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