jasonswadley.com

Exhomophobia

A story has been circulating about Obama’s incorporation of gospel singer Donnie McClurkin into his South Carolina tour. McClurkin was gay. He’s not any more. For him, homosexuality was not simply a lifestyle choice, but stemmed from deeper sexual confusion due to abuse as a child.

He’s taken a very public stand on the issue of homosexuality, stating quite clearly that 1) there are many gay men and women like him and 2) they don’t have to continue living a life that makes them feel guilty.

Suddenly, McClurkin is radically anti-gay and Obama is "[pandering] to anti-gay mania." Is this really homophobia?

First, let’s be clear - a phobia is an irrational fear of something. Crowds. Spiders. Simply disagreeing with the lifestyle doesn’t give an accuser the right to throw the "homophobic" epithet - and that’s what it is, an epithet - at the accused.

Secondly, McClurkin is far from "anti-gay". He contends that the lifestyle is wrong, but makes no claims about homosexuals themselves. How could he be, having once been gay himself?

This raises a host of questions.

1. Why do those in the media consistently conflate a person’s single belief with that person’s identity? (Anyone remember the Strom Thurmon/Trent Lott incident?) Their logic runs like this: McClurkin is against homosexuality (but not gays, though they forget the distinction). Therefore, any news story that mentions him must identify him as anti-gay. In addition, anyone who associates with him must have an anti-gay agenda as well.
2. Why do "gay rights activists" harbor such hatred virulent intolerance for those who leave the lifestyle?
3. How can you champion flexible sexuality if you ignore those who embody that very flexibility?
4. How much longer until we realize that these rigid labels - "gay" "straight" - don’t do a good job describing sexuality? How many sexual encounters of a certain kind must one have to qualify? What of someone who changes their sexuality? Were they always one or the other?

Tolerance must be more than a one-way street.

Alcohol - in any amount - increases cancer risks

Specifically, [alcohol is good because it] reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes caused
by blocked arteries by 10 to 15 percent. That’s probably because
alcohol increases good cholesterol and prevents blood platelets from
clumping together.

"On the other hand, alcohol is detrimental for more than 60 diagnoses,"
said Juergen Rehm, head of public health and regulatory Vpolicies at the
Ontario Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

"That red wine stuff — how it was supposed to be protective — was
hyped completely out of whack by the media," Rehm said. "And whatever
protective effect there is, is not about the red wine — it’s about the
alcohol."

Very interesting. Did any of you know this before now?

U of C Professor wins Noble Prize in Economics

Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson, all from the United
States, were awarded the Nobel Prize in economic sciences on Monday for
laying the foundations for mechanism design theory.

"The theory allows us to distinguish situations in which markets
work well from those in which they do not," the Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences said in Stockholm. "It has helped economists identify
efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes and voting procedures."

That bumps the number of Prize winners with University of Chicago ties up to 80. Impressive.

Monty Python… with Legos

That French Guy

‘Tis a Silly Place

[via CP]

Why email is wonderful… and sucks

In contrast to a phone call or talking in person, e-mail can be
emotionally impoverished when it comes to nonverbal messages that add
nuance and valence to our words. The typed words are denuded of the
rich emotional context we convey in person or over the phone.

E-mail,
of course, has a multitude of virtues: it’s quick and convenient,
democratizes access and lets us stay in touch with loads of people we
could never see or call. It enables us to accomplish huge amounts of
work together.

It also enables CH3aP V1aGra and O3M $0FTwAR3, not to mention the transfer of millions of dollars from kind but incredibly naive Nigerians who need us to "hold" money from their long-departed father.

The Human LCD

Dictionary 2.0

Apple is planning some excellent features for Leopard’s dictionary, including language translation and Wikipedia integration.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a Neocon?

Beyond that, neocon has morphed into an all-purpose insult for anyone who still believes that American power is inextricable from global stability and still thinks the muscular anti-totalitarian U.S. interventionism that brought down Slobodan Milosevic has a place, and still argues, like Christopher Hitchens, that ousting Saddam Hussein put the United States “on the right side of history.”