Underground, the me-too-ism at Lucianne, the personal attacks on AmericaBLOG, the invasion of privacy at BlogActive. Yahoos simply want to pile on and post rants that generally run counter to a sane discussion of any issue. In those comments you'll find the worst of personal attacks, posting personal information, and harassment. It's just useless noise.

I started this blog not to rail against the idiot of the day, but just to put out ideas I'd been thinking through for a while. That's why I don't typically link to other news stories. That's why I intended this to be a low-volume blog. That's why I don't let folks comment on my posts via machine. I would love to hear constructive feedback about my ideas. But sorry dear reader, the signal to noise ratio is too low on the internet.

Catching Up: On Larry Summers

Lawrence Summers is a former Clinton administration official, and the current President of Harvard University, a private school. Summers has come under fire for suggesting at a recent conference that physiological differences between men and women may somehow cause women to be less successful in maths and sciences. Summers has apologized time and time again to the politically correct police, seemingly to no avail.

My view on his comments is that, at worst, they are a waste of time. Summers' suggestion has likely been disproved or minimized by research.

There can be no doubt about actual physiological differences between men and women: just drop the pants or lift the skirt for evidence! However, as someone who had to struggle with the difficult coming out process which requires you to readdress accepted gender roles, it is also obvious to me that men and women are subtly (and not so subtly) expected to fill certain roles from childhood by their parents, friends, and every other human on earth.

The human mind excels at categorization. Cultures around the world have found benefits in efficiencies created by allowing assumptions about the roles of strangers and friends alike. For some reason, Western culture has generally found an efficiency in something as analytically arbitrary as men wearing pants and women wearing skirts, or driving on the right side of the road. As with any rule, these assumptions will have any number of exceptions, may be counterproductive, or even proven wrong.

The subtle nature and constant reinforcement of cultural roles can make them feel as if they are actually laws of nature, rather than nurture. Though physiological differences between the brains and bodies of men and women do exist, culture cannot and should not be discounted. Women should be encouraged to excel in traditionally male enterprises, and men should be encouraged to excel in traditionally female enterprise. We've got plenty of work to go around.

This is not to argue that any cultural norm should be arbitrarily discounted or discarded just because it is widely or narrowly held, or even truly useless. The social contract we enter into in order to make sense of our world requires that we maintain mores, taboos, laws, and even presumptions about our relationships with the people around us. But on matters of whether men or women can apply themselves to various areas of endeavor, we should expect only the best.

Larry Summers should not be fired for simply wasting time.

Catching Up: On Ward Churchill

Ward Churchill is a professor at the University of Colorado, a public school, who has recently come under fire for comparing victims of the 9/11 World Trade Tower victims to Nazis in a 2002 essay. Churchill continues to defend his position. Recently, the University president has resigned under stress.

Some have argued that Prof. Churchill was simply making a statement on the complicity of some fictional "common American" to policies Churchill violently disagrees with. His statements have also been defended as simply "controversial" and a matter of free speech (regardless of whether free speech requires public funding by way of the professor's $96K annual salary).

Those arguments miss a fundamental truth that I haven't seen noted anywhere else. The basic truth is: the professor's statements are simply factually wrong. Try this comparison: if a math professor claimed 1 plus 1 was 5, insisted on teaching his students this lie, and continued to defend the lie when it was brought to light, that professor should be fired.

Similarly, Ward Churchill should be fired.

Catching Up: On the Mainstream Media

I started this blog late in the game, so I'll post a few of my opinions on recent happenings in the blog world. My first is on the mainstream media's (MSM) response to the blogging phenomenon.

The mainstream media for decades has had a gentlemen's agreement that one media outlet not criticize another. I suppose this stems from the 'glass houses' aphorism. That lack of criticism has allowed the quality of the media and journalism to fall. Press releases are published verbatim, stories are not fact checked or simply made up, critical thinking has simply become a knee-jerk reaction against any authority. The media has come to think of itself as a political party.

For years, car makers, movie studios, book publishers, software products, and other industries have had to content with critics and consumer protection groups. And now, popular blogging has essentially become a form of media criticism. That change has been very difficult for old media owners and managers to handle. Protected from criticism for so long, the MSM now lash out at the new media rather than realizing that they must hold themselves more accountable.

The Internet and blogging are making information more transparent, and increasing the sophistication of media consumers. The mainstream media must come to accept critics and bloggers as necessary for improving the reprehensible state of today's journalism.

Welcome

I decided to start this blog because I'm tired of seeing liberal gays and straight paleocons screwing up the world!