Who killed Alec Baldwin's TV show?

Alec offers some clues:

"People who I worked with that I cared about—these people were all very supportive of the show. Now there was somebody on the staff who I did not want to work with. There was somebody on the staff who I thought wasn't a good fit for me. And I wouldn't rule out if that person went to the Post and gave them that story."

The story that he called a paparazzo a "cocksucking faggot."

"These stories with the Post, the way they work, they have to have some kernel of truth. So if I complained, as I did, I said to them... I didn't ask for a humidifier, I asked for humidification. So we had a day where... my voice would crack, it was heavily air conditioned, I found it tough to talk. I did not demand someone put a humidifier in. And the woman using that dressing room, I was told she's allergic to some chemical, no one ever ever ever said to me that somebody had cancer, and I never said 'I don't give a fuck...'"

So, it wasn't just the use of the epithet on the street, it was inside stuff, staff versus star. The star felt entitled to use hairspray, and the staff member trumped him with her cancer. Her sensitivity, premised on cancer, is obviously — in the larger scheme of things — more important than his frivolous vanity over his hair, but in the production of a TV show, getting the on-camera talent to look right is actually more important than accommodating a particular employee's needs. If she can't work around hairspray, she shouldn't have a job in the room where the hair is being done.

Baldwin was hired because of his manly good looks, which includes his full head of hair, and there's pressure on him to live up to that image. He was also hired because he exudes passion, and that means he's not perfect at dealing with the pressure. He's got his sensitivities too, and they are intrinsic to the excitement that's supposed to make the show, a show centered on him. That's what MSNBC bought when they hired him.

Yes, kick him around for having "cocksucking faggot" in his head where it could pop out when he was trapped and fighting on the street, but don't fire him. We're left with the most boring and bland people blabbing on TV, including MSNBC's own little snake Martin Bashir.

"Madison committee to consider paying employees to bike to work."

Ha. That's very funny to me because just this morning, as Meade was driving me to work, we were observing the people on bikes and I said, "It's almost all young white males. All these bike lanes and other amenities, paid for with our tax money? It's almost all for white males. Oh, how it would pain Madison liberals to admit it!"

And now, here are these Madison liberals planning to give cold cash money to the white males.

The Sustainable Madison Committee will begin a discussion Monday on the potential for reimbursing city employees for giving up their parking spots in favor of biking, walking or taking a bus to work.

Oh, it's only for giving up your parking space? Then I guess you collect even if you've got a husband who drives you in, so it's not just about biking.

[T]he idea makes fiscal sense because the city provides employees with parking spaces that could command market prices, providing cash that could provide employees with an incentive to bike — or walk or bus — as well as give the city additional revenue.

At the university, we're expected to pay for parking spaces, so anyone — like me — who forgoes parking gets an economic benefit. If city workers get free parking, then why not let each worker collect the value of the space he gives up? But they're not just saying that.

"You create a system where you as an employer encourage folks to be healthier, and therefore they're more productive at work," [says Tom Klein, Dane County director of the Bike Federation of Wisconsin]. "Research suggests they take fewer sick days than people who don't bike or walk to work."

Some folks are just older or have pre-existing conditions and cannot bike. You're advocating discriminating against them? And what of those who have children that they need to drop off at day care on the way to work and pick up on the way home? What of those with family responsibilities who need to do errands and shop for food? It's easy for young, healthy, single people to think it's great to nudge others to ride bikes to work, but there are good reasons to drive cars, especially in a cold climate. When I first arrived in Madison, I biked to work. But the first day there was ice, the first time I braked, I instantly hit the pavement. There's no way anyone but the strongest, least risk-averse youths can bike year 'round. To pay money to those who do discriminates against women, parents, the un-young, the disabled, and the careful.

It's sexist, ageist, ableist, and ridiculous.

Racial fashion... deaf fashion... blind fashion... deaf music....

As long as I've started on the topic of fashion this morning, here are Tom & Lorenzo on last Thursday's finale on "Project Runway," where [SPOILER ALERT] finally, after 12 seasons, a black person has won. Here's how Tom & Lorenzo dealt with the racial element:

Anyway, major congratulations to Dom, not just for winning, but for being the first black winner in the show’s 12-season history. The reason this is notable is because typically, the fashion world has a distinct problem recognizing black (and especially African-American) designers and styles. We’re gonna leave that there, though. Dom doesn’t deserve to be designated a standard-bearer by us or anyone else. It’s enough for us to note it, but the deeper congratulations are for a job well done....

And — because, I guess "enough" is never enough:

... Dom’s origins and background have an influence on her work, but not in an overt way. She has a fantastic facility with prints and loves to use saturated colors in her designs. Again, not to make her a standard-bearer, but these are elements (along with shiny fabrics, also seen in her collection) that help define African-American fashion. Once again, it’s notable that the judges gave a win not just to a black designer, but a black designer with a distinct, if subtle, African-American sensibility in her work. The world of fashion is primed to wrinkle its nose at shiny, bright fabrics and wild prints, after all.... Dom did it her way and forced the judges to see the value in her work. Can’t argue with that.

There was also a contestant this season who was deaf, and he continually referred to the fact that he was deaf. He chose to be a "standard-bearer," with a mission to teach the world that a deaf person can succeed in fashion. It was an unexamined premise that people had told him he can't, but who were those people? Viewers were rooting for him, not laboring under the notion that deaf people can't do visual design and manual handiwork. It seems to me that a deaf fashion designer almost has an advantage, like a blind musician.

(I say "almost," because I realize that interacting with people, explaining your work and understanding their response, is a big part of it. But I wish his explanation of his work wasn't so much about his being deaf. The winner, Dom, never used race to explain her designs or her character — never, at least, in the edited footage that made it to our TV screen.)

Now, show me a blind fashion designer, and I might get excited about what he'd do. Seriously. He'd have to concentrate on form and texture that could be perceived with the hands and in the mind. He might care about the subtle sounds and smells. I'd like to see that.

As for deaf musicians, you can begin and end the conversation with the name Beethoven, but here's an article about 6 modern-day deaf musicians. Watch Evelyn Glennie:

Rachel Jeantel's inability to read cursive leads to articles about why we're even teaching cursive anymore.

Here's one: "Is cursive writing dead?"

A single sentence, uttered in the trial of George Zimmerman for the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin, has catapulted an issue into the national spotlight.

When asked if she could read a letter in court, witness Rachel Jeantel, her head bowed, murmured with embarrassment, "I don't read cursive," according to court testimony.

Jeantel was embarrassed, so let's all stop. Let's find everything that some people can't do and feel embarrassed about. And let's ask: Is this really necessary? Is this serving a purpose... other than to make some people feel embarrassed?

Jeantel is an icon not only in the fight to end education in cursive handwriting, but the fight to spare everyone embarrassment. This is the necessary extension of the struggle against bullying, a struggle to control deliberate meanness. But think of all the unintentional things that create emotional burdens for some people. There was a time when sidewalks lacked ramps for wheelchairs, not because anyone was out to make life difficult for wheelchairs, but simply because we failed to notice. Step up — wheel up — and become aware of all the needless barriers out there.

ADDED: When I learned cursive — in the late 1950s in northern Delaware — the word "cursive" was not used. We just called it "writing," "handwriting," or — I think — "manuscript" or "script." Consequently, the word "cursive" has always seemed strange to me.

I hear the ugly words "cur" and "curse," but, looking it up in the (unlinkable) OED, I see the etymology is connected to the Latin for "run" — cursīvus — and the idea is: "Written with a running hand, so that the characters are rapidly formed without raising the pen, and in consequence have their angles rounded, and separate strokes joined, and at length become slanted."

The word "cur" — meaning a low-quality dog — goes back to Middle Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian.

Middle English curre corresponds to... Norwegian (widely-spread) dialect kurre, korre ‘dog’, etc. The latter is generally associated with the onomatopoeic verb Old Norse kurra to murmur, grumble, Swedish kurra to grumble, rumble, snarl, Danish kurre to coo, German obsolete and dialect kurren to growl, grumble, murmur, coo....

So hear the grrrr in "cur."

The word "curse," the OED says, has unknown origin: "Late Old English curs, of unknown origin; no word of similar form and sense is known in Germanic, Romanic, or Celtic."  (Of connection with cross, which has been suggested, there is no trace.)"

Interesting to see that people have imagined that "curse" had to do with "cross," even as I imagined that "cursive" had to do with "cur" and "curse." What words have influenced your understanding of other words? Isn't that something that happened to you a lot when you were a child? Did you ever find it emotionally difficult to learn about something because you made an imaginative connection like this? Would "cursive" be easier to learn if we called it "script"?

"Sex on screen can teach us about so much more than sex."

Writes Mireille Miller-Young, an associate professor of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the last of a set of 6 short essays in the NYT answering the question "What's the difference between a good sex scene and a gratuitous one in films?"

The sentence above is the 4th to the last sentence in her essay. The next 3 sentences are:

At the recent Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto, Mia Gimp and Clark Matthews won “sexiest short” for their entry “Krutch,” shot on an iPhone 5 on the streets of Midtown Manhattan. The film tells the story of a disabled woman who, faced with the challenges of navigating a world made for able-bodied individuals, finds solace and erotic pleasure with her crutch. For depictions that push against sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableist, heteronormative beauty ideals – as it turns out, porn is now the place to look.

Ironically, my phobia is about movies depicting sex for the purpose of teaching me anything. Put that on your list of things you can't push against with porn.

"I had a little argument yesterday with a woman who wanted to bring her dog in at the restaurant by showing a card saying her dog is a 'service dog.'"

"As I always understood, a service dog is to help a disabled person, and usually the dog is a German Shepard trainee to help disabled people. But a fucking chihuahua can be a service dog? And on top, that bitch was not disabled. I told her that she is not disabled and that we could get fined by the Department of health by letting a dog in the establishment. She got angry saying that its illegal to ask someone if one is disabled. Still I told her we could get in trouble. Was my action right?"

"One-armed woman wins Miss Iowa 2013."

It's Nicole Kelly!

“As I grew up I learned to counterbalance the initial stares I received from people with an outgoing personality that would not give into ‘no'.... This means that I tried everything. From baseball, to dance, to diving - there is nothing I would not try. I found my passion within a world where I was giving people permission to stare: the stage.”

Is it ridiculous/unethical for a woman to wear glasses to look smarter?

This is a seemingly silly question asked of the NYT "ethicist":

I wear nonprescription eyeglasses on job interviews or when meeting new clients for the distinct purpose of gaining respect by appearing smarter and more credible. It would be unethical to use a wheelchair to gain sympathy by appearing disabled, so is this any different?

The letter writer is a woman, and the ethicist — a man — tells her it's not unethical and only an unintelligent person would think glasses make you look more intelligent. And: "If this fashion decision fools people, they deserve to be fooled."

I have about 10 problems with this answer:

1. There's an unexamined opinion that it's okay to fool people who are not intelligent.

2. There's the completely wrong notion that intelligent people have only rational, fact-based thoughts, not emotions and intuitions and sexual urges that influence what they do.

3. There's no attention to the analogy to using a wheelchair, which has many intriguing similarities and differences, such as the fact that a wheelchair only partly corrects a physical deficiency, but glasses presumably get you up to 20/20...

4. ... and the person in glasses is not trying to stimulate a feeling of warmth — sympathy — she's trying to avert feelings of warmth — sexual attraction — or avoid the appearance of warmth that may emanate from the unbespectacled face of a woman.

5. The word "fashion" is used to connote superficiality and light weight, but fashion is powerful in making impressions, and not just on fools. In fact, you're a fool if you think fashion has no impact on you.

6. Saying "fashion" implies the alternate analogy to clothing, but most of us dress in a special way for job interviews or to meet new clients, and we take that pretty seriously without assuming only a fool would be influenced.

7. The analogy to clothing is interestingly inaccurate, because glasses are needed — when they are needed — in a way that is different from clothing. We all need clothing to avoid being naked, but glasses are needed to get to an ideal level that some people have naturally. So wearing glasses contains this claim of physical weakness that the letter writer feels might constitute a lie.

8. Is unnecessary display of physical need wrong in this professional setting? We certainly — if we can — hide sexual urges and our need to urinate. Imagine what our clients would think if we made an outward display of those things. On this analysis, one could imagine thinking that people who need vision correction ought to wear contacts lenses.

9. This might really be about makeup. Studies have shown that it's contrast that makes a woman's face look more feminine — and women often use eyeliner, mascara, and eyebrow pencil to achieve this effect, but too much makeup may seem to send the wrong message. Glasses are a way to get some contrast onto the face.

10. Why do glasses work to turn Superman into Clark Kent?

"Frankly, whenever I see a complaint alleging racism these days, I assume it’s a political hatchet job by political hacks."

"That assumption is generally borne out," says Instapundit, linking to this (of mine) and to Above The Law's "A Tale of Sound & Fury (But No Transcript): In Defense of Judge Edith Jones."

My post — "Character assassination attempted on 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones" — encouraged people who actually attended Jones's talk at the University of Pennsylvania Law School to write to me. I'm still hoping someone made a recording, but I did get this response from someone who attended (and who gave me permission to reprint this):

On February 20, 2013, the Penn Federalist Society hosted Judge Edith Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Jones was formerly chief judge for that court and is a prominent and well respected conservative judge. The topic was Federal Courts and the Death Penalty. The event was not recorded, but was, as with all of our events, open to the public. We normally do not record events.

The event was well attended, even drawing in members of the community, or so we assumed since we did not recognize these individuals. On April 12, a paralegal from Feldman, Orlansky & Sanders in Anchorage, AK, emailed the law school’s communications department to inquire whether the event had been recorded. Yesterday, an amalgam of special interest groups and individuals signed an ethics complaint against Judge Jones for her remarks. Most prominent is Marc Bookman, a Philadelphia-area attorney who has been happy to provide statements to the press and whose affidavit the student affidavits all refer to as the standard.

Religion

Judge Jones spoke about the death penalty. She was careful to distinguish between the constitutionality, morality, and effectiveness of capital punishment, presumably hoping that her audience was capable of understanding her distinctions. She dispensed with the constitutional question quickly, invoking the familiar argument that it is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. She also unsurprisingly does not believe that the meaning of the text is susceptible to updating outside the Article V amendment process.

The moral argument was separated out to no avail, apparently. Judge Jones spoke about her faith tradition and the role of capital punishment in the Jewish holy texts (here I would assume most people know that these are part of the Christian Bible). She spoke of the possibility that execution was more humane and that, in many instances, it represented the only course of action that would lead the killer to repentance. She referenced a thought-provoking article that suggested the Roman Catholic Church once agreed with this position.

There is nothing unseemly or improper about a judge having personal moral convictions, whether they are extremely common beliefs (as here) or otherwise.

Judge Jones explicitly declined to cite the Bible as “legal support” for the death penalty, as the Complaint alleges on p 7, quoting Ex. Ep5. She clearly said that she was addressing separately the questions of the death penalty’s moral, legal, and constitutional justifications. It is surprising that someone should be so offended by Judge Jones’ use of moral language to discuss the morality of capital punishment.

Judge Jones deliberately and carefully separated the moral question from the legal and constitutional issues in the death penalty. The goal of this was to disentangle what is often confused.

Race

During her remarks, Judge Jones addressed several of the more common arguments against the death penalty. Among these is the contention that the penalty disproportionately falls on racial or ethnic minorities. It is worth noting that Judge Jones acknowledged this fact and acknowledged that it is not a good thing. She pointed out, however, that the real tragedy is that these communities normally do have a higher crime rate, and tend to have a dramatically higher violent crime rate. She also observed that much of the Mexican drug trade tends to be carried on by Hispanics, an inescapable reality in the Southwest border state where Judge Jones resides.

These demographics don’t make anyone happy, and Judge Jones was not making light of the problem they present. It was here, among other times, that several of the students (in their affidavits) claim they looked around and saw the shock and outrage on the faces of their peers. One of the students, a black man in the back of the room, asked Judge Jones to clarify whether she meant that these groups are actually predisposed towards violent crime. As Mr. Bookman’s own testimony (p28) reveals, she explicitly said that this was not her contention but rather that she was pointing out a statistical fact.

I point out the questioner’s race because lurking amidst the rest of these claims is the real issue of privilege, in this case (my own) white privilege. Most of the other claims of widespread dismay and displeasure reflect on the temperament of the offendee, but not this one. As a white man, I don’t know what it is like to have others cavalierly declare that people with my skin color commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime. If that were happening, I would insist on clarification and careful language each and every time, too. Judge Jones did clarify though, and she disclaimed any suggestion that she meant that a person’s race is determines his criminal propensity. Again, I will not dispute that people with different backgrounds may have been affected differently by her words.

The complaint reaches even greater levels of disrepute. It points to several capital cases in which expert psychological testimony was offered to the effect that the defendant’s race was a factor in the level of danger he posed in the future. The State of Texas publicly denounced this testimony. The complaint asserts that Judge Jones “maintains and publicly defends the very unconstitutional, biased beliefs that the State of Texas has rightly repudiated.”

Judge Jones did – and does – nothing of the sort. She was making no claims about individual defendants, psychology, or sentencing. She was answering the question, “Why are some groups incarcerated at rates higher than their proportion in the population at large?” and pointed out that the fact that those groups commit more crimes may have some connection to it. Her lecture was not about the causes of demographic trends and she refrained from speculating thereabout.

Mental Retardation

Judge Jones expressed skepticism at claims of mental retardation as a defense to capital murder, in part because a capital murder conviction has elements that cut against mental retardation. There is no impropriety in a judge observing that a convict slated for execution is willing to make claims that may not be true.

The complaint attempts to foment an atmosphere of outrage by insisting on putting “mental retardation” in quotes, insisting that “intellectually disabled” is the preferred term. Unlike the complaint, I do not use the term in quotes because the Supreme Court does not use the term in quotes, nor do the courts of Pennsylvania (Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 36 A.3d. 24 (Pa. 2011)), Alabama (Yeomans v. State, 2013 WL 1284361 (Ala. Crim. App. 2013)); or Minnesota (Chambers v. State, 2013 WL 2364079 (Minn. 2013)), just to take a few random examples from a cite check of Atkins. The complaint cites cases (footnote 11) that also use the term. Whatever the merits of what we should call those with diminished intellectual ability, Judge Jones is not calling them “imbeciles” or “morons.”

Not once did Judge Jones express a desire or intention to change the Atkins rule; even less did she give any suggestion that she would refuse to follow it in the courtroom. The complaint’s allegation that Judge Jones “expressed extreme bias… against the law of the United States” is patently frivolous.

Other Frivolous Claims

Innocence. Especially since DNA testing became reliable and widespread, the question of a death row inmate’s actual innocence has been prominent. Judge Jones remarked that these cases are extraordinarily rare and that in her experience defendant successes are due to technicalities, not innocence. The complaint makes no attempt to connect these comments to any impropriety, nor even that the claims are false.

Foreign Nationals: The complaint asserts that Judge Jones denigrated the system of justice in Mexico, then goes on to cite to testimony that does not support that claim. She is certainly right that Mexico does not provide defendants with lengthy appeals with an attorney, all at the state’s expense. I recently discovered that Mexico generally does not have an adversarial justice system. In light of that, Judge Jones’s comments about convicts preferring American correctional facilities were understated.

Individual Cases: Judge Jones was disgusted at heinous crimes committed by convicted criminals. The complaint suggests that because some of the individuals she discussed are still alive that they could come before her in future litigation. Anyone on the planet might come before the Fifth Circuit at some point. The Complaint only suggests that her disgust at brutal murders committed by yet-to-be-executed convicts is somehow inappropriate. Canon 3 (6) (A) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges prohibits judges from “public comment on the merits” of a pending or impending case. This she did not do. She discussed only publicly available facts that were the basis of a capital conviction by a jury. The canon goes on to say “The prohibition on public comment on the merits does not extend… to scholarly presentations made for purposes of legal education.” The Federalist Society exists to complement formal legal education by providing promoting discourse on important social and legal issues. Although Judge Jones did not discuss the merits of the cases, she

Comments about the Supreme Court. Judge Jones criticized the development of some aspects of U.S. law, noting that some decisions have led to confusion. Her remarks respectful of the Court while criticizing past decisions, and she has demonstrated her willingness to follow the law even when she disagrees with it. She joined a panel in overturning a denial of habeas relief based on intervening Supreme Court precedent in Garcia v. Quarterman, 257 Fed. Appx. 717 (2007).

Emotional Reaction (and the Dramatic Ending)

The complaint also alleges that it was just such bad form for a judge to express emotion. Judge Jones expressed disapproval of those who attempt to evade their sentence by claiming mental incompetence. She was passionate about justice for evil men who slaughtered innocent people. She was passionate for the parents who watched as their child’s killer evaded his sentence on a technicality.

As the event was coming to a close (it was about 1:15 and we try, though usually fail, to end around 1:00), one of the nonstudent audience members asked a question. The question was why we should particularly care what the founding generation thought of the Constitution, since many of them owned slaves, and women did not vote, etc. It is unclear if the questioner meant we should discard the entire Constitution or only those parts that are not to our liking.

The question was so provocatively asked that I looked around and saw that some people were surprised. Students later told me they thought it was rudely presented. The questioner was, after all, challenging the legitimacy of the United States Constitution to an Article III judge. Rather than lead Mr. Bookman down the path of semantic meaning and constitutionalism, or decline his provocation outright, Judge Jones responded briefly and judiciously by defending the value of the Constitution and the nation that it constituted.

Since the time allocated for the event had passed, the president thanked the audience for their participation and we ended the event. The “abrupt” ending referenced in the complaint should not be attributed to Judge Jones or the content of her lecture—it is how the vast majority of our meetings must end because question and answer usually closes the meeting, and people often have a lot to say.

Character assassination attempted on 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones.

This is truly scurrilous. I'm embarrassed for these organizations — so-called civil rights groups — who filed this complaint.

The lecture was not recorded, but witnesses recalled a number of Jones' controversial statements. The views she expressed included not only that minorities are responsible for more violent crime than are whites, but also that claims by death row inmates that racism or arbitrariness infected their prosecutions, or that they are actually innocent or even mentally retarded, are merely "red herrings," according to those who attended the lecture. She told the law students and other attendees that she thought the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling outlawing the death penalty for the mentally retarded did intellectually disabled individuals a disservice, and that to create such an exemption from execution was a "slippery slope," reads the complaint. "In describing … what Judge Jones said about these cases, I am not able to capture the complete outrage she expressed over the crimes or the disgust she evinced over the defense raised, particularly by the defendants who claimed to be mentally retarded," reads the declaration, filed with the complaint, of veteran Pennsylvania-based death penalty attorney Marc Bookman, who attended the lecture. "Judge Jones's disgust at how these defendants were 'using mental retardation' was very evident and very disconcerting," reads the complaint.

She gave a speech. You don't have the text, but you'd like to destroy her. Why not just argue and debate about the ideas? Instead, you tell us about how you — who don't like her legal decisions — felt an upswelling of emotion over whatever it was she said.

Shame on you!

This was a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, attended by many students. I find it hard to believe no one recorded the speech. I hope a recording emerges and a transcript can be made, because I would love to compare Jones's actual statement to the assertions made in the complaint.

Did any of my readers attend the lecture and make a digital recording? I'd be happy to receive it.

"Diagnosed with moderate to severe autism at the age of 2, Jacob spent years in the clutches of a special education system..."

"... that didn’t understand what he needed. His teachers at school would try to dissuade Kristine from hoping to teach Jacob any more than the most basic skills."

One day, his mom took him stargazing. A few months later, they visited a planetarium where a professor was giving a lecture. Whenever the teacher asked questions, Jacob’s little hand shot up and he began to answer questions — easily understanding complicated theories about physics and the movement of planets.

Here's the mother's book, "The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius."

"[I]t is troubling to me that rates of termination for pregnancies where Down syndrome is identified are extremely high."

Writes Alison Piepmeier, who has a 4-year-old child with Down syndrome and a book "on prenatal testing and reproductive decision-making."

Extremely high? What percentage do you imagine when you hear the rate is "extremely high"? I pictured something like 90%, but according to this article, it's something like 50%. I'd like to see a breakdown in the percentages, with separate numbers for the women who generally think abortion is morally wrong and women who think early abortion is merely ridding the body of an unwanted growth. It might be that these 2 groups are about equal in size, and the women in Group 1 have a 1% incidence of abortion when the unborn is known to have Down syndrome, and Group 2 has 99%. Together, the result is 50%.

But I don't think women divide neatly into 2 groups. It's more of a spectrum, and there are also women who haven't thought about the question in any depth. I can also imagine how a woman in Group 1 might arrive at the decision to have an abortion, and how a woman in Group 2 might decide not to. (In the first case, a woman facing a known challenge might abandon principles she'd previously embraced in the abstract. In the second case, a woman might think that destroying the unborn because of something about that individual is murderous in a way that is not like the generic rejection of a pregnancy happening at an inconvenient time.)

Back to the linked article:

[S]ome parents of children with Down syndrome are celebrating the news that North Dakota has become the first state to outlaw abortion for fetal conditions like Down syndrome. One parent wrote that “it felt like a small victory seeing that abortions based on Down syndrome were banned — like saying, see, individuals with Down syndrome are valued and protected."...

Piepmeier — who has interviewed women who chose to abort in this situation — opposes this kind of law. Unsurprisingly, these women described an "incredibly painful decision," focusing on the difficulties the child would face.

Noting that the North Dakota law won't stop abortions — these women will simply travel out of state — Piepmeier says if North Dakota really cared about the fate of children with Down syndrome, it would take the money that it will now need to be spent in litigation defending the law and spend it on making the state a more "welcoming place for people with disabilities."

Clemson's disability awareness day criticized for feeding stereotypes and stirring pity.

The event — awkwardly titled Walk & Roll in My Shoes — was to have professors/administrators paired with disabled students and somehow simulating the disability. Put a person who doesn't need a wheelchair in a wheelchair and so forth.

“I think that a simulation event of any kind -- whether it’s try on poverty for a day, or try on race for a day, or try on a queer identity for a day -- raises problems,” said Jillian Weise, an assistant professor of English. “It assumes that a nondisabled participant can understand disabilities totally and completely by wearing goggles or by wearing headphones.”

Weise, who walks with a prosthetic leg, said the event negates the personal experiences of living with a disability, instead promoting a superficial understanding of disabilities through a kind of parody. Relegating students with disabilities to the role of “shadows” will also fail to raise awareness, Weise said.

“We need to be more visible, and ‘shadow’ implies a nonperson, a nonentity, and the word ‘shadow’ is related on a literary basis to ghost, to death,” Weise said. “At this moment, we need to see persons with disabilities being successful and in positions of power.”

Man dies of "a result of a tragic car accident 30 years ago."

"Rob was never able to talk to us again. At all. He was not able to see. He was not able to eat. He was tube fed for all of those years...."

"Rob was in a total coma for a long, long time. About six years. Then he was in a state of some awareness but could not respond...."...

"The hospice has a music therapist who would come in and play her guitar and sing to Rob his favorite songs, Alabama songs. Right after he died, she came back and sat there until the funeral parlor came and picked up Rob. She sat there very quietly singing her songs to him"....

That's a sad story about a Wisconsin man. I guess "Alabama songs" refers to songs by the country rock band Alabama, which has been around since 1969.

I see Wikipedia has a page "List of songs about Alabama." It's a long list, including "Alabama Song," the Brecht/Weill song that The Doors covered. ("Show us the way to the next whisky bar... show us the way to the next pretty boy....") The most famous song about Alabama is probably "Sweet Home Alabama." Or is it "Stars Fell on Alabama" — which Billie Holiday sang so sweetly.

Warren Lee Hill was sentenced to death for bludgeoning Joseph Handspike with a nail-studded board.

Handspike, Hill's fellow inmate, had been sleeping and other prisoners begged Hill to stop. Hill "was already serving a life sentence for murder in the 1986 slaying of his girlfriend, Myra Wright, who had been shot 11 times."

The Handspike murder took place in 1990, 23 years ago, and just as Hill was being prepped for the lethal injection, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay, so that it may be determined, after all these years, whether Hill is — as his lawyer put it — "a person with mental retardation."

Hill has received support from various activists and from former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn.

"Georgia should not violate its own prohibition against executing individuals with serious diminished capacity," President Carter said in a statement....

Georgia passed a law in 1988 prohibiting the execution of mentally disabled death row inmates, and the U.S.Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the execution of mentally disabled offenders is unconstitutional....

Before trial, Hill's family members described him as "the leader of the family" and "a father figure," the state notes. He was not in special education classes and served in the Navy, where he received promotions, the state said.

The incredible Pistorius story.

Incredible in the literal sense — not credible:

Mr. Pistorius said he and Ms. Steenkamp had gone to bed early on Wednesday night, but in the middle of the night he heard a noise from the bathroom and went to investigate on his stumps, not his artificial legs.

He was nervous, he said, because the bathroom window did not have burglar bars and contractors who had been working there had left ladders behind. The room was dark, he said, and he did not realize that Ms. Steenkamp was not in bed. He felt vulnerable and fearful without his prosthetics and opened fire at the door, he said, calling to Ms. Steenkamp to telephone the police.

Only then did he realize that she was not in bed, he said. He put on his artificial legs and tried to kick down the door before breaking it open with a cricket bat to discover Ms. Steenkamp.

He carried her downstairs, he said, and “she died in my arms.”

Even the fact that he carried her downstairs makes the story unbelievable. She was shot in the head and still alive. You don't pick someone up and move her around in that circumstance if you want her to live.

"Oscar Pistorius held his head in his hands and wept openly in court Friday as prosecutors said they would pursue a charge of premeditated murder..."

"Chief Magistrate Desmond Nasir delayed Pistorius' bail hearing until next Tuesday and Wednesday and ruled that the 26-year-old Pistorius would be held at a police station in Pretoria until then. Police have said they oppose the granting of bail."

Is it okay to make politically incorrect jokes about whether he's a flee risk? Are we now released from all the old restrictions of etiquette?

Too bad John Callahan isn't still around to make he won't get far on foot jokes.



Meanwhile, Nike's "I Am The Bullet In The Chamber" ad is shot to hell.

"What a liar" — famously muttered into an open mike.

It's the one thing I've always remembered about Daniel K. Inouye.

Dead now, at age 88.

Inouye was a World War II hero and Medal of Honor winner who lost an arm to a German hand grenade during a battle in Italy. He became the first Japanese-American to serve in Congress, when he was elected to the House in 1959, the year Hawaii became a state. He won election to the Senate three years later and served there longer than anyone in American history except Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who died in 2010 after 51 years in the Senate....

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson urged Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had won the Democratic nomination for president, to select Inouye as his running mate. Johnson told Humphrey that Inouye's World War II injuries would silence Humphrey's critics on the Vietnam War.

"He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with (Republican presidential candidate Richard) Nixon with that empty sleeve," Johnson said.

But Inouye was not interested.