Culture
Clips —
October 3, 2006
The New Revolution in Parenthood—Does
Biology Matter?
Does physically making a baby really
matter? If no graduate degrees are required, how important can
it be?
How important? Let me tell you a
story. It's not the single most important story I could tell you,
just the one I happened to read in the paper this morning:
In 2000, one of the foremost symbolic
analysts in the country, neuroscientist Paul Greengard, won the
Nobel Prize. He used the $400,000 award to help establish the
Pearl Meister Greengard Prize for outstanding work by a female
biomedical researcher.
Why? He wanted "to create something
in honor of my mother." Well, don't we all? Except in this
case, Dr. Greengard never even knew Pearl Meister existed until
he was 20 years old. His mother died giving birth to him, and
when he was just 13 months old, his father remarried.
"I don't have a single photograph
of my mother," Dr. Greengard says. "When I married,
my wife, Ursula, put a picture of a woman we thought was Pearl
Meister above our mantelpiece. Ten years later," he says,
"we discovered this was someone else's mother."
So Dr. Greengard, (a Nobel Prize-winning
neuroscientist, remember) gave away $400,000 to create a new $50,000
science prize in part to honor a woman he can't remember because,
"Since there's not a shred of physical evidence that my mother
ever existed, I wanted to do something to make her less abstract."
How do we make sense of such powerful,
irrational longing?
"Certainly, biology is not everything,"
states Marquardt. Adoption, for example, is a wonderful form of
parenthood that protects children when natural parents fail them.
Biology is not everything, but the question we now increasingly
face is: Is biology anything at all?
Can we make any room in our highly
technocratic, rational celebrations of market values and adult
choices for the longing of children to know and be loved by the
man and woman whose bodies made them?
Elizabeth Marquardt isn't certain.
But she does know one thing. "Our societies," she writes,
"will either answer these questions democratically and as
a result of intellectually and morally serious reflection and
public debate, or we will find, very soon, that these questions
have already been answered for us."
Maggie Gallagher
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MaggieGallagher/
2006/09/26/the_new_revolution_in_parenthood_does_biology_matter
**
Dumbing Down Democracy
The latest evidence of the dummification
of American life comes from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a venerable organization that
promotes classical values in higher education. As part of a program
to strengthen the understanding of America's history and political
institutions —- what it calls "civic literacy" —- ISI
commissioned a survey of more than 14,000 randomly selected freshmen
and seniors at 50 four-year colleges and universities
nationwide.
The students were given 60 multiple-choice
questions, testing their knowledge of US history, government,
foreign affairs, and economics. The results
were atrocious.
The average freshman flunked the
test, correctly answering only 51.7 percent of the questions.
The average score among seniors was equally pathetic: 53.2 percent.
On a traditional grading scale, scores like those would get an
F.
Even at the colleges whose students
scored highest, the average senior score was below 70 percent
— a D+ at best.
This wasn't a test of historical arcana
or abstruse political theory. It focused on what should be a core
of common American knowledge. For example, one question asked
for the source of the phrase "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal." There were
five choices — the Federalist, the Preamble to the Constitution,
the Communist Manifesto, the Declaration of Independence, or the
inscription on the Statue of Liberty. More than half the college
seniors didn't know the correct answer: the Declaration
of Independence.
Jeff Jacoby
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JeffJacoby/
2006/10/02/dumbing_down_democracy
--
Gays Use “Sleight of Hand” to
Promote Agenda
Last Monday morning I sat on the
set of the prestigious Washington Journal program on C-SPAN. Most
folks have seen this program, which features phone calls and e-mails
from the Democratic, Independent, or Republican perspective. In
this way many points of view are aired. The topic was religion
in politics. My fellow guest (opponent) was an ordained minister
who runs a politically liberal non-profit organization. It was
a great discussion, but I came away troubled about several things.
My opponent’s opening salvos attempted
to say that same–sex marriage and abortion were wedge issues.
He stated that conservatives were polarizing the country. He intimated
that fair-minded folks, like himself, wanted to avoid these incendiary
topics in order to “keep the political peace.” During the program,
I thought that the rhetoric being used by the liberal clergyman
was similar to some things I had heard before. Further research
revealed that he was speaking from a “pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion
script.”
There is a five-point plan in place
to block any legislation prohibiting homosexual marriage. Last
summer, in morally condescending tones, we were told that the
war, gas prices, and immigration were the most important issues
of the day. All the while, Democrats were using rhetoric to make
conservatives and evangelicals seem petty and bigoted. Damien
Lavera, spokesperson for the DNC, articulated these five strategic
points to the Washington Blade. My best representation
of these points is as follows:
1. Label anti-gay ballot measures
as divisive.
2. Train state party operatives in
all 50 states on how to campaign against anti-gay ballot measures.
3. Work with National Stonewall Democrats
to develop talking points.
4. Equate pro-family values arguments
with racism.
5. Enlist celebrity backing and endorsements.
Harry R. Jackson Jr.
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/HarryRJacksonJr
/2006/10/02/gays_use_%e2%80%98sleight_of_hand
%e2%80%99_to_promote_agenda
Beating Back the TV Takeover
A new study from Nielsen Media Research
simultaneously highlights some of this society’s most pressing
and intractable problems — and some of our most striking opportunities.
As headlined by the Associated Press,
the report indicates “TV’s Taking Over in U.S. Homes” and conveys
the disturbing news that for the first time, the average American
home now contains more television sets than people.
The typical household accommodates
only 2.55 people, but 2.73 televisions. An astonishing 50% of
all homes boast three or more TV’s, and only 19% contain just
one. In 1975, by contrast 57% of households owned only one television,
and only 11% contained three or more.
Moreover, all these new television
sets in bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, saunas and exercise rooms
have led to a vast increase in the amount of television each individual
regularly views. As recently as 1996, the average citizen watched
3 hours, 59 minutes a day — an already excessive number that increased
to a staggering 4 hours, 35 minutes a day in 2005-2006. That represents
an increase of some 10% — or more than four additional hours per
week — in just ten years.
Robert Thompson, professor of television
and pop culture at Syracuse University, expressed amazement at
the new figures. “A lot of people thought that as we entered the
21st century, there was only so much TV that people could watch,”
he told the New York Times. “And others have said that because
of new media, the TV era was somehow over. But TV viewership numbers
are going up….”
Those increases proved also most
notable among the most vulnerable segments of the population.
Teenagers spent 3% more time in the last year watching television
while younger children (aged 2 to 11) increased their viewing
by 4% — including a 6% increase during late night. African American
children (aged 2 to 11) increased their viewing by a full 10%
in the last year, while Hispanic children in the same age group
spent a staggering 14% more time with the tube.
These figures indicate far deeper
problems than harmless time wasting.
Michael Medved
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/
MichaelMedved/2006/09/27/beating_back_the_tv_takeover
--
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