Althouse: At the Running Dog Café...

January 5, 2014

At the Running Dog Café...

... get out there now! You can do it!

41 comments:

Ann Althouse said...: Too bad about Green Bay!; 1/5/14, 7:25 PM
David said...: So the dog's name is Kapernick?; 1/5/14, 7:34 PM
David said...: Running dog. Get it?; 1/5/14, 7:35 PM
pm317 said...: Ah, was waiting for a cafe post. There was some excitement in our backyard. I think what I saw were vultures and there were more than 5. One of them was pecking at something on the ground and all the others were up on the top of trees, all the way on top. Am I right to think they are vultures? I thought the vultures had a ring of feathers around their neck and these didn't.; 1/5/14, 7:35 PM
paminwi said...: Interesting article about MSNBC and their use of the racism card quoting the NY Civil Rights Coalition Director.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/04/head-of-new-york-civil-rights-coalition-compares-msnbc-rhetoric-to-mccarthyism/; 1/5/14, 7:44 PM
shake-and-bake said...: The 49ers thank Wisconsin for its hospitality, but wish the Packers would stop whining about the cold weather.; 1/5/14, 7:46 PM
Ann Althouse said...: The news folk were going on and on about the cold weather and then the game starts and half the players aren't even wearing long sleeves.; 1/5/14, 7:50 PM
Unknown said...: Fundamentally, sexual activity has to be either (1) involuntary, or (2) voluntary. If involuntary, it could be either (a) compulsive (like genetic or a psychological disorder), (b) related to diminished capacity, or (c) forced or coerced (i.e. rape).

Some are actively muddying of the waters, defining same-sex attraction as "orientation" and touted this orientation as prima facie justification for acceptability of homosexual activity in a syllogistic fashion. However, attraction is not compulsion and not a rational legal excuse for any kind of behavior. Attraction does not always (or even very often) lead to sex, same sex or otherwise. Incidents of attraction is not the case for an orientation.

Attraction is usually (although not always) an influence in voluntary sexual activity and "orientation" may be an influence. Influences do not prescribe, require, or force specific behavior. Voluntary means it's about choices, and that's what need to be discussed. Choices are made based on personal desires but also options and possible outcomes. Choices have consequences. We are currently being lead to believe that same sex attraction leads inevitably to homosexual activity, and that failure to accede to this activity is somehow harmful. We are told that if you repress who you are, you will never live a happy, fulfilled life and we should be true to ourselves. We are currently being lead to believe that there are no negative consequences to homosexual activity. These canards do not survive reality. A survey of participants in counseling specifically related same sex attraction resulted in reduction in attraction more than 1/2 of the respondents. One quarter of all make homosexuals have aids. A heavy smoker has about a 3% chance of getting lung cancer, and that's reason enough to discourage smoking. Homosexuals have the highest rates of suicide, with teens 5 times more likely to attempt suicide. Illegal drug use is higher. The number of sex partners is higher (in the hundreds for males). Although historical attempts to address the consequences as somehow isolated from homosexual activity have reduced the levels, the statistics remain remarkably higher than the levels for heterosexuals.

Psychology Today states "Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance (alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (gambling) that can be pleasurable but the continued use of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work or relationships, or health." Draw your own conclusions.; 1/5/14, 8:09 PM
Meade said...: Choices have consequences. We are currently being [led] to believe that [opposite] sex attraction leads inevitably to [heterosexual] activity, and that failure to accede to this activity is somehow harmful. We are told that if you repress who you are, you will never live a happy, fulfilled life and we should be true to ourselves. We are currently being [led] to believe that there are no negative consequences to [heterosexual] activity. These canards do not survive reality.; 1/5/14, 8:28 PM
David Davenport said...: Didn't Ms. Althhouse write about the Aaron Swartz hacking case a year or so ago?

Bob Swartz Losing Son Aaron

Losing Aaron

After his son was arrested for downloading files at MIT, Bob Swartz did everything in his power to save him. He couldn’t. Now he wants the institute to own up to its part in Aaron’s death. ...

After a cursory read of this long-ish piece, I didn't feel very sorry for either Bob Swartz or his son. Nor do I think this magazine article told the whole truth.; 1/5/14, 8:33 PM
Lucien said...: For those who take the position, as I do, that we will have happier and more balanced lives if we grow a thick skin along the way, I'm wondering more and more where and when we are supposed to do that.

Respect for sensitivity and avoidance of offense are so highly prized, nowadays, that hard knocks are no longer allowed in school, or in sports, or at work, and maybe not even in the military. Instead of living by the rule that sticks and stones may break one's bones, but names can never hurt one,we have ostensibly grown-up legislators writing laws against "cyber-bullying" -- by which they mean insulting someone in an electronic medium that that person never has to use and can turn off at any time.

The outcome includes intolerance to unpleasant speech and behavior, and the idea that people ought to lose their jobs for inadvertent, or sometimes intentional, insults.

That's wrong. Often they deserve astern talking to, or ridicule, or to be socially shunned, but rarely to lose their livelihoods.; 1/5/14, 8:38 PM
Lucien said...: Not for nothing (as Aaron Sorkin characters like to say), but I read that Mitt Romney was gracious in accepting Melissa Harris Perry's apology over gratuitous comments she made about a Romney family Christmas card.

I'm glad that he avoided faux, or even genuine, umbrage, or outrage, and acted as if playing gotcha were beneath him. While I hope the new year brings more of this, I'm not holding my breath.; 1/5/14, 8:48 PM
Limited Blogger said...: Ann, here's that carbon footprint you were wondering about, occasioned by the rescue of the global warming insisters.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11181470; 1/5/14, 9:10 PM
Will Cate said...: I was rooting for the Packers, because I'd have rather preferred to see my current-home-team (the Carolina Panthers) face them than the 49ers. But SF played the better game. I was surprised it went down to the wire like that.; 1/5/14, 10:00 PM
MadisonMan said...: Thank you for reminding me of weezer.

Love their song Buddy Holly.; 1/5/14, 10:29 PM
Saint Croix said...: woo-hoo!; 1/5/14, 10:39 PM
Kelly said...: Your dog is so lucky that he has long legs and a short coat. I took my Scotty for a walk today and ended up having to carry him home. His short legs and skirt became so weighed down by snow and ice he literally couldn't move. Plus he's lazy, that may have had something to do with it as well.; 1/5/14, 10:50 PM
Saint Croix said...: I've been trying to say something about abortion for 20 years. Wrote an abortion screenplay, an abortion novel, 2 or 3 books on abortion. Failure, failure, failure, failure! I appreciate all the Althouse readers who read my previous book. It was a failure, too!

I tried using dark humor on a blog dedicated to abortion. Failure! Getting the tone right has been incredibly difficult for me. I am not a serious person, I have never been a serious person. It seems to me liberals get this serious NPR tone without every trying. It's like they are born into moral outrage or something. They're really good at it. For instance, the movie 3801 Lancaster, about the Gosnell murders, that's a typical liberal documentary. It's beautifully done. Shots of trees, etc. Very, very dignified.

I have never been dignified. I suck at dignity. And this moral seriousness that's required? I suck at that, too. I am irreverent. I am way too irreverent. So writing a serious, liberal, calm, normal book about abortion and the Supreme Court, filled with quiet outrage, I can't tell you how frickin' hard it's been for me.

Anyway, I did it. I think. Sent it out today. I think it's ready. So Althouse's post ("get out there now! you can do it!") really speaks to me. Kind of a weird fluke of coincidence.

I'm calling it The Seen and the Unseen: Abortion and the Supreme Court. Stole that title from Althouse. And the funny thing is, it's in the Nicene Creed. I never would have made that association, if it was not for Althouse.

Anyway, thanks, God bless, very happy on this end. Also a little emotional and scared.; 1/5/14, 11:13 PM
MayBee said...: One of the wives of a Weezer band member (Scott Shriner) has written a book:
http://www.amazon.com/Some-Girls-My-Life-Harem/dp/0452296315/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388998099&sr=1-1&keywords=jillian+lauren

Some Girls, My Life in A Harem; 1/6/14, 2:51 AM
rhhardin said...: If it feels like -54 degrees when it's -20, it follows that it feels like -20 degrees when it's -54.; 1/6/14, 4:38 AM
rhhardin said...: Supercold snow sticks unpleasantly to the paws, leading to dog full-stop.

Booties solve the problem, except how to you get the booties to stay on.; 1/6/14, 5:16 AM
Largo said...: Saint Croix: With the approach of Halloween, I hit upon a particular vein of abortion gallows humor, based on a Halloween costume of two fetal arms reaching out from and through the belly of a pregnant woman, holding a little jack-o-lantern candy basket.

If you would like to see it (and some of the one-liners assiciated), send be an email.

LARGO -at- POBOX -dot- COM; 1/6/14, 5:23 AM
pm317 said...: What? No vulture experts on the Althouse commentariat?; 1/6/14, 5:49 AM
Bob Ellison said...: pm317, were the birds black? If so, they were probably turkey vultures, which are pretty common in America.; 1/6/14, 5:59 AM
pm317 said...: Thank you, Bob Ellison. Yes, they were black (could not see their face clearly) and had a wide wing span and grey on the back side of the wings. The way they flew around was mesmerizing to watch.; 1/6/14, 6:03 AM
Bob Ellison said...: pm317, that sure sounds right. The underside of the turkey vulture's wings are notably grey.

There's a flock of them that roosts in a grove of trees near my house. Amazing to see fifteen or twenty such large birds up high in the trees. They can dispatch a deer carcass right quickly.; 1/6/14, 6:08 AM
George M. Spencer said...: "Just because we have won victory, we must never relax our vigilance against the frenzied plots for revenge by the imperialists and their running dogs. Whoever relaxes vigilance will disarm himself politically and land himself in a passive position."

Address to the Preparatory Committee of the New Political Consultative Conference"(June 15, 1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 407.

Deaths caused by Mao?

Around 70 million, according to the book "Mao: The Unknown Story."; 1/6/14, 6:21 AM
rhhardin said...: Turkey vultures watch playgrounds.

They're waiting for a child to die.; 1/6/14, 6:29 AM
rhhardin said...: Imus, on the N Koreans watching Uncle Kim and aides being devoured by ravenous dogs, thought that it's like football.

Feeding to ravens would be better. You dont' have to starve them.; 1/6/14, 6:32 AM
pm317 said...: They can dispatch a deer carcass right quickly.

Yeah, there was something on the ground that I could not see clearly. It didn't seem like a deer carcass, very unlikely for where we live. And only one of them was pecking at it while the others, 5 or 6 of them waited in the trees. I am a city girl and to have these woods in our backyard right across the beltway and then to see all these wild creature activities!; 1/6/14, 6:36 AM
CStanley said...: St. Croix- congrats and good luck. The revised translation of the Nicene Creed has that line as "visible and invisible" though.; 1/6/14, 6:44 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I'm calling it The Seen and the Unseen: Abortion and the Supreme Court. Stole that title from Althouse. And the funny thing is, it's in the Nicene Creed. I never would have made that association, if it was not for Althouse."

Yes, "seen and unseen," a tag I've used for a long time, has the reference, deliberately, and this concept has been important to me in thinking and writing about abortion for longer than I've had this blog.; 1/6/14, 7:49 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Here's my post from 2011, "Things seen and unseen," where the new tag is created and the connection is made to the Nicene Creed.; 1/6/14, 7:52 AM
paminwi said...: rhhardin: dog booties - We have some that stay on that we got from PetSmart and bought them a size smaller than they suggested. Another method I have heard is to use Coban tape (stretchy tan althletic tape which seals to itself) to put around the top of any bootie you are putting on.
The tape doesn't hurt even taking when removing it and you can reuse it multiple times.; 1/6/14, 8:17 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The revised translation of the Nicene Creed has that line as "visible and invisible" though."

There's a big difference in meaning!

Not everything that is visible is seen and not everything that is unseen is invisible.

"Seen and unseen" is what you want when you are criticizing human beings for the moral failure to take account of what they are not seeing and giving too much weight to what they do see. You could choose to see the unborn child, but it's not out there confronting you with its presence, so you could decline to see it.

There are many things in this unseen category: animals in the slaughterhouse, people suffering in some remote place, individuals who applied to your school but were rejected (and just go somewhere else instead)….; 1/6/14, 8:33 AM
Bob Ellison said...: "Not everything that is visible is seen and not everything that is unseen is invisible."

That's a strong statement. Tree falling in forest, etc.; 1/6/14, 8:36 AM
CStanley said...: There's a big difference in meaning!

Yes, I assume (but don't know for certain) that this was an intentional revision. I don't think the intent of that line in the creed was meant to rebuke people for not seeing, but rather to stipulate that God is creator of things that are visible to us as well as things that are invisible to us.; 1/6/14, 8:43 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: So there are things that are neither seen nor unseen?; 1/6/14, 9:21 AM
kentuckyliz said...: It's a skating rink here today. We had rain then freezing rain then snow and the Arctic blast which flash froze all the moisture on the ground. Snow cancellation today at work, so I get one bonus day off before going back to work tomorrow (if it's not cancelled tomorrow). Have I been productive? Degrottifying shower to wash off the train grottiness? No. Laundru? No. Take out the trash, up the mail, deice my car? No. Sitting in my jammies watching movies and reading the Internet. Napping as needed because I don't sleep well on the train. Not venturing outside because I've fallen three times recently and my body is bruised and sore and stiff. Not going to bait fate.; 1/6/14, 3:55 PM
Saint Croix said...: The revised translation of the Nicene Creed has that line as "visible and invisible" though.

My church must be slow!; 1/6/14, 7:00 PM
Meade said...: rh: nice looking new pup.; 1/6/14, 10:10 PM