Author: Tony

Ivan Drago, Civics Teacher

I tried reading The Corner for a short period of time, last year I think. I couldn’t take the absurdity, so I now let others do the heavy lifting for me. This time, via Andrew Sullivan, Kathryn Jean Lopez offers a prime example of what I can only hope is an attempt at witty sarcasm. I fear it’s self-parody.

A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How’s that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he’s a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.

Forget the insane part, if you can. Rather, consider what this says about her understanding of conservatism as it should be practiced in America today. Family matters most, it’s the building block of society, etc. We don’t want (liberal) propaganda from our educators replacing teaching in the home. Oh, wait, except where teaching in the home strays from what family should teach, as defined by… Kathryn Jean Lopez. Then it’s good to have Right knowledge pushed on our children by someone more knowing. If we can farm out that work to George W. Bush, it’s a win-win all around.

Post Script: By now the title should be obvious, but if our teachers must break our children, I guess we’ll need a cage match between George W. Bush and Rocky Balboa to find out who is best qualified to be Civics-Teacher-in-Chief. Since they’re both superheroes, they’ll, of course, duel to a tie. That leaves Drago with the chutzpah to take charge.

(Comments are closed. Cross-posted at Publius Endures, where comments are open.)

Is this an M.D. from a correspondence school?

When public health officials say voluntary, adult, …

The soldiers in the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) will be the first men to benefit from a government policy to use male circumcision as a tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS, according to senior health officials.

… The voluntary circumcision programme is expected to start in August.

“We will use the military as role models for the rest of the population – they are adult enough to give consent, and if young men see that soldiers are willing to suffer the pain of circumcision, they will also get the courage to do it,” said Dr Agnes Binagwaho, executive secretary of Rwanda’s national AIDS commission (CNLS).

… they never mean voluntary, adult. Never.

“After the military we will concentrate on students and, finally, on the general population; eventually we hope to move on to circumcising new-born babies, as long as research proves that it is advantageous and cost-effective to do so.”

Want to bet research will prove that infant circumcision will be advantageous and cost-effective, in spite of reality that Rwanda has “only one doctor for every 50,000 people”? Should it skew the analysis against infant circumcision that the rate of HIV infection in Rwanda is higher in circumcised men than in intact men? Of course, but it won’t. It’s so much easier to blame the foreskin than the male attached to the foreskin.

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Also, should we put trust in Dr. Binagwaho when she couldn’t pass a basic statistics class?

“People must be made aware that although circumcision is beneficial, there is still a 40 percent risk of HIV transmission, so they must know that it must be used in conjunction with another HIV prevention method, such as condom use,” she said.

I expect those unfamiliar with statistics to make such a mistake. Is it too much to expect a doctor to be familiar with statistics?

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Post Script: Based on the article’s closing paragraph about funding for Rwanda’s circumcision plan, I feel confident that I will eventually be able to remove my updated qualification from this entry. The plan outlined in the article is stated in Rwanda Fiscal Year 2008 Country PEPFAR Operational Plan (COP). We will continue throwing money at this ignorance.

Pitting anecdote against anecdote ignores reason and logic.

There is much to commend in this article, but like all attempts to be unbiased on a topic where introducing subjectivity is the only method for achieving balance, the conclusion veers into scare tactics.

[Opponents] declare [circumcision] mutilation.

But there is another side to the story.

Dave, who didn’t want his full name used to protect the privacy of his circumcised 19-year-old son, objected to the practice after his son’s birth.

“I went through it, and I didn’t want him to go through it,” said the 48-year-old electrical engineer from Chantilly in Northern Virginia. “They cut millions of nerve endings that would be nice to have.” [ed. note: thousands of nerve endings]

But, as his son grew, he couldn’t pull the foreskin back far enough to clean it without significant pain. He stopped cleaning, and infection after infection of the penile head and foreskin ensued, turning his penis beet red.

“We ended up doing the circumcision when he was 5,” Dave said. “It was awful. For years after, he got into the bathtub only gingerly, putting his hand over those parts the whole time.”

Now, Dave advocates having the procedure done as soon as possible after birth.

“My son suffered by not being circumcised early,” he said. “And I wonder what long-term impact that has had on him.”

This is not another side to whether or not it’s appropriate to circumcise healthy male infants/children. This is an emotional appeal to a child’s ability to remember surgery and the unlikely-but-possible risks of life. Even a cursory look at circumcision statistics in other Western countries will confirm this article’s anecdote to be devoid of any merit as a defense in favor of imposing surgery on healthy children to avoid risks later.

It should be clear that I understand some males will need medical intervention on their genitals if left intact. (And if circumcised.) That is not then justification to circumcise children. Many females (and some males) will eventually need some kind of medical intervention for breast cancer. We do not see that as a defense for removing the breast tissue from infants because we are not irrational on that front. Apply a speck of reason and the similar excuse for male child circumcision fails.

To the anecdote directly, I can only speculate. It is not unusual for the foreskin of a five-year-old boy to at least partially adhere to his glans and inner foreskin. Pulling the foreskin back further than it can easily retract is bad and can cause pain. (Almost as bad as forcibly separating the foreskin from the penis prior to circumcision.) Perhaps that occurred here. I’ve certainly heard of parents being aggressively determined that the foreskin should retract fully before it naturally separates. This can lead to problems.

But, again, I’m only speculating. Speculating is pushing limited facts into a preferred narrative. Dave speculates to the reporter. (Circumcised males get infections.) I’m speculating here to illustrate the process. I don’t need speculation to defend my position. I’m willing to concede that Dave’s anecdote is exclusively an example of the risk of being intact. It happens, unfortunately. But where his stance needs speculation and anecdote, I have reason and evidence:

“… And, urinary tract infections are so rare in baby boys that the increased risk of it isn’t significant,” [pediatrician Roxanne Allegretti] said.

Anecdote of the “my best friend’s cousin’s first-grade teacher’s next-door-neighbor’s driving instructor once had <insert problem here> with his foreskin, leading him to get circumcised at <insert age here>, and he definitely remembers the horrible pain” is not a compelling reason to perform surgery on healthy children. Healthy and surgery are mutually exclusive for those who can’t consent.

The ability to reason includes recognition of gender-bias.

Ignorance can speak truth, even when ignorance doesn’t intend something so broad (emphasis added):

… I feel that “female circumcision” gives this practice a veneer of respectability to hide behind. Uninformed people likely know that male circumcision is done mainly for hygienic or religious reasons and has nothing to do with sexual pleasure or causing other problems down the road, as mutilation may cause with menstruation and childbirth. Circumcision is pretty much the opposite of mutilation as far as having an effect on a person.

So “female circumcision” sounds kind of like a benign minor medical procedure, while “female genital mutilation” tells it like it is. I don’t think calling the practice circumcision will fire many people up against it – it almost sounds like a P.R. phrase for genital mutilation, designed to mask what really happens.
This practice has also made its way to the United States, through immigration.

I don’t think calling the practice circumcision will fire many people up against it – it almost sounds like a P.R. phrase for genital mutilation, designed to mask what really happens. Indeed. It’s almost as if Americans embrace that mentality with our treatment of male children. Almost, of course, because only They&#153 engage in immoral actions. We&#153 are always correct, never to be questioned again.

I will be using that quote frequently in the future.

We need to stop using oil, but it shouldn’t cost too much.

Better to control through blunt force than through individual receptiveness to economic pain, right?

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit.

Will that be broken out by make and model? Will we next proceed to mandatory speed limits built into cars sold in America? Does it matter, as long as Congress gets to Do Something?

Warner asked the department to determine at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient, how much fuel savings would be achieved, and whether it would be reasonable to assume there would be a reduction in prices at the pump if the speed limit were lowered.

Is it reasonable to assume that motorists will drive at or below those speed limits? Not to get too anarchist, but as a motorist, every successful, traffic-free experience I have on the highway involves a spontaneous order, with some optimal speed above the limit “magically” appearing to smooth the flow of traffic. If Congress imposes a national speed limit, we’ll have one of two realities. Motorists will ignore the speed limit, or states will allocate more police enforcement. What is the net effect of saving a few pennies on gas if we spend a few pennies to enforce that savings? And what of the extra court costs? Insurance premium spikes?

Or we could consider something else:

The [Department of Energy’s] Web site says that fuel efficiency decreases rapidly when traveling faster than 60 mph. Every additional 5 mph over that threshold is estimated to cost motorists “essentially an additional 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs,” Warner said in his letter, citing the DOE data.

Maybe we can assume that motorists are capable of deciding how willing they are to pay an additional 30 cents per gallon. And maybe the market is capable of slowing drivers down when the price of gas is “too high”. But why let the market work when Congress can interfere?

Politicized patriotism is not the spirit of independence.

Senator Obama is on his patriotism tour this week. Fine, politicians do that. But there is something vital missing from his call to service:

“We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities for Americans to serve. And we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges.”

He added, “When you choose to serve — whether it’s your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood — you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That’s why it’s called the American dream.”

What if I choose to serve myself? More directly, I’d posit that “being” – in whatever form one chooses – is connection to the fundamental human ideal of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nor is it prudent to forget that Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness are among certain unalienable Rights. That’s semantics, mostly, but when Sen. Obama omits the individual, a bit of semantics is necessary.

Worse, this:

“Loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the 4th of July,” he said. “Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it. If you do, your life will be richer, and our country will be stronger.”

Loving my country means embracing the truth that all individuals are created equal and seeking to continue the government instituted among Men based upon this principle. Loving my country means rejecting rules and laws based on subjective ideas like equality of outcome or that democracy is an ideal to be honored. Loving my country means striving to perpetuate principled structures for governing that protect rights, not endorsing the will of the people. The only thing I must do is refrain from infringing the rights of others. It would be nice if Sen. Obama (and every other politician) did the same.

State Lotteries, Round 2

In response to my entry on state lotteries continuing scratch-off games after the top prize is awarded, this response from David Z. at no third solution.

Although I concur that the State shouldn’t be in the gaming business, I think the rest of Tony’s analysis is wrong.

If I could excerpt just one bit to give you the full idea of David’s rebuttal, I would. But really, excerpting the whole thing hardly qualifies as fair use, even among friends. Go read his response. I’ll wait.

Ok, done? Good.

I think the devil is in the assumptions. David assumes that players play only for the top prize. (And that there is only one prize, but he uses that assumption for a different reason.) I assumed that they play to win, preferably – but not exclusively – the big prize. One of us is right, since those seem to be the two reasonable possibilities. I wasn’t convinced when I wrote my entry that it was me, and I’m not convinced it’s me after reading his response.

Still, the question of fairness rests solely on how the game is marketed, I think. If, as I barely-sorta implied, the State is running commercials or promoting the game after the top prize is awarded, that’s shady at best. If not, I don’t think this is a problem in the context of the game. Should selling tickets be automatically considered marketing with an intent to imply the top prize is still available? Again, one’s assumption is critical here. I tend towards mine because, as my original anecdote suggests, I know many people who habitually return their winnings to the state for more tickets. It speaks to an acceptance that winning something has value. It could also mean just an expectation that turning the winnings into more tickets might mean the jackpot. That’s probably the reason. That, and addiction.

But I still come back to the contract. There has to be some expectation that the customer will read the fine print if it matters to him. Also, as I closed my original entry, the available prizes are listed on the lottery website for each game. I don’t know how quickly this is updated after prizes are redeemed, but the availability of the information matters. How much, I’m not sure, but disclosing this information suggests that gamblers can make a determination. Maybe real-time game information available at each point-of-sale would be better?

Also for consideration, this at Hit & Run, which calls the same defense I offered “weak”, but without the effort to explain why that David offered.

I’m ready for this election to be over.

I take John Cole’s view on Wesley Clark’s statement regarding the relevancy of being shot down and tortured to an individual’s ability to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. In short, General Clark is correct on the specific statement. That makes all the ranting border on the hysterical. Predictable, perhaps, but still strange.

The worst example I’ve encountered, which is a key distinction here because I’ve actively avoided the outrage machine, comes from Andrew Sullivan in response to a reader’s dissent. Mr. Sullivan writes (my emphasis added):

Strictly speaking, it is irrelevant for the presidency if someone was shot down and tortured. It doesn’t make anyone a better potential president. But there are plenty of ways to put this and to frame this without descending to a default position that seems to devalue McCain’s service. Clark is a dreadful politician and his off-the-cuff response, while technically true, is terrible politics and about the last debate Democrats need or should want to have. It has dominated a news cycle in ways that help McCain not Obama and drowned out Obama’s patriotism speech. The only silver lining is that the small chance that Clark might be an Obama veep is now zero.

General Clark is correct in his statement. Mr. Sullivan is correct in acknowledging that General Clark’s statement is “technically true” and terrible politics. I’m not here to refute the latter point because the rest of Gen. Clark’s interview with Bob Schieffer was classic shill. So what? The question is whether we’re really interested in an election that puts good politics ahead of the truth? Our unwillingness to deal with the truth because it’s politically unpalatable is why we’re in so many of the national messes we’re in. I’m not interested in enabling that further by pretending like this matters. It’s bad enough that we all have to play the game.

But what about the politics of this? The media has engaged itself in the long-standing narrative that Sen. McCain is a Hero™, so we can’t question him. Why? One need not question his heroism, patriotism, or sacrifice to get at the present reality. His history is a facet of his application for the office of President. Because his experience is (thankfully) rare does not give him a free pass. If getting shot down and tortured contributes something to the merit of his qualification, let him explain why. But do not treat it as a given. There is a viable thread that his experience gives him unique, applicable experience. There is also a viable thread that it’s not a requirement for the job. If one wants to be feisty, maybe his experience is even a knock on his fitness to be president because of how he processes it.

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Semi-related, today Mr. Sullivan posts this general defense of Sen. Obama.

But Obama’s post-primary pivot to neutralize all the usual GOP attacks – and reintroduce himself to Middle America – has been more than usually pronounced. He can live with FISA telecom immunity; he’s flexible on troop withdrawal from Iraq; he’s happy with executing child rapists; he doesn’t need public financing; he’ll out-patriot the Right; he’s touting his support for welfare reform; he’ll expand Bush’s faith-based programs; and he’s okay with the Supreme Court’s view of the Second Amendment. Oh, and he’ll reduce taxes on the middle class, while hiking them for the rich or successful or whatever you’ll let me call them.
…

It’s been clear for a long time: A man who beat the Clintons is as ruthless as they are. Just smarter, and less susceptible to losing his grip on the core principles he still believes in.

I don’t question that Sen. Obama is an effective politician. This is why I think he’ll be more ineffective in office than some want to believe. Being a gifted politician means getting what you want, but it also means making enemies. Hopefully he’ll make enough in the Congress.

But I’m not able to decipher a coherent, consistent set of core principles in Sen. Obama’s growing spectrum of public declarations. The telecoms broke the law. He won’t advocate repealing campaign finance regulations. Faith-based programs miss the point of the First Amendment, among other problems. Adjusting the mix of financial “winners” and “losers” – a rejection of the idea that merit should mean something – ignores property rights and equal treatment under the law in favor of his idea of more equal outcomes. Narrow that down in a way that each set of facts can be filtered through through the same idea and I’ll retract my criticism that he is not acting from core principles. Until then, let’s not confuse winning with correct. Manipulating the message is great marketing, but it’s hardly proof of a statesman.

(Comments are closed. Cross-posted at Publius Endures, where comments are open.)

Interpretation of facts is the key.

Perhaps the large hadron collider created a black hole and our world has ended. I can think of no other way to explain Robert Samuelson’s latest column.

Tired of high gasoline prices and rising food costs? Well, here’s a solution. Let’s shoot the speculators. A chorus of politicians, including John McCain and Barack Obama, blames these financial slimeballs for piling into commodities markets and pushing prices to artificial and unconscionable levels. Gosh, if only it were that simple. Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Leading politicians either don’t understand what’s happening or don’t want to acknowledge their own complicity.
…

A better explanation is basic supply and demand. …

Politicians promise to tighten regulation of futures markets, but futures markets aren’t the main problem. Scarcities are. Government subsidies for corn-based ethanol have increased food prices by diverting more grain into biofuels. A third of this year’s U.S. corn crop could go to ethanol. Restrictions on oil drilling in the United States have limited global production and put upward pressure on prices. If politicians wish to point fingers of blame, they should start with themselves.

I was content that he didn’t seek a government solution, his usual default. Directly (and accurately) blaming politicians is more than I could’ve ever hoped for. I think I’m going to stock up on canned goods now. The end is near.

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And yet, there is proof that there are some constants. Following his whining about the Heller decision, E.J. Dionne is back with more lamenting on the conservative court and what it means for the people. Basically, he writes an ode to jurisprudence based on outcome rather than principle. He concludes:

The four conservatives on the Supreme Court, when empowered by the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy, have already shown their willingness to overturn the will of Congress and local legislatures when doing so fits their political philosophy. The same majority could keep conservative ideas in the saddle long after the electorate has decided that they don’t work anymore.

I still hold to the idea that truth is independent of when public opinion reaches 50.1% in favor of an idea. They may correlate, but the latter is not a requirement for the former.

Central planning isn’t just for economics.

I wonder if these two Ugandan MPs have ever spoken to each other. First:

THE parliamentary food forum has asked the Government to provide funds for the a campaign against female circumcision. Addressing journalists at Parliament on Friday, Bukwo Woman MP Everline Chelangat urged the Government to establish vocational institutions for girls to fight the custom.

Second:

THE chairman of the parliamentary HIV/AIDS committee has appealed to men to embrace circumcision to reduce the risk of contracting the virus.

“There is nothing to lose when you remove the fore skin of the penis. Men who are not circumcised are more prone to HIV/AIDS,” Dr. Elioda Tumwesigye said on Saturday.

Dr. Tumwesigye is wrong about what a man loses from circumcision, and he is too broad in his declaration of the benefit against HIV because he ignores the necessary contributing factor, an HIV-infected female partner and condom-less sex. But where he accepts the distinction of choice in losing his perceived nothingness, these statements on male and female genital cutting are reasonably congruent, if slightly tone-deaf. As I’ve always advocated, I do not care what an adult – male or female – chooses to do to his/her genitals. Leave it alone or hack away. MP Chelangat is clearly arguing against forced cutting. I just wonder whether or not that distinction of choice exists in Tumwesigye’s intent:

Tumwesigye noted that attempts to make circumcision compulsory for men had failed because of the misconception that it was a practice only for Muslims.

I won’t read that as a statement that Tumwesigye isn’t interested in choice, although I think such an inference makes sense. Where are those attempts originating? If that’s what he’s saying, I’m not surprised. Respecting the science makes many doctors forget the ethics. I don’t know why, but it does. I think I’ll have more on that idea in the near future.

There isn’t much more to say than, from a marketing perspective, it’s fascinating that these two articles appeared on the same day in the same news outlet.