Imagine you had a six-year-old daughter, and that she has a high fever. It’s 1820, and we don’t understand germs or fevers very well. You call the doctor, and the doctor comes to the house. “Please, do something. DO SOMETHING, and help my daughter,” you say.

The doctor takes out a lancet, and makes a small incision in your daughter’s wrist. The theory was that the fever was in the blood itself, and “bleeding” was the only treatment that people in 1820 knew.

It doesn’t work. Your daughter’s fever is still very high. So, you tell the doctor, “DO SOMETHING! You are the doctor.”

The doctor bleeds her some more. And she dies.

And the next day you blame the doctor for not bleeding her MORE and SOONER. But bleeding was the wrong thing to do.

This stimulus is the wrong thing to do. The fact that the first round didn’t work leads me to think we need to stop! But all the desperate economic parents out there say, DO IT MORE! DO IT LONGER! DO IT FAST!

I don’t blame the President. I blame voters, who have the naïve idea that government is responsible for the economy.

Full article at The John William Pope Center webpage

• U2
• 10,000
  Maniacs
• The
  Smiths / Morrisey
• REM
• The Cure

The newest music to enter my life has been from Tim
Neinhuis. He has a number of full length songs available
for download from his website.

I’ve been struggling with the idea that we have no
shorthand for the view that homosexuality is abnormal and morally aberrant. Most who
hate such a view call it homophobia, but there’s a clear distinction between those
who have this view and those who truly don’t like people who are gay, are uncomfortable
with gay people being involved in their life in any way, etc. Well, now I’ve seen
a term that sounds to me as if it’s just simply descriptive of the view in question. Someone
who considers heterosexuality normal and/or normative is heteronormative (emphasis
mine).

Heteronormative also got a write up
by Michael Medved in yesterday’s
commentary on Beyond
The News.

Although I won’t be sending a letter to the editor on this topic to respond to the responses, I want to state that I stand by my initial response. I fail to see any valid comparison between the ‘faults’ that Bud Fink ascribes to our Gov. (using the phrase ‘Girle Men’, increasing state debt, being a successful fund raiser, failing to commute the death sentence of a lawfully convicted murderer), and the ruthlessness with which Adolf Hitler set about to exterminate an entire ethnic group and other groups with which he disagreed. I also was amused at the back tracking that Bud Fink did with his first point. In the original LTE, Bud Fink originally stated that the Gov. ‘wants to disband the legislature …’ But in his response, Bud Fink tones down his rhetoric and instead makes the more accurate claim that the Gov. ‘Pronounce[d] the legislature unnecessary or at best part time’. A part time legislature sounds like a great idea to me, no matter which party controls it.

The public debate has sunk to name calling, so I am bowing out.

‘…even
the unwanted have worth.’

Maybe this line stood out to me so forcefully
because of today’s Beyond
The News commentary entitled The Generational Impact of Roe,
authored by Janet Parshall. Read
it, better yet, subscribe to this short, daily emailed newsletter for insight, analysis and clarity on the current issue of today. The signup box is at the bottom of the page.

This
textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding
the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind,
studied carefully and critically considered.

The left screams and rants
about tolerance when it comes to their pet programs, but no deviation from their
dogma is acceptable. The statement above seems to me to be a successful attempt at tolerance of other people’s views of the origin of life.

I think the lack of playing computer games late on a Friday night and not having a subscription to Popular Science dragged me down.

MATT THEULE
Carpinteria

I sent my response to the newspaper via e-mail. We will see if it gets printed next week.

This
textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding
the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind,
studied carefully and critically considered.