Culture
Clips - May
30, 2006
Too Much TV for Tots
The more Americans live the fast-paced,
overworked life, the more their young children are over-entertained.
It isn't that parents intend to introduce their children to the
world by having them gaping blank-faced into a TV screen. But
when there's work to be done or just noise to be muffled, parents
can see the benefits of young children glued to the TV, quiet
and still.
At least that's how I would defend
myself, if challenged to explain why my children watch more TV
than they should. In the final analysis, however, this exercise
in parental laxity is not only indefensible; it's now out of control.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has
just released a new study showing just how much electronic media
has become a central focus in the lives of many of our youngest
children. It conducted a telephone survey of more than 1,000 parents
in four large cities with children between six months to six years
old, and what the foundation learned is alarming.
To put it mildly, our dependency
on what Kaiser calls "screen media" is strong, and our
resistance to over-entertaining our children is weak. In a typical
day, 83 percent of children under the age of six use "screen
media," averaging about two hours a day. But it's even more
surprising that the parents surveyed report that 61 percent of
babies one year and younger are put in front of a glowing screen
for an average of 80 minutes per day.
Brent Bozell
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/
brentbozell/2006/05/26/198909.html
--
Marriage Amendment Struck Down
in Georgia
Judicial activism struck Georgia
in a big way with a judge’s recent scrapping of a constitutional
amendment preserving marriage as being between one
man and one woman on
the grounds that it was "presented incorrectly to voters."
The amendment was on the ballot in November 2004, and the wording
of the question —"Shall the Constitution be amended so as
to provide that this state shall recognize as marriage only the
union of man and woman?" — was apparently so confusing that
almost 76 percent of Georgians were "fooled" into
voting for it.
County Superior Court Judge Constance
Russell decided to throw out the amendment on the perceived technicality
that its ballot presentation violated the state constitution’s
single-subject rule ("When more than one amendment is submitted
at the same time, they shall be so submitted as to enable the
electors to vote on each amendment separately") because it
required voters to decide on marriage and civil unions in a single
amendment.
In digging up and dusting off the
"single-subject" guideline, Russell ruled that Georgia’s
voters must decide whether same-sex relationships should have
any legal status before they can decide whether gay marriage should
be banned. "People who believe marriages between men and
women should have a unique and privileged place in our society
may also believe that same-sex relationships should have some
place — although not marriage," she wrote.
Apparently of the opinion that
banning both gay marriage and civil unions in one fell swoop is
lumping together two completely unrelated subjects, Russell wrote
that "the single-subject rule protects the right of those
people to hold both views and reflect both judgments by their
vote." This ruling, which was incomprehensibly called "a victory
for voters" (apparently referring to the 24 percent
who voted against it) by an attorney for gay rights organization
Lambda Legal,
will not have an immediate legal effect in the state.
Jeff Emanuel
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/
JeffEmanuel/2006/05/24/198356.html
--
Get Used to It
“Gay and lesbian families are here;
all our families are queer; let’s get used to it!” That’s how
NYU sociologist, Judith Stacey, (formerly the Barbra Streisand
Professor in Contemporary Gender Studies at USC) begins the chapter
on same-sex unions in her 1996 book, In the Name
of the Family. Stacey’s slogan
neatly encapsulates her idea that gays are pioneering ways of
living that will transform the family for everyone. Consciously
echoing Giddens, Stacey draws out the implications of European
family sociology in an American context.
In Stacey’s view, lesbian motherhood via artificial insemination
helps pave the way for intentional single motherhood among heterosexuals.
Sexually open relationships among gay men can increase the acceptance
of non-monogamy by heterosexuals, and the triple and quadruple
unions between lesbians and gays created by donor insemination
suggest the possibility of group marriage for society as a whole.
True, Stacey is ambivalent about formal same-sex marriage. She
worries that the effect will be too conservative, and so would
prefer to abolish marriage outright. Failing that, however, Stacey
is enthusiastic about using gay marriage as a device with which
to undermine marriage from within.
Like Beck and Beck Gernsheim, Stacey sees the traditional family
as something like the living dead. We are haunted by the ghost
of the family, says Stacey. She suggests “a proper memorial service”
to help us get over its death. But wouldn’t burying the traditional
family mean greater instability, especially for children? Absolutely.
Stacey frankly acknowledges her willingness to pay a steep price
in family instability if it means promoting feminist values and
unleashing a raft of experimental family forms. Stacey’s ideal
is Scandinavia, where same-sex unions and unwed parenting are
accepted, and where the welfare state steps in to mitigate the
effects of family instability.
So there’s hardly a point about the power of same-sex unions to
disrupt traditional marriage that Stacey herself hasn’t already
made. The key difference between Stacey and conservative critics
of same-sex marriage is that Stacey actually wants to undermine
marriage. In short, the most influential European family sociologists,
America’s radical academics, and American conservatives are surprisingly
united in recognizing the potential of same-sex marriage to undermine
marriage itself.
Stanley lKurtz
National Review Online
http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjMxNA==
--
Sin Cities on a Hill
Nearly
a decade ago, Congress funded the National Gambling Impact Study
Commission to determine the economic and social consequences of
legal gambling, and in 1999, after two years of study, the commission
concluded that it was time “to consider a pause in the expansion
of gambling.” And perhaps for a moment somewhere, such a pause
was considered. But only for a moment. Then four more states introduced
lotteries, and the number of Indian casinos in the country rose
from around 160 to approximately 400. Annual visits to commercial
casinos nearly doubled, jumping from 162.4 million in 1999 to
319 million in 2004. Seventeen U.S. casino markets, covering every
region of the country, recorded more than $500 million in gross
gaming revenues. Today Utah and Hawaii are the only states where
no form of gambling is legal.
Perhaps
even more significant than the sheer number of gambling outlets
is our widespread cultural embrace, or at least acceptance, of
the practice. Bookstore chains such as Borders stock glossy gambling
magazines with titles like Deal, Bluff, Casino Player,
and Strictly Slots. High-stakes poker is a nightly staple
on cable TV. If that seems unremarkable, try to imagine an America
where, every night on Bravo, you could tune into an hour-long
series called Celebrity Gangbang Showdown.
The
porn industry’s growth during the last few decades has mirrored
that of gambling, but porn retains its stigma. Gambling, by contrast,
is widely seen as just another recreational opportunity, no more
exotic than going to a football game or a rock concert. “What
happens here stays here,” the popular Las Vegas Convention and
Visitors Authority commercials say. For the last 40 years, however,
what happens in Vegas has actually been spreading to every corner
of the country.
Greg Beato
http://www.reason.com/0605/fe.gb.sin.shtml
