Maggie's Farm

This piece is a bit behind the news cycle, but what the heck. Breasts are interesting subjects which keep popping into the news: see Anchoress. More on "boobgate" at Protein. Boobgate is just too silly, and not worth commenting on at any length. (Ed: Basil does a great job with the subject today.)

But remember the fuss about that BabyTalk magazine cover last month? I thought it odd that many were upset by story about the mom breast-feeding her baby on the cover. Some termed the image "disgusting."  Meanwhile, that magazine for new moms probably sat on a magazine rack five feet from a wide variety of porn magazines.

Why did anyone find that Baby Talk cover worthy of comment at all, much less negative comment? Can a society be puritanical and licentious at the same time? Well, why not?

We're not supposed to be reminded that breasts are for food? Nobody gets upset about using T&A to sell things (tits=hits, as the old blog expression goes), but something about using breasts to feed babies seemed to touch a nerve. Very strange, because feeding a baby is the most natural and beautiful thing in the world, or so we are told.

I figured that it bothered people because it's an animal function, and we aren't animals, are we?

John of Part-time Pundit has a theory, as quoted in his piece Where Feminism and Motherhood are Forced to Do Battle, in the Daily Illini:

Earlier this summer, breast-feeding mothers were harassed by staff at Sholem pool for breast-feeding in public. Women caring for their children have been harassed in restaurants, parks and pretty much anywhere you find children congregating.

The law is quite clear that breast-feeding is not indecent or sexual. The medical community and community health advocates have concluded breast-feeding is what is best for the baby (and usually the mother). However, there is still tremendous public pressure against breast-feeding.

Despite the fact I see more boobs walking across the Quad, or for that matter watching C-SPAN, somehow breast-feeding is apparently too much for this promiscuous college town. After all, Champaign County does have a syphilis epidemic for a reason. A society that uses breasts to sell every conceivable product on the market is horrified by the concept of a breast being used for its designed biological purpose.

It could seem plausible to blame the religious right; After all, they were responsible for the protests over the infamous Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction of 2004. However, the religious right is generally more child-friendly than those on the other part of the political spectrum. The religious right supports women having children in the first place, as opposed to the left which supports slaughtering them on the altar of abortion.

Here is a more reasonable theory about the source of resistance to breast-feeding: It collides head-on with radical feminism. When former Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested there are biological differences between men and women, he was run out of town. Breast-feeding is the ultimate expression, next to child-birth, that women are indeed different from men.

The whole piece is here.

In my opinion, breasts are multi-purpose organs: breasts are for feeding babies; tits are for fun, bosoms are for comfort, and snuggling; and boobs are ART to look at. Guys look at boobs - always. We cannot control our eyeballs, which have little tiny minds of their own. And, dear lady readers, we love 'em all, regardless of size or shape. I know that you understand, ladies: you check us guys out in your own sneaky ways.

No workplace rules or social rules will ever prevent men from staring, or admiring, or glancing, or covertly appreciating. Guys are made to like them - and women are always interested in their own, too.  No amount of PC will prevent this fun and intriguing male pastime.

But I think that it is an unusual guy - or an adolescent boy - who would find nursing mothers sexually titillating.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding for a minimum of 12 months. Not only is it best for the baby, but it's best for the mom, too. Every month a mom breastfeeds, she reduces her risk of breast cancer.  Moms with jobs find it challenging, unsurprisingly.

Image on top of blog: Picasso's Nursing Mother

For a t-rated, adolescent-type humor image, see continuation page for a gal for guys (or gals) who think they have it all.

Quote from piece at Ace:

There's a great amount of odious liberal condescension at work here. No matter how many times Jihadists say "We are killing you because Allah commands it," liberals keep saying back, "Oh, pish-posh. We know what's really driving you -- a need for more day-care and infrastructure development."

Don't liberals believe in actually listening to the diverse narratives of oppressed peoples? Or is that just a cover for making up their own one-size-fits-all narrative and hegemonically imposing it on the world's repressed?

Today is the 90th anniversary of the first use of tanks in combat. The Brit invention, designed of course to end the stalemates of trench warfare, was first put to use on Sept. 15, 1916, in the Battle of the Somme. That machine was a Mark 1. Would like to have seen the German faces when those things first appeared on the horizon. WW1 Brit tanks came in "male" and "female" versions: the male with a big gun and a couple of machine guns, the female with several machine guns only. Speed 3 mph.

Animation of the Mark 1 tank here. A brief summary of that early application here.  The excellent website of the world's best Tank Museum in Bovington, UK, here. (Stonehenge is cool, but dull, and looks like the photos. The tank museum is unforgettable.)

Below, a WW1 Mark V.

This from Patterico the other day:

Yesterday I asked people who support jury nullification what they would do if they perceived a conflict between the rule of law and the dictates of their own conscience. I asked: if the evidence showed beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of a breaking a valid law, but convicting the defendant appeared to be an unjust result, would you:

a) follow the law and convict;
b) follow your conscience and acquit; or
c) ask to get off the jury?

His comments here.

The mini-series The Path to 9-11 will be aired on Sept 10 and 11 on ABC.

We do not ordinarily recommend anything on TV, but this sounds good. The AP review here.

The notion that "the truth must lie somewhere in-between" is an appealing fallacy to the compulsively peaceful, because it seems to remove argument and strife. But it is torture for the truth-minded, because rarely does truth lie "in the middle:" there is usually a right and a wrong - somewhere. Or at least a "best or closer approximation of truth."

Compromise may be the bread and butter of politics, diplomacy, and law suits, but it doesn't work in the pursuit of truth and reality. You can't be half-pregnant. Can you be half-guilty? I think so, but the legal system isn't really constructed that way - it is constructed to settle a matter.

If you think Bush lied to the people to pursue a nefarious scheme, and I think he did not, then the reality isn't that he half-lied. If you think Buddha is the manifestation of God, and I believe that Jesus is the only way, then the "all religions are equal, and all gods are the same" silliness is nothing but a "truth-compromise" - a spineless cop-out in the disguise of "tolerance."

Sometimes truth compromises seem essential: I happen to believe that the Second Amendment is a basic right - the right to self-defence which transcends even the Constitution - derived from English Common Law and transplanted to the US. However, I do not care to have my neighbor messing with nukes in his back yard, nor do I care to have criminals going around with stolen machine guns. Nevertheless, "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." seems unambiguous to me.

Re-posted from May, 2006

In 2006, who cares about a dumb subject like skin color except academics, panderers, race-pimps, and lefty loonys? Our society has moved way past it, fortunately.

Nowadays, we care about what is in people's minds and characters - and especially in their behavior.

And nowadays, the whole world wants to learn about Western Civilization and culture - except for a few Jihadists and a few radical feminists.

Thus I am in perfect agreement with Scott's piece on Dartmouth President Wright, which probably applies to many if not most colleges today - a quote:

When I asked President Wright what message he wanted to convey about the college to our readers, he invoked Dartmouth tradition updated by the benefits of "diversity." The only diversity he mentioned, however, was the vastly increased racial and ethnic diversity of the student body today over the student body of our years at the school, with respect to which he cited the relevant percentages then and now. He asserted the educational benefits of the increased racial and ethnic diversity of the student body. He distilled the academic party line on "diversity" into its 200 proof essence.

When it came to political and intellectual diversity among the faculty, however, President Wright was an advocate of the status quo. Superficial diversity of skin color among the student body is deemed to advance the educational process in some undefined manner, while increased diversity in political, intellectual and cultural views among teachers is deemed relatively unimportant to the educational process. How to say it? The time is out of joint.

Exactly. The effort to replace the usual ideals of morality, nobility, intelligence, curiosity with the new age ideal of "diversity" continues apace. If Wright had said "We have smarter, or kinder, or more moral, or more athletic, or better-rounded, or more specialized, or more artistic kids" - I'd be fine with it. The logical disconnect is to replace traits of individual character and personal achievement with purely genetic, happenstance, mass traits - it is as dumb as saying "We have a taller student body, or more blue eyes than ever before."

If Dartmouth wants true ethnic diversity, (as opposed to surface skin color), I suggest the following - woops - too late - Yale already got these guys:

Or why not go all the way - intergalactic: this guy can play chess like a demon - "Let the Wookie win." He hates to lose, but his bad breath made his SATs ungradeable. A shoe-in for defense. What team? Any team, but if I were Athletic Director, I'd make him a center in roundball: including his hair, he is about 7'8" and he is not a "pet" alien and his fouling tactics could take your head off and dunk it through the basket:

President Wright needs to be informed that kids do not pay for college to undergo a diversity program: they go to learn about math, literature, Locke and Botticelli - and to drink beer and to have fun before they are forced to grow up.

Image on top: a Benetton ad from the 1980s. Many of their ads were quite enjoyable. But however lovely the surface might be, it's what's underneath that counts. Race is a scam - people are people,

Heather MacDonald, the superb essayist for City Journal, discussed her agnosticism the other day in The American Conservative, and for reasons I do not understand, she caught some flak. From a piece by Michael Novak at NRO:

Heather Mac Donald is perfectly right to demand of Christianity the open display of its truth claims, and to ask that its evidence for these claims be placed on the table, as she has recently in a piece in The American Conservative and in a thread on NRO?s "The Corner." Christians have tried to follow that path since the writings of the earliest centuries ? Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, St. Augustine, and legions of others.

Christians were a persecuted minority for three centuries. They did not overcome the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Seneca, by force, but by argument, and not from outside but from within. As a competing horizon, way of life, and intellectual articulation, Christianity better explained many more realities and paradoxes of human life than any preceding civilization. It conquered the world both by argument and by personal example.

Mac Donald is right to demand as much.

Whole thing here.?(h/t, Smart Christian)

From the NY Times to the left fringes of the blogosphere, denial of the danger of the world-wide Jihad reigns.

In the hawkish side of the world (and I see no reason, other than partisan politics,?why these divisions should correspond to liberal vs. conservative), from my beloved Laura Ingraham to the hawkier blogs, I hear Jihad elevated to the diabolical menace in terms which were once applied to the world-wide Commie menace.

Don't get me wrong: there was a world-wide Commie menace which was a threat to freedom, offering utopian, fascist pie in the sky at the point of a gun and a nuke warhead, and accompanied by many American Stalin-loving fellow-travelers. But my point is the extremes to which the current discussion?has gone.

For example, we saw the once-rational Andrew Sullivan trying to deny the seriousness of the English bombers this week. He essentially was saying "No biggie." Why would he say that? Was the WTC "no biggie?" If they had succeeded, you already know what they would be saying: "Bush/Blair didn't do enough." Or "Iraq caused it," or ...

It is a sport. Anyone can play.

And I heard Ned Lamont the other day say something like "We should worry more about the quality of the kindergartens in Bridgeport." Huh? Hello??I should care about what Bridgeport teachers unions want? (Like most people, they probably want more of something - probably my money.)?I am aware that many on the Left have had a knee-jerk anti-American reflex since the 1930s, which is unfortunate and which also contaminates reasonable dialog.

Our good?friends over in the shrink blogosphere - Shrinkwrapped, Dr. Sanity, SC&A, for good examples (links on blogroll), often attempt to understand such views psychoanalytically, but not only am I not qualified to do that, as a lawyer I find it to be a bit of a generic?"ad hominem." Furthermore, I think the psychological approach may miss the point of how politically-motivated, and disingenuously applied, many of the arguments are: you can never believe that politically-motivated speakers really believe what they say (witness Obama and Gore with their SUVs - they just talk to cover their Greenie flank. All politicians took Boob Bait 101 - it's an easy course to get an A in.).

I do not believe, for one minute, that John Kerry really believes that we can chat Ahmadinejad into sanity. (Ned Lamont might believe it, though - he is politeness personified, and has spent his fortunate life insulated among the Christian gentry: polite, honest, and considerate people in pea-green pants in country clubs where the after-golf single-malt scotch and chardonnay is served on silver trays by brownish-skinned persons, immigrants mostly, under the green-striped awnings. Everything very nice, civilized, and honorable. Darn pleasant places, too - wonderful, but also an expensive escape from everyday reality. Too much ease can soften a fellow.)

I wear green pants, too, to summer cocktail parties in CT. Everyone does, around here, with yellow blazers, or vice-versa.?

On the other side, we see the hawkier bloggers and commentators, which for no reason I can determine tend to be the more conservative, elevating the Islamic Jihadis, or Islamao-fascists, or whatever, to a level of threat which is no doubt flattering to them, but which, I think, exaggerates their dangerousness. And again, do not get me wrong - their threat is obviously real - I am talking about the level of hysteria that I hear.

Iraq is just a political football, at this point. The real issue is how to deal with stateless, but generally state- (including the Saudis) sponsored, Islamic Jihadists whose only tool - thus far - is terror and bombing civilians. Neither hysteria nor denial advance any discussion of the subject.

And the political polarization further reduces the quality of discussion. And that is my point here: political emotions and?tactics?have contaminated rational discussion.

The Left hates Bush because he (at least to some degree)?rejects their political agenda. Yet Bush makes fighting Jihad central to his presidential career. Thus, they must oppose or diminish that. Conversely, Repub and conservative types, while disappointed in Bush's big-government approaches to things, still would prefer his sort to the alternatives. So getting shrill about things supports their "side," and their guys (and gals).

Oftentimes, this polarization boils down to a question of whether Jihad is a trivial criminal?threat, worthy only of police work, or whether it demands maximum effort, risk, and sacrifice. But that debate, too, is a consequence of the political polarization, not a beginning of a rational discussion.

The White House has had their discussions, but they have not communicated them very well. There has been no summons to the nation, and there has been no inspiring demand for sacrifice for freedom. However, their solution?has been?a rational, if debatable, combination of intelligence, police-type work with international cooperation (FBI, CIA, plus French, Brit, German, Pakistani, etc), and undermining the sponsors of Jihad with diplomacy first, (as with Iraq) followed by war when that fails. What else could anyone do? If you buy?the Jihad?off, they will just come back for more, like any rational but dishonorable?person would who views you as sub-human. Give me some better ideas, dear readers: I am open to them.

My tendency is to think that Dems, had they been in office, would do roughly the same thing, since protection of the nation from threat is their primary function and the reason we give them the power to do it. But I am not sure: Clinton only would lob a couple of cruise missiles somewhere, and be done with it, but that was pre-9/11, when the Jihadists seemed more?like feckless?pests.

It breaks my heart to see people put party above country, but I am naive, because it seems to be the way the thing works - and probably always has done.?As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.

The nukes are what bother me - far more than the leftists. I can handle Lefty-statists, but I cannot handle nuclear-armed loonies.

A final comment, about my senator Joe Lieberman (for whom I have never voted, but will vote for in November). He is a lefty, and he comes across as unpleasantly sanctimonious, but he does try to address these questions in a non-partisan, rational manner, whether he turns out to be right or wrong. He does try to decide what is best for the country during a time of danger - and that is why he ran into trouble. He wasn't partisan enough.

From his BBC interview, with comments in over the transom:

Even those who aren't particularly sympathetic to Bibi Natanyahu could get a good measure of satisfaction from his interview with the British Television this morning. I guess it can be attributed to his days studying history at Harvard.

The interviewer asked him: "How come so many more Lebanese have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?" (A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Natanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Natanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima. Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children.
Perhaps you have another question?"

I am not the only one who is losing patience with the Iraqis.

At

It was Iran that humbled Israel. Plus Olmert, who did not want any casualties. Long-term, Israel cannot survive that way.

At that rate, they will all have to move to Arizona, and let the Moslems turn Israel into the useless, backwards dump they have done everywhere else.

Moslems respect force, and nothing else.

Now Olmert is in trouble. He was not ready for prime time, nor was the army ready for anti-tank missiles.

No more angels and baby Jesuses, but the US will have this "Christmas" stamp this year, FYI. Reserve yours now! And Happy Kwanzaa, too!

BTW, a mere 131 shopping days 'til Christmas. (Am I allowed to say that evil word?)

Re-posted from June 7, 2006

My grandkids know that summer with their Pops means it's time for new remote-controlled battery-powered flying machines (and fishing). I will link a few of my favorites, but will feature the blimp this year. You can fly these things all around the house, and outdoors - if it's not windy. How cool is that?

For regular airplanes, the Nikko Windjammer has a long glide path. The Defender has twin engines. The RC Mini is a fine starter airplane. The Z Planes are cheap and good, and if they crash in the water, it's no big loss (I have lots of these in the barn). This year, the flying saucers are hot items, but I still prefer propellers. Lots of other remote-controlled planes here.

Never permit any Jihadists on board these things. They seem to enjoy blowing things up: nasty little devils, full of hatred and with an odd attraction to flying things: airplanes, rockets, etc.

I will pitch in and give Bird Dog a hand with some