THE DAILY BLADE: “Daddy, What Causes Global Warming?”
According to The Washington Post fatherhood means never having to say, "I don’t know."
In what is surely an odd homage to fathers - published during the one week-end of the year children give them tokens of gratitude for not going out for a drive and never coming back, gambling away the grocery money, or making the entire family go without toilet paper – the WaPo follows Boston-based writer Doug Hardy and his son, Andrei, 12, as they traipse through the National Air and Space Museum.
Andrei asks his father what the disks on a heat shield are made of; dear old Dad unhesitatingly - and incorrectly - answers, "steel." The WaPo tsktsks:
If it didn't occur to Hardy to say, "I don't know," he's not alone. The phenomenon of the "know-it-all dad" is a familiar one to the docents, curators and keepers of America's museums and zoos. …
"Now that I think about it, I guess I make up stuff all the time," he said. Only a few days earlier, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Andrei had asked how bronze statues were made. Hardy finessed an explanation based on half-remembered notions of wax molds and plaster.
"It was a total BS moment," Hardy said. "But you've got to be the guy who has the answers, right? It's a habit. What should I say, that I'm 51 years old and I used to know this 20 years ago? That's not much of an answer."
The gene that prevents a man from admitting he doesn’t know the answer to every question must reside on the Y chromosome right alongside the gene that prevents him from asking directions instead of driving around in circles, the price of gasoline be damned. Nonetheless, poor Andrei is more likely to get more misinformation in school – and about far more consequential matters than what a space capsule’s heat shields are made from – than from his Dad.
For instance, global warming is being taught as scientific fact in schools, with mandatory showings of Al Gore’s PowerPoint Presentation-cum-movie to inculcate young, impressionable minds in what is becoming a secular article of faith. Never mind that many scientists think global warming is a hoax. Or that many parents object to Gore having the last – really the only – word on the subject.
Fortunately, some students, such as Kristen Byrnes of Portland, ME, refuse to swallow Gore’s global warming propaganda whole. As a project for her Honors Earth Science class, Byrnes, 15, challenges the "sloppy science" on which Gore’s untenable truths are based on her Web site, "Ponder the Maunder." One blogger, The Anchoress, is pushing for Gore to debate Byrnes on global warming. Should this debate ever occur, The Stiletto hopes someone films it so that schoolchildren can learn the real truth about global warming.
[Editorial Note: To "maunder" means to talk incoherently or aimlessly. Coincidentally, Maunder is also the surname of a British astronomer who studied sunspots; a growing body of evidence suggests that cyclical solar activity is the main cause of global warming.]
Can Hillary Avoid Ségolène’s Fate?: Part II
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Hillary Clinton enjoys a 2:1 advantage over Barack Obama with female voters. Among the three top tier Dem candidates, 51 percent of the women surveyed support Hillary; 24 percent back Obama; and 11 percent are for John Edwards.
Hillary’s support came from "lower-income, lesser-educated women," whereas Obama is attracting "highly educated women." However, winning the Dem nomination doesn’t mean that the "women’s vote" is in the bag when it comes to the general election, warns the WaPo: An April poll indicated that 43 percent of female independents "definitely will not vote" for her … compared with 29 percent who said the same about Obama."
In her blog, "Domestic Disturbances," (TimesSelect; subscription required), Judith Warner muses about whether Hillary’s success juggling the conflicting demands of career and motherhood may actually work against her amongst high-achieving women:
[T]here may be among some elite women a certain disregard for, even a certain distaste for, the bread and butter middle class family issues that Hillary has placed front and center.
Take her "It Takes a Village" mentality: the idea that as mothers we’re all interrelated and need a helping hand (from government, among others) to keep our boats afloat. …
[B]etter-off women, who have decent health care, child care, education and, to a greater degree, job flexibility, tend to often be hostile to this sort of communitarian notion of shared responsibility. ("Do you want the government raising your children?" …) They’re big believers in the American ethos of individual "choice" and "personal responsibility" … And they – rightly – perceive that they’re bound to be the losers, tax-wise, if their own gated community of family comfort is opened up to the larger village. …
Is it possible, now that … wealthy women have bailed out of the workforce in the face of family pressures, that the image of one who toughed it out – uninterruptedly, and with little or no publicly expressed angst – is less than welcome? …
Warner argues that, "[w]hat rankles about Hillary – so uniquely – among better-off women is … personal at base," but others demur, insisting that "Hillary-hostility" is political.
Writing in liberal weekly, The Nation, Lakshmi Chaudhry notes the irony of the first woman poised to become president of the U.S. being shunned by feminists:
The woman once described by Susan Faludi as a symbol of "the joy of female independence" now evokes ambivalence, disdain and, sometimes, outright vitriol. The right wing's favorite "femi-nazi" now has to contend with Jane Fonda comparing her to "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina." …
At first glance, the fault line dividing feminists in their view of Hillary Clinton is merely a matter of ideology. On one side are the mainstream moderate women's organizations such as NOW and EMILY's List, facing off against more radical progressive feminists, especially those opposed to the Iraq War. …
However, Chaudhry contends there’s more to Hillary-hostility than her perceived support of the Iraq War:
[T]he "Hillary divide" also mirrors a deeper debate over the relationship between gender and political power. …
"Having a woman in the White House won't necessarily do a damn thing for progressive feminism," writes Bitch magazine founder Lisa Jervis in LiP magazine. "… Women who do nothing to enact feminist policies will be elected and backlash will flourish. I can hear the refrain now: 'They've finally gotten a woman in the White House, so why are feminists still whining about equal pay?'"
Jervis's views were echoed by her peers on the blog Feministing, where Jen Moseley wrote, "Being a woman does not get you the automatic support of women. There's no vagina litmus test, people."
Chaudhry concludes that Hillary’s candidacy "is becoming a lightning rod for a debate within feminism, and over its goals. What do we liberated women want: to join the clubhouse or burn it down?"
Regardless of whether the source of Hillary-hostility is personal or political, The Stiletto thinks The Nation makes a good case that, vis-à-vis "the women’s vote," Hillary’s fate in the national election will be determined less by how feminists see her than how they see themselves. The shibboleths and vanities of feminism may well work against Hillary’s ambitions.
Mitt Romney Leaves Voters Cold
The New York Times describes Mitt Romney as a "master pitchman and presenter" whose assets (aside from his $350 million net worth) include "polished ‘presidential bearing’ … a package of great hair, sleek suits and dreamy smiles well matched to podiums and magazine covers," then wonders: "But can he connect with voters?"
Inexplicably, the "permasmiling candidate whose deep, cockpit-ready voice would reassure any cabin full of fliers during heavy turbulence" can’t seem to connect with the "regular Joes" whose votes he is courting:
[S]ome people who have seen him close up at recent events describe him as impressive but somewhat detached. He struggles at times to convey a sense that he is an accessible mortal - that he can be spontaneous, that he bears scars and can appreciate at gut-level the struggles of ordinary Americans.
"He doesn’t really seem to be like the rest of us," said Denis Joyal, a machinist from Belmont, N. H., who heard Mr. Romney at an American Legion hall in Alton, N.H. He called the candidate "sort of high-class" and "a little too perfect."
The Stiletto is not all that surprised that workaday voters find Romney aloof or superior. After all, he is a G-d ruling over his own planet - rather, he expects to become one in the afterlife (second item The Daily Blade). And this is what the rest of us can expect after we die.
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