Here’s an open thread.
Read a fucking book.
mistermix has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2010.
Run, Do Not Walk, For the Smelling Salts
Imagine this: Let’s say it’s 1948, Strom Thurmond is about to lead the Dixiecrat ticket, and rumors are flying about a certain young lady who he might have fathered. This young lady is a “negro”, as Strom would say in polite company, because her mother is. Would it be bad for other people of color, and their supporters, to entertain the possibility that Strom may have fathered a child with a black woman? Would it be OK for a black columnist, or a white comedian, to archly point out that Strom himself might be a perpetrator of miscegenation? Or would it set back the cause of civil rights, even though there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with a black woman and white man having a sexual relationship, or even getting married, despite the fact that it was illegal throughout the South at the time? Should the commentators of the time have treated Strom with kid gloves?
Fast forward to today, and answer the same question about Marcus Bachmann, gay-hating Christianist pray-away-the-gay “therapist”, who is at the minimum a bigot and perhaps a closet case. Is it OK for Dan Savage and Jon Stewart to wonder if he’s gay, and do so in an sarcastic and mocking tone? Or should we run for our fainting couches as June Thomas and James Joyner recommend?
My guess is that the only people who are seriously offended by those wondering if Marcus is gay are probably people for whom “gay” is a terrible insult, and they’re also the people who oppose gay civil rights. Similarly, in 1948, the people who would be extremely offended by the notion of Strom fathering a black child are those who opposed civil rights for African Americans. Well-intended non-bigots like Joyner and Thomas, who are not offended by the notion of homosexuality, shouldn’t feel the need to carry water for someone who’s devoted his life to ruining the lives of vulnerable teenagers and denying civil rights to fellow citizens. Marcus Bachmann doesn’t deserve it.
Also, too: I’m looking forward to Dan Savage’s response on this — here’s a taste.
Run, Do Not Walk, For the Smelling SaltsPost + Comments (154)
Today in News Corp
Rebekah Brooks is out as CEO of News International, Rupert and James are going to be grilled by a House of Commons committee next Tuesday, and Rupert gave a self-serving interview to the WSJ, where he acknowledged “minor mistakes”. This is all via The Guardian, which is going medieval on News Corp. Those are the highlights, I’m sure you guys will have more in the comments.
It’s 5 AM and You are Listening to Los Angeles
It’s an overused genre, but I thought this was a pretty good “Hitler is pissed” video about Carmageddon. (via) Here’s an open thread.
It’s 5 AM and You are Listening to Los AngelesPost + Comments (32)
Kindle
Amazon has dropped the price of the 3G Kindle to $139, and the WiFi Kindle to $114, if you’re willing to tolerate ads on the home page of the device. I like my Kindle, and for those of you who have one or are considering one, I wanted to share a couple of tips for reading long-form magazine articles.
First They Came for Happy Meals, Then They Came for Our Children
A few of the smarter libertarian bloggers (EDK, Balko) are upset because an overzealous public health MD is wondering if obese children should be taken from their parents.
Before we slide down a slippery slope, let’s look at a couple of cases. Here’s one:
That piece [in the journal Pediatrics] discussed a 440-pound 16-year-old girl who developed breathing problems from excess weight and nearly died at a University of Wisconsin hospital. Doctors discussed whether to report her family for neglect. But they didn’t need to, because her medical crisis “was a wake-up call” for her family, and the girl ended up losing about 100 pounds, said co-author Dr. Norman Fost, a medical ethicist at the university’s Madison campus.
Another case involved a mother who lost custody of her 555 lb. 14-year-old son, a boy who’s now living with his aunt and has lost 200 lbs.
Both of those examples are conspicuously absent from ED’s and Balko’s articles. I assume that’s because it’s easier for Balko to call it “self-evidently horrifying” than it is to look at the evidence, and it’s easier for ED to go down a long “what if” chain that ends up with non-vaccinated kids being taken away from parents. Apparently, the real-world evidence of parents feeding their kids to death doesn’t take place in a frictionless, two-dimensional plane that is infinite in all directions, so it must be ignored.
Speaking of the real world, taking away children is well-nigh impossible unless the kid has been beaten hard enough to break bones, fucked by a close family member, unfed or otherwise seriously abused. I have a number of good friends and family members who are healthcare workers, and they’ll all tell you that there are cases that keep them up nights where a child is clearly being neglected but no state intervention is possible. Part of the reason is that it takes all kinds of money to run a good child welfare and foster care system, so the current system is overloaded and only able to deal with the worst possible cases. So, no, your roly-poly or non-vaccinated kid will, as a practical matter, never be taken away from you.
But even if the child welfare system were better-financed and empowered to take away some obese kids, do these smart and thoughtful libertarians really think that it’s state overreach to allow some state intervention for 440-555 lb children? If so, we need more argument than Balko’s self-evidence and ED’s slippery slope.
First They Came for Happy Meals, Then They Came for Our ChildrenPost + Comments (85)
Open Thread: The FSM Abides
It was a long, hard slog against the heathens, but this true believer finally earned the right to wear his religious headgear in his drivers’ license picture.
Open thread by request.