So is the Hockey Mama for Obama ... this time as Sarah Palin.
Thanks to Sandy and Richard Riccardi, makers of the videos, for sending me the link. Yes, I too think she will run in 2012. Like a moth attracted to the bright flame, I doubt she can resist the lure of the national limelight.
Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) is a long time champion of "sanctity of human life." He is a staunch opponent of abortion and since his conversion to Catholicism, also of the death penalty, except in rare cases. It is not surprising therefore that Brownback does not support embryonic stem cell research or cloning. All this while I had assumed that his opposition to both stemmed from his "culture of life" philosophy in which making and taking of lives should be left in the hands of the almighty. But now I find out that the senator is also worried about genetic research leading to the creation of human-animal hybrids. To thwart the sudden emergence of mythical creatures like centaurs and minotaurs in the midst of our otherwise peaceful world, Brownback has introduced a bill called the The Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act.
“This legislation works to ensure that our society recognizes the dignity and sacredness of human life,” said Brownback. “Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human and is a violation of human dignity and a grave injustice.”
The Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act would ban the creation of human-animal hybrids. Human-animal hybrids are defined as those part-human, part-animal creatures, which are created in laboratories, and blur the line between species. The bill is modest in scope and only affects efforts to blur the genetic lines between animals and humans. It does not preclude the use of animals or humans in legitimate research or health care where genetic material is not passed on to future generations, such as the use of a porcine heart valve in a human patient or the use of a lab rat with human diseases to develop treatments.
Brownback continued, “This legislation is both philosophical and practical as it has a direct bearing upon the very essence of what it means to be human, and it draws a bright line with respect to how far we can go in attempting to create new creatures made with genes from both humans and animals.
“My background is in agriculture, and for a number of years we have been working with crops and animals to produce a superior soy bean, a superior cow, and so-on. We can genetically engineer safe products and herds that are disease resistant or that possess more desirable attributes. But doing this in plants and livestock is very different than doing this in humans.
“The issue is that when you make changes in the germ-line, such changes are passed along to one’s offspring. You could make a change now that could be passed along through the gene-pool for the rest of humanity. We do not know what the full effect of this could be, and it could be disastrous.
“Tampering with the human germ-line could be the equivalent to setting a time-bomb that might detonate many generations down the line; but once it is set, there is no reversing course.
“I am optimistic that our nation we will make a sound choice for the generations to come. Already, in Louisiana last month, Governor Jindal signed legislation into law that would prohibit the creation of human-animal hybrids. That law is modeled after earlier versions of the legislation that we introduce today.”
All the co-sponsors of the bill are Republican senators (John McCain among them). What is Democrat Mary Landrieu doing here? Trying to outdo Governor Bobby Jindal in political grandstanding, I suppose. But don't they love mermaids in Louisiana?
The cat obviously is enjoying the monkey business. (thanks to Namit Arora for the link)
And more about cats and how they have "tapped into human biases" to their own advantage.
I happened to catch parts of Tuesday's Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The most fascinating exchange of the day took place when Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) questioned the judge. Sessions, a southern right winger, whose own nomination to federal judgeship was blocked in 1986 partially because of his attitude towards racial issues,interrogated Sotomayor about her opinions on race and prejudice. The line of questioning was doggedly vicious, not uncommon for either political party when a candidate from the other side is up for confirmation. But in the case of Senator Sessions, he not only displayed remarkable mean spiritedness but he also inadvertently gave us a glimpse into the one track mind of a bigot who is not quite comfortable dealing with an accomplished woman of color. Of particular interest to Sessions was Sotomayor's statement regarding a "wise Latina woman." Here is an excerpt from the transcript of Tuesday's hearings:
SESSIONS: Welcome. It's good to have you back, Judge, and your family and friends and supporters. And I hope we'll have a good day today, look forward to dialogue with you. I got to say that I liked your statement on the fidelity of the law yesterday and some of your comments this morning.
And I also have to say had you been saying that with clarity over the last decade or 15 years, we'd have a lot fewer problems today because you have evidenced, I think it's quite clear, a philosophy of the law that suggests that the judge's background and experiences can and should -- even should and naturally will impact their decision what I think goes against the American ideal and oath that a judge takes to be fair to every party. And every day when they put on that robe, that is a symbol that they're to put aside their personal biases and prejudices.
So I'd like to ask you a few things about it. I would just note that it's not just one sentence, as my chairman suggested, that causes us difficulty. It's a body of thought over a period of years that causes us difficulties.
And I would suggest that the quotation he gave was not exactly right of the wise Latina comment that you made. You've said, I think six different times, quote, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion." So that's a matter that I think we'll talk about as we go forward."....SESSIONS: I know one judge that says that if he has a feeling about a case, he tells his law clerks to, "Watch me. I do not want my biases, sympathies or prejudices to influence this decision, which I've taken an oath to make sure is impartial." I just am very concerned that what you're saying today is quite inconsistent with your statement that you willingly accept that your sympathies, opinions and prejudices may influence your decision-making.
So it went on and on about heritage (read "race and gender"), experience and resulting biases that supposedly taint judicial decisions. Later, second guessing Sotomayor's ruling about the New Haven firefighters case, Sessions said to Sotomayor:
SESSIONS: Judge, there was a -- apparently, unease within your panel. I -- I was really disappointed. And I think a lot of people have been that the opinion was so short. It was pro curiam. It did not discuss the serious legal issues that the case raised. And I believe that's legitimate criticism of what you did.
But it appears, according to Stuart Taylor, a respected legal writer for the National Journal -- that Stuart Taylor concluded that -- that it appears that Judge Cabranes was concerned about the outcome of the case, was not aware of it because it was a pro curiam unpublished opinion. But it began to raise the question of whether a rehearing should be granted.
You say you're bound by the superior authority. But the fact is when the re -- the question of rehearing that 2nd Circuit authority that you say covered the case, some say it didn't cover so clearly -- but that was up for debate. And the circuit voted, and you voted not to reconsider the prior case. You voted to stay with the decision of the circuit.
And, in fact, your vote was the key vote. Had you voted with Judge Cabranes, himself of -- of -- of Puerto Rican ancestry -- had you voted with him, you -- you -- you could have changed that case.
Wait a minute! What was that about Judge Cabranes and his Puerto Rican ancestry? After raking Sotomayor over the coals for her so-called biases, did Sessions suggest that she, a Puerto Rican by birth, would have done well to vote with a fellow Puerto Rican? Perhaps Sessions was also chiding her for failing to keep her womanly foolishness in check by not following a man's example?
When at last can we hope to see the last of such lizard-brains like Senator Sessions, the likes of whom continue to contaminate all public discourse with their outmoded ideas and prejudices?
Readers may remember this book review about the Crypto Jews of Spain and Portugal. Their stories were a complicated maze of religious faith, persecution and conversion under duress. Above all, their history was also about tenaciously and secretly holding on to a personal identity despite considerable external threats. Christian persecution of Jews is now mostly a matter of the past and the Crypto Jews, several generations removed from their ancestors, have mostly assimilated into the larger Christian population. Puzzled by some odd family traditions, some Hispanic Catholics in the southwestern states of the US (mostly immigrants from Mexico) are eagerly investigating possible Judaic roots, including genetic testing, to establish Sephardic Jewish descent. Their clues come from certain seemingly non-Christian practices amidst their Christian lives which they believe hark back to a Jewish past. One such story of a Catholic woman from Houston who believes she has found her way back to the faith of her Sephardic ancestors.
At an East Galveston beach, Mari Barkhausen is waist-deep in the cool, brown water. After repeating Hebrew blessings, she is immersed once, twice. When she emerges from the water a third time, she is a Jew.
She hugs her rabbi, looking to the shoreline at her husband and two sons who are waiting for their mikveh, the ritual immersion for Jewish converts.
“Mazel tov, everyone,” declares Rabbi Stuart Federow. “This day begins the rest of your education. Jewish learning never stops.”
Barkhausen’s journey began decades ago as she watched her maternal grandmother’s peculiar ways. Her Mexican-American abuela would light candles on Fridays and draw the curtains before sundown, cover mirrors at home when a relative died and examine eggs for blood spots.
No one questioned her ways, and no explanation was ever offered to little Mari or her siblings.
Years later, Barkhausen would realize those customs were not one woman’s idiosyncrasies. They were Jewish customs.
Lighting of candles marked the beginning of the Sabbath. Many cover mirrors when someone dies to avoid concentrating on their grief-stricken appearances. And the Old Testament teaches that life is in the blood.
Grandma did all these things, Barkhausen remembered. But Grandma wasn’t Jewish. She was Catholic.
Having failed in their attempt to inject religion into science education, Texas conservatives have shifted their attention to the state's elementary school social studies curriculum. According to some, school children need no longer learn about national figures such as George Washington and Abraham Licoln or Texas leaders like Stephen F. Austin. Other public figures, Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall for example, too could be excluded from the study material. According to the right wingers, the former is an "unworthy role model" for young school children and the latter's life story and influence are deemed "inappropriate." Instead, they would like to emphasize the role of Christianity in founding America and formulating Texas history. I suppose if you can't indocrinate older children with faith based science, it is far simpler to catch them young by way of revisionist history.
AUSTIN — Biographies of Washington, Lincoln, Stephen F. Austin? Not fit reading material for children in the early grades.
Cesar Chavez? Not worthy of his role-model status.
Christianity? Emphasize its importance.
Such suggestions are part of efforts to rewrite history books for the state's schoolchildren, producing some expert recommendations that are sure to inflame Texans, no matter their political leanings.
The State Board of Education expects to start discussing new social studies curriculum standards this week, with members of the public getting their first opportunity to speak this fall and a final board vote next spring.
The process is a long one with lasting impact: reshaping the social studies curriculum, including history, for 4.7 million Texas public school children.
“This is something that every parent would want to be paying attention to. This will determine whether or not the kids get the education needed to succeed in college and jobs in the future,” said Dan Quinn of the Austin-based Texas Freedom Network. “If we are going to politicize our kids' education, that will put our kids behind other kids when they're competing for college and good-paying jobs on down the road.”
Curriculum standards are updated about every 10 years; the last social studies update came in 1997.
According to a preliminary draft of the new proposed standards, biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen F. Austin have been removed from the early grades, said Brooke Terry of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The early draft, which is likely to change multiple times in the coming months, also removes Independence Day, Veterans' Day, and anthems and mottos for both Texas and the United States in a section on holidays, customs and celebrations, she said.
1. I imagine the average music listener has as much trouble teasing apart the different musical lines, instruments and voices in a symphony (say) as I do. Why isn't there a product category on the market where the different voices in a piece are all recorded individually? With a suitable software interface, you'd be able to hear just the first violin, or only the brass or only what the pianist is playing with his right hand, and so on. Or various toggle-able combinations of the elements. Plus of course, you could turn everything on and hear a serviceable, though hardly great, recording of the piece. The time I can imagine spending with such a CD is almost limitless; it'd be like having this for every piece I cared about. Surely the market can't be that small, and the production certainly isn't difficult. Why's no-one doing this?
2. I've often harbored a certain dim, masochistic sense that bans related to passive smoking have been less about health than about the general ickiness of the habit, the smell of the noxious weed and a certain puritanical desire to control and command. Indeed, I'd assumed the actual health risk from second hand smoke was minimal. I still assume those other factors are salient, but apparently this last isn't so. Orac at Scienceblogs has a very nice post up about secondhand smoking, that gets into the various studies performed, the mechanisms of consensus-generation and the politics in forming, disputing and proceeding from that consensus. Two takeaway numbers, in case you don't read the whole thing:
- "A person who smokes two packs a day smoker for 40-50 years will have approximately a 20% chance of dying of lung cancer."
- "In adults, numerous studies support the existence of approximately a 25% elevated risk of lung cancer from those exposed to secondhand smoke chronically."
3. This New York Times story is almost perfect for transporting a certain sort of mind into mystical ecstasies. It has all of:
- natural creatures who've suffered greatly under Man, yet absolve him of his sins
- cuddly, natural Disney creatures to boot, none of this scary, bloody competitive evolution stuff around.
- wise Natives who, with other ways of knowing, have penetrated to the core of Deep Truths White Man is only dimly coming to appreciate.
- concomitant dismissals of hard scientists, who've not truly achieved Wisdom for all their appropriation of cold, technical facts.
Actually, it's a pretty good piece for all the scorn I've heaped upon it. The stolid insistence that one not anthropomorphize the animal world is only going to be so useful, and unless one is a creationist other animals will necessarily be seen to exhibit many qualities we do in some form, including emotional ones.
4. This last I mention without further comment. Ms. Kathryn Jean Lopez finds this story amusing.
An article in the Wall Street Journal sheds light on the other side of the Iranian Green Revolution - the mindset of the enforcers of the status quo. The Basij paramilitary force has been deployed widely by the ruling regime to disrupt demonstrators protesting the results of the recent Iranian election. Created by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, the members of the Basij are true believers of the Islamic Revolution. They believe that the current government under Ahmadinejad is the keeper of that faith.
When the protests broke out here last month, Mehdi Moradani answered the call to crush them.
On the first day of the unrest, the 24-year-old volunteer member of Iran's paramilitary Basij force mounted his motorcycle and chased reformist protesters through the streets, shouting out the names of Shiite saints as he revved his engine.
On the fourth day, he picked up a thick wooden stick issued by his Basij neighborhood task force and beat demonstrators who refused to disperse...
"It wasn't about elections anymore," says Mr. Moradani, a short, skinny man with pitch-black hair and a beard. "I was defending my country and our revolution and Islam. Everything was at risk."...
The Basij fanned out across Tehran, beating protesters with sticks, lining streets and squares, and roaring through neighborhoods on their motorcycles in a show of force. Regime officials praised the shock troops.
"Our efforts to unveil the faces of our enemy saved Iran from a grave danger," Yadollah Javani, the political chief of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which commands the Basij, said last week.
The Basij was created in 1979 by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It was devised as a volunteer force, to back up the Iranian army in the Iran-Iraq war. Many of its young members were deployed to the battlefield to walk ahead of soldiers and detonate Iraqi mines.
After the war ended in 1988, the Basij evolved into a type of neighborhood task force. Members serve as law enforcers, morality police, social-service providers and organizers of religious ceremonies. In times of crisis, the Basij are tasked with restoring order and ferreting out dissidents.
All this is to be expected from the loyalists of the conservative Islamic state. Something more unusual caught my eye in the last few paragraphs of the article - the ultimatum issued by the fiancee of the young Basij volunteer, Moradani.
For Mr. Moradani, the biggest shock during the election turmoil came in his personal life. He had recently gotten engaged to a young woman from a devout, conservative family. A week into the protests, he says, his fiancée called him with an ultimatum. If he didn't leave the Basij and stop supporting Mr. Ahmadinejad, he recalls her saying, she wouldn't marry him.
He told her that was impossible. "I suffered a real emotional blow," he says. "She said to me, 'Go beat other people's children then,' and 'I don't want to have anything to do with you,' and hung up on me."
She returned the ring he gave her, and hasn't returned his phone calls. "The opposition has even fooled my fiancée," he says.
Don't you wish that Laura Bush and Lynn Cheney had exercised similar forceful ways with their husbands to thwart their thuggish ways? Instead, we only find political wives who "stand by" their feckless men.
We've all seen it. We've probably all seen the video, which clearly shows that there is -- or should be -- no controversy. More entertainingly, to my mind, is how it created yet one more great opportunity to mock Ann Althouse for being a moron. Or, you know, an intellectually dishonest right-wing hack.
The Misunderstanding
I did not say: You are nothing to me;
I said the hummingbird, the anglerfish
are not amazed at themselves.
I did not say: I have forgotten you;
but that every day a man
finds more things that trouble him.
Not You are not beautiful,
but that, often, when I lie in the grass,
a lute sings in the earth beneath me.
Not: I regret—
but that I stare at these keys
I carry in my pocket
and think of the narrow bones
I once turned over in the garden.
Not I never loved you,
but You are all you have.
as for the rest, yes,
it is as you say, the words
are mine, but all the rooms of the world
we have lived in close now
over the words of others.
Earth, keys, man—
when will you seek out
that lamp, that light,
under which they were written?
by Ralph Culver
from: Albatross; Anabiosis Press, Spring 2009
(via Jim Culleny at 3 Quarks Daily)
A photo I took of some Uighur men, at their request, on the Southern Silk Road in Summer 2006. More photos here. Some ruminations after the break.
Continue reading "Personal and Political, Though Only As A Tourist (Anna)" »
In a recent landmark ruling Delhi's highest court has decriminalized homosexual sex among consenting adults in India's capital.
NEW DELHI —In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality.
“The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognizing a role in society for everyone,” judges of the Delhi High Court wrote in a 105-page decision, India’s first to directly address rights for gay men and lesbians. “Those perceived by the majority as ‘deviants’ or ‘different’ are not on that score excluded or ostracized,” the decision said.
Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law prohibiting “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” The law, known as Section 377 of India’s penal code, has long been viewed as an archaic holdover from colonialism by its detractors.
“Clearly, we are all thrilled,” said Anjali Gopalan, the executive director and founder of the Naz Foundation, an AIDS awareness group that sued to have Section 377 changed.
“It is a first major step,” Ms. Gopalan said during a news conference in Delhi, but “there are many more battles.”
Clearly not everyone is "thrilled" by the groundbreaking decision. See here and here.
Thursday’s decision applies only in the territory of India’s capital city, but it is likely to force India’s government either to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, or change the law nationwide, lawyers and advocates said.
Outside the hall where the Naz Foundation news conference was held, dozens of young men and women gathered to celebrate, along with a group of hijras, men who dress and act like women who classify themselves as belonging to neither gender. “It is a victory of human rights, not just of gay rights,” said one 22-year-old man who only identified himself as Manish.
Gay men and women have rarely been prosecuted under Section 377 in India in modern times, but it has been used to harass, blackmail and jail people.
Britain legalized homosexuality in England and Wales in 1967, but many of its former colonies, including Singapore, Zimbabwe and Malaysia, still retain strict laws against same-sex relations.
India’s society is generally unwelcoming of homosexuality except in the most cosmopolitan circles. It is not uncommon for gay men and women to marry heterosexuals and have families, while carrying on secret relationships with members of the same sex.
In their decision, Chief Justice A. P. Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar declared Section 377, as it pertains to consensual sex among people above the age of 18, in violation of important parts of India’s Constitution. “Consensual sex amongst adults is legal, which includes even gay sex and sex among the same sexes,” they said.
For more on the history of homosexuality and the prevailing gay culture in India see Namit Arora's essay.
I haven't posted here for a while - probably the longest time since the inception of the blog. I don't know how that has affected regular readership. Although A.B. is not a personal blog, this article about slow and moribund blogs or those whose contents change abruptly resulting in the loss of readership, caught my eye.
Back in 2004, the blogger known as “Mister Bachelor” was swinging at the top of his middle-aged game — collecting women and readers (nearly 8,000) — with salacious tales of his Lothario lifestyle.
He was revered and reviled and loving every minute of it.
Then he fell in love, and with that it was all downhill — for the blog, that is.
Earlier this year, the once frolicking Mister Bachelor of heavy Web traffic and outraged comments was laid to rest. In its place, The Blog and Chain was born, snarky and sardonic but devoid of sex and drama. At last count, it had fewer than 150 readers, according to the reformed Mister Bachelor, who now goes by the alias Daedalus.
Personal blogs are like child stars. Some soar too quickly and die too young. Others drop out, lay low for a while and come back stronger than ever. More often, they return reinvented, uninspired and lackluster, missing that special something that used to leave audiences wanting more.
Blogs are born, blogs die — it’s a cycle as old as blogging itself, said Scott Rosenberg, author of Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming and Why It Matters.
“Things grow and mature, and then they reach their end,” he said. “That’s the shape of our lives.”
Blogs end up in the virtual graveyard for as many reasons as they came into being in the first place. Sometimes, the bloggers get out of their system whatever they wanted to say. Or they reach the fame they were after. Other times, they just give up.
“In some cases people stop because they achieve their goal,” Rosenberg said. “Others stop because they’ll never achieve their goal.”
.....
Jessica Cutler has birthed and buried four blogs and is authoring a fifth. But she’s never matched the fame of her 2003 effort, Washingtonienne, which lasted just 13 days but scandalized the nation’s capital by chronicling her liaisons with Washington power brokers. The notoriety led to what she termed a “mini-career” of writing about herself. She penned pieces for high-profile media outlets, usually about sex or scandal, posed for Playboy and wrote a book, Washingtonienne, that is being made into an HBO series.
Now happily married and pregnant, Cutler seems ambivalent toward her blog-earned fame. When the URL on JessicaCutlerOnline expired, she just let it die. Her latest blog is a hodgepodge of domestic fare and profane but witty observation. Blogs, Cutler has concluded, are “like trees falling in a forest.
“If no one read them, it’s like they never really existed.”
Every now and then, I see something going on in American politics, and then pause to think "Haven't I seen a similar scenario, before , only a continent away and 10 years ago?"
Then,regional politics in India:
Jayalalitha: brought in to 'sex up' campaign of an elderly MGR
Regional politician (was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu state in India) with national ambitions
land scandal in 2000 leading to her removal/resignation
Still a force in regional politics
Actress background
"THE charges in the first case are that Jaya Publications, in which Jayalalitha and Sasikala were partners, bought 3.07 acres of land and a building belonging to the government-owned TANSI Foundry at Guindy in Chennai at a price much lower than the guidel ine value and gained more than Rs.3.5 crores in the transaction. The sale took place when Jayalalitha was Chief Minister (1991-1996). Jayalalitha "abused her official position at every stage" in the property deal although no public interest was involved, the charge-sheet said. Since Jayalalitha was Chief Minister when she bought the property, she attracted the provisions of the PCA."
Now, Fourth of July Fireworks of a different sort:
Sarah Palin: brought in to 'sex up' campaign of an elderly McCain
Regional politician with national ambitions
House scandal (RUMOR ALERT - this may or may not be the reason for her precipitated resignation):
"A list of subcontractors on the job, obtained by the Voice, includes many with Palin ties. One was Spenard Builders Supply, the state’s leading supplier of wood, floor, roof, and other “pre-engineered components.” In addition to being a sponsor of Todd Palin’s snow-machine team that has earned tens of thousands for the Palin family, Spenard hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004. When the Palins began building a new family home off Lake Lucille in 2002—at the same time that Palin was running for lieutenant governor and in her final months as mayor—Spenard supplied the materials, according to Antoine Bricks, who works in its Wasilla office. Spenard actually filed a notice “of its right to assert a lien” on the deed for the Palin property after contracting for labor and materials for the site. Spenard’s name has popped up in the trial of Senator Stevens—it worked on the house that is at the center of the VECO scandal as well.
Todd Palin told Fox News that he built the two-story, 3,450-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath, wood house himself, with the help of contractors he described as “buddies.” As mayor, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in the wide-open city, and there is no public record of who the “buddies” were. The house was built very near the complex, on a site whose city purchase led to years of unsuccessful litigation and, now, $1.3 million in additional costs, with a law firm that’s also donated to Palin collecting costly fees from the city."
Gov of AK
Still a force in politics (?)
Beauty pageant/TV background
Sarah Palin's beyond-bizarre resignation announcement:
"My choice is to take a stand and effect change – not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment. Rather, we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities – and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans."
There the similarity stops for now. It's anybody's guess as to whether Palin manages to stage a revival (Jayalalitha did manage it, after all). That's highly dependent on the quotient of true Palin-believers to those who will write her off after her shaky and scared TV performance.
The confounding factors are many. Jayalalitha had little to no family to worry about, while Palin has her large brood of children in dire need of attention. Jayalalitha was able to still cling to the aura of the 'generous mother' while it might be harder for Palin to do so.
As Palin famously states in her speech : "Only dead fish go with the flow." The question remains as to whether she is a dead fish or a live one.
Bringing new meaning to navel gazing and much, much more, is NCBI ROFL. Am I just giving a shout out to a friend's blog? No -- I'm giving a shout out to a friend's blog that posts abstracts from real scientific research articles that are often hilarious enough to have you rolling on the floor laughing. So check it out!
1. Minnesota finally has its fair share of representation in the U.S. Senate, assuming we think a system that gives Montana and California the same number of senators is fair. But at least Minnesota's now caught up with important places like Montana, not to mention Idaho, Vermont, and of course, Alaska. But this does mean the Democrats now have 60 senators! Granted, you're only supposed to need 51 votes to pass legislation because the Constitution says so, but 60 is "filibuster-proof." That's a good thing, because it means our legislative agenda can now come to fruition. From what I've read, this evidently means that our legislative agenda is doing nothing about climate change and passing useless, in-name-only health-care reform. Oh, and to keep screwing over gay people despite the costs even to non-gay society.
2. The U.S. won another important battle in the war on people. Matt Yglesias thinks we should be leaving Iraq with our heads held high, presumably because good posture is important for spinal health, since there's obviously nothing to feel good about. Well, "nothing" is too strong of a word, because now we're more equipped to back up Israel in the upcoming battle in the war on people, to save Iran from all those damn Iranians.
I forgot where I was going with this. I think (1) was going to be defeat -- even with massive public support, a tremendously popular president, and a filibuster-proof majority, Democrats can't do anything useful -- and (2) was going to be victory -- we did cause the deaths of 1 million Iraqis, after all, which I believe was our military and humanitarian objective -- but I lost my train of thought while inserting all those hyperlinks and can't be sure I didn't mix that up. Still, there's always the bright side that since none of us are professional cyclists, we're not destroying our skeletal health as rapidly as we could be!
One of the out-of-left-field suprises in jazz last year was the album Kinsmen, by Indian-American saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. As a self-deprecating ethnic joke, his brother had given him a CD called "Saxophone Indian Style" -- but when Mahanthappa listened to it, he was amazed to hear South Indian Carnatic music played so well on the Western instrument of the saxophone. Mahanthappa eventually sought out the saxophonist from "Saxophone Indian Style," who turned out to be Kadri Gopalnath, an acknowledged legend of Carnatic music -- and proposed that the two make an album together.
And the results have turned Mahanthappa into a critical darling. He's been lauded by Gary Giddins, perhaps the most insightful jazz critic writing today, and Kinsmen's been named one of the best jazz CDs of 2008 by NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and the Village Voice.
So my question for ABers, particularly any that have familiarity with Carnatic music, is what do you think? Is this CD getting overhyped due to the novelty of the concept, or is it truly, as Giddins puts it, "astonishing," "fascinating," and a "momentous achievement that will be around for a long time to come?"
You can get a taste of the sound of the Kinsmen band for free with the videos on Mahanthappa's MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/dakshinaband
It is a just and proper convention we use in naming authors and thinkers that the immortals have only last names. After all, to name an author is to enter into a game where we are to rank them in an implicit list by excellence, profundity and significance. Hence, to Gustave a Flaubert is to commit a faux pas, while depriving a Roth of his Philip sounds odd. I have been using this elegant and delightsome signaling scheme for years now, though in my college years when I hadn't yet mastered its intricacies I did commit some few gaffes. Still, the skill has now been acquired, so I rejoice in seeing its proper use in others, and police violations diligently.
And yet, and yet. This venerated scheme is obviously too simple to be perfect. We perforce Emilify and Charlottize our venerated Brontë's, and this when we yearn so earnestly to deprive them of those cumbersome affixes. Then too, rare names seem to unfairly boost reputations. Hence DeLillo or Dawkins, and this while poor Adam shall never be a Smith. And then there are those annoying writers of whom we know no other name other than the one in common use. Both Aristotle and Adonis are known by a mere single name. What a pity to be unable to mark just and proper distinctions in these cases! And, to get to the very core of the issue, does not the mind of delicacy rebel at the coarseness of a mere binary distinction where so many finer gradations may be fruitfully deployed?
Allow me these simple suggestions:Bugs doubtless remain to be fixed, chief of which seems to me the inability of many rendering schemes to properly do mathematical exponents as in 2. Still, at least the explicit accounting of 1. may be achieved by writing firstnames, then striking them through when appropriate. This scheme, if followed, should make discussions of the more intellectual sort rather more exact, and by virtue of its more fine-grained telegraphical nature, superior at concise assessment. Alternately, we might name people pragmatically as we please, but this is less excellent.
RIP, Michael Jackson.
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Buzz Aldrin wanted to be the first Moonwalker, but thwarted, in the final moments, by simple logistics.
"In the end the decision came down to logistics. The lunar landing craft's hatch was located on Armstrong's side. It would have too cumbersome, and perhaps even dangerous, for Aldrin to have climbed over his mission mate, so Armstrong went first."
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Here's a Mr.Bean who is a real artist, as opposed to a mere curator.
"It has been nearly 40 years since Alan L. Bean walked on the moon as an Apollo astronaut, but he still wrestles with the experience every day, trying to recapture what he and other astronauts saw and felt in the medium of paint."
(The original Mr.Bean is of course, the one and only Rowan Atkinson.)
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Bloggers can continue to rave and rant about anything that suits their fancy. But now the Federal Trade Commission plans to monitor their claims, especially if money or freebies are changing hands.
Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.
What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews can be tainted: Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all.
The practice has grown to the degree that the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention. New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers - as well as the companies that compensate them - for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts
It would be the first time the FTC tries to patrol systematically what bloggers say and do online. The common practice of posting a graphical ad or a link to an online retailer - and getting commissions for any sales from it - would be enough to trigger oversight.
"If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk," said Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC's division of advertising practices. "Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and ... they have an economic motive for what they're saying, that's information a consumer should know."
The guidelines also would bring uniformity to a community that has shunned that.
As blogging rises in importance and sophistication, it has taken on characteristics of community journalism - but without consensus on the types of ethical practices typically found in traditional media.
Journalists who work for newspapers and broadcasters are held accountable by their employers, and they generally cannot receive payments from marketers and must return free products after they finish reviewing them.
The blogosphere is quite different.
More here from the Associated Press Report.
Summer has arrived early in Houston this year. June, usually a much cooler month than July and August, is sizzling. Most years around this time, it feels more like late spring or early summer with temperatures in the mid to upper 80s. Instead, the thermometer has hovered around readings more reminiscent of broiling mid-summer for the past several weeks. After a long spell of near 100 degree temps, there is still no respite in sight in the coming days. We've also not seen any rain for the last one month, a rare occurance in the coastal city.
I am no new comer to blazing summer heat, having grown up in North India during pre-air conditioning days. In those days ceiling fans and desert coolers provided some respite inside the home. Outside, we carried umbrellas and tried to stay in the shade. From April onwards until the refreshing monsoon showers broke the enervating spell in early July, folks adjusted their lifestyles to accommodate the unrelenting assaults of heat and dust. We learnt ways to survive the inferno with simple, common-sense coping methods - frequent cold showers and change of sweat soaked clothes, avoiding the mid-day sun, wearing cotton, sleeping in the open air at night (on roof-tops and courtyards), drinking cold drinks made with yoghurt and roasted green mango and eating light, bland, torpor inducing foods. (see my last comment on this post) Air conditioning has improved things in India, at least for those who can afford it. But people still treat north Indian summers with prudence and resigned caution.
Houstonians too have their own ways to deal with the persistent summer heat. In principle, they are not very different from what we did in Delhi. The bottom line is that those who must put up with extreme heat, sometimes wish for a prolonged sleep of oblivion. Some surely wish they could escape the weather through estivation. From Saturday's Houston Chronicle:
Summer officially starts tomorrow, but in fact, the season oozed up weeks ahead of schedule, the way it always does in Houston. And just as predictably, it’ll refuse to leave in September, when the calendar says it’s fall’s turn. Summer here isn’t the fleeting visitor so beloved in more temperate climates. It’s the overbearing roommate you can’t evict, the unwanted house guest who decides to move in. It is the season that tries the Houstonian’s soul.
You know the drill. You leave a super-chilled building — an airport, the grocery store, your office — and walk into air warmer and more humid than your exhaled breath. You open your car door, stepping back to avoid the oven-like blast of heat. You swat a mosquito, then wipe your own blood from your hand.
Summer is the season of warnings: air-quality warnings, hurricane warnings, warnings to your kids that if they don’t do something besides play on-line games, their brains will melt and leak out through their ears. You’re warned to avoid the heat of midday, to exercise in the morning, to water your plants in the evening.
Use sunscreen! Stay hydrated! Never leave your dog in the car! In other places, it’s winter that kills. Here it’s summer.
To survive, we go to ground. “Estivate” is the word. A zoology term, it means “to pass the summer in a dormant or torpid state.” It’s the hot-weather version of hibernating.
In humans, estivation involves long naps, tall iced teas and shade. Icehouses, movie theaters, swimming pools, hammocks: They’re our versions of the cool, safe hole in the ground. No-brain TV shows, shallow summer movies, paperback thrillers, Popsicles, margaritas: Count them as aids to mental hibernation, necessary to lull your brain into a survival-enhancing state of rest.
Sooner or later, summer will end. We forget that it will, but it always does. The kids quit running through sprinklers and go back to school. The mosquitoes die. Hurricanes give way to northers.
On some crisp morning, months from now, we’ll no doubt return to our old productive selves: Full of projects, full of plans. But that bright day is a long way away. Right now, we’re in the teeth of summer, and we’re struggling to hang on. Wake us up when it’s over.
President Obama on fatherhood. Happy Father's Day to the dads among our readers.
If only the problems of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel-Palestine, N. Korea and the Republican right were as easy to swat away! (Link via a friend's e-mail)
Much discussion is on in the media and blogosphere over the violent clashes in the aftermath of the Iranian elections. Was the election rigged or not?
A collection of interesting links and stories:
In which Juan Cole thinks that it's highly likely that the elections were stolen: A list of possible indicators that the results were fraudulent, followed by a disclaimer of sort.
"So, there are protests against an allegedly stolen election. The Basij paramilitary thugs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will break some heads. Unless there has been a sea change in Iran, the theocrats may well get away with this soft coup for the moment. But the regime's legitimacy will take a critical hit, and its ultimate demise may have been hastened, over the next decade or two.
What I've said is full of speculation and informed guesses. I'd be glad to be proved wrong on several of these points. Maybe I will be."
In which Nate Silver thinks that a statistical analysis doing the rounds does not prove fraud, though he believes that fraud occurred and might not be evident from the statistics.
""Still, though, would it really be all that hard to rig an election in a way that would be hard for statistical analysis to detect? Suppose that you're Ahmadinejad, and that you become convinced based on the actual vote totals that you're on track to lose by several points. Could you not simply take every tenth vote, or every fifth vote, that came in for Moussavi, and count it for yourself? This would preserve an element of randomness and would make the province-by-province results look reasonably correct relative to one another.
My point, I suppose, is this. Out of all the things you'd need to do to rig an election, coming up with a set of results that managed to avoid easy statistical detection would probably be one of the easier ones. So I'm skeptical that statistical analysis alone is going to turn up evidence of fraud. But I'll be keeping an eye out for other approaches, particularly from those who have a deeper understanding of the Iranian state than I do."
NYT's Bill Keller:
"On the street, the speculation focused more on how the election was manipulated, as many voters insisted it must have been for Mr. Ahmadinejad to score such a preposterous margin of victory.
One version (from somebody’s brother who supposedly knew someone inside) had it that vote counters simply were ordered to doctor the numbers: Make that 1,000 for Ahmadinejad a 3,000.
Others pointed out that the ballots seemed designed to lead opposition voters astray. Voters were obliged to choose a candidate and fill in a code. Though Mr. Moussavi was candidate No. 4, the code No. 44 signified Mr. Ahmadinejad.
One employee of the Interior Ministry, which carried out the vote count, said the government had been preparing its fraud for weeks, purging anyone of doubtful loyalty and importing pliable staff members from around the country.
They didn’t rig the vote, claimed the man, who showed his ministry identification card but pleaded not to be named. They didn’t even look at the vote. They just wrote the name and put the number in front of it."
A Leftist view of Moussavi's earlier stint in the government:
"As prime minister from 1981 to 1989, Mousavi oversaw social austerity measures imposed to finance the Iran-Iraq war. At the time, he was a proponent of normalizing relations with the US and recognizing Arab regimes. In the lead-up to the American Iran-Contra scandal in the late 1980s, as the US and Israel sold weapons to Iran, Mousavi organized arms purchases from Israel and oversaw the repression of opposition to the negotiations with US officials on weapons—including the execution of prominent Iranian politician Mehdi Hashemi, who had led a Tehran demonstration against these covert arms deals."
The article contends that Khatami might have been a more radical rival to Ahmadinejad had he not pulled out of the election, but that he did so in hopes that Moussavi would be able to collect a larger proportion of the centrist as well as progressive vote.
A skeptical voice (Abbas Barzegar) who mistrusts the story pushed by the Western media:
"As far as international media coverage is concerned, it seems that wishful thinking got the better of credible reporting. It is true that Mousavi supporters jammed Tehran traffic for hours every night over the last week, though it was rarely mentioned that they did so only in the northern well-to-do neighborhoods of the capital.
Women did relax their head covers and young men did dance in the street.
On Monday night at least 100,000 of the former prime minister's supporters set up a human chain across Tehran. But, hours before I had attended a mass rally for the incumbent president that got little to no coverage in the western press because, on account of the crowds, he never made it inside the hall to give his speech. Minimal estimates from that gathering have been placed at 600,000 (enthusiasts say a million). From the roof I watched as the veiled women and bearded men of all ages poured like lava.
...
In the last week Ahmedinejad turned the election into a referendum on the very project of Iran's Islamic revolution. Their street chants yelled "Death to all those against the Supreme Leader" followed by traditional Shia rituals and elegies. It was no match for the high-spirited fun-loving youth of northern Tehran who sang "Ahmedi-bye-bye, Ahmedi-bye-bye" or "ye hafte-do hafte, Mahmud hamum na-rafte" (One week, two weeks, Mahmoud hasn't taken a shower).
Perhaps from the start Mousavi was destined to fail as he hoped to combine the articulate energies of the liberal upper class with the business interests of the bazaar merchants. The Facebook campaigns and text-messaging were perfectly irrelevant for the rural and working classes who struggle to make a day's ends meet, much less have the time to review the week's blogs in an internet cafe. Although Mousavi tried to appeal to such classes by addressing the problems of inflation and poverty, they voted otherwise."
BBC's latest: a solid and succinct analysis.
AP: not too bad, either.
Not tired of links yet? Check The Lede for practically hourly updates.
Though, the comments are more entertaining and possibly illuminating, as is Reza's smart zinger:
"Comment:
Reza
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:13:19 GMT
Are you people high or just uneducated, brainwashed people? A.) The ballots are done by hand in Iran, not electronic and somehow they have counted the majority of the votes this fast?! B.) Iran is not a real democratic country, the president has no real power. This is a joke and so are the majority of the delusional people that are commenting."
So we have the puppet master manipulating the strings behind, hewing closely to Stalin's dictum that"He who votes decides nothing; he who counts the votes decides everything."
In the US, we've had the Supreme Court in their black robes 'pick' winners of our elections before. Iran has Supreme Leaders in black robes who still 'pick' winners of their elections, the will of the people be damned.
I think that the Obama administration will monitor but not interfere in what is happening with Iran, unless the CIA has a mind of its own and continues with shenanigans a la Mossadegh coup.What must be will be, and has to be organic and coming spontaneously from the people. If they have the numbers and support, maybe it will be the new Green Revolution in Iran.
Some snippy conservative twit outed Publius, of Obsidian Wings fame (measured relative to the blogosphere, of course, which still puts him WAY behind that guy in his mother's basement who suggested some baseball player in Philadelphia might be using PEDs, let alone people anyone actually cares about). He's some law professor, not that it matters (although it matters to him, obviously, since he blogs/blogged pseudonymously).
Anyhow, I'm saddened over the loss of Publius's pseudonymity. Not because of the larger debate about pseudonymity and outing pseudonymous bloggers (Leiter goes off here, for example, making points about consequentialism, fairness, etc. Typical of a law or philosophy professor, of course, Brian fails to mention that the only reason Whelan outed Publius is that Whelan is -- and was particularly being -- a snippy twit. An annoyed child acting out of spite. I think this is also a deontological fail for Whelan, but again, the petulant child/brat angle is what actually stands out to me).
Instead, I'm sad because that's one fewer blogger I can claim to be. Thank goodness there's still Giblets. And, in a pinch, Michael Bérubé.
I just love this quote: "How dare she be smart and aggressive? Wait, she’s a lawyer and a judge."
It seems Alvin Plantinga has written a popular account of his evolutionary argument against naturalism, viz. that evolution selects beliefs for survival value, not truth, so that while our beliefs may be useful we've no reason to think them true. I've nothing much to say about the argument itself...lots of people have written about it, and there's a plentiful academic literature in any case. [I do note that in this popularization at least, he follows up with some pretty trippy math that suggests that if our prior probability that one useful belief is true is a half, that the probability that a set of one hundred beliefs is true is one over two to the googol'th power. Such assumptions of total independence between utility and truth, between the truths of related beliefs, such maximally in-coherentist ideas seem more than a bit dubious to me. Incidentally, a surprising number of iffy probabilistic arguments seem to involve assumptions of independence followed by simple multiplication. Break thee free man, of the tyranny of the product sign! Rejoice, for not all probabilistic reasoning needs sixth grade maths!]
What puzzles me about Plantinga is not the extent to which he doubts naturalistic reason, though I don't think he sufficiently respects the resources a naturalist has. What surprises me is his sense that his own beliefs do - or should - give him a strong degree of extra confidence in his accounts of nature:
Clearly this doubt arises for naturalists or atheists, but not for those who believe in God. That is because if God has created us in his image, then even if he fashioned us by some evolutionary means, he would presumably want us to resemble him in being able to know; but then most of what we believe might be true even if our minds have developed from those of the lower animals. On the other hand, there is a real problem here for the evolutionary naturalist.
Let us not here get into tediously evaluating these religious beliefs for plausibility. Indeed, let us grant Plantinga all he'd hope for, a God in heaven and several larks and snails squishing about. Going from even there to a strong confidence in beliefs about the world seems to me like an odd path for a Christian to follow. From this outsider's perspective, one of the most striking aspects of that belief system is its keen appreciation of our finitude and fallibility - sin disorders minds, and distance from God causes error. Nor does accepting Christ make you intellectually or ethically more than human. Christians are not perfect, just forgiven, as they say. The dark glass remains, all that good stuff.
Indeed, that we get things wrong, that we make mistakes, that our cognition is error prone, that we fuck things up, that in our Rumsfeldian world we face each of known and unknown knowns and unknowns, this is as close to being a brute fact as anything I can think of. If your metaphysics can't admit to the possibility of error, so much the worse for it. No well-represented philosophy I've come across tries to sell that snake oil. Even traditions marking a less stark separation between man and God, between the circumscribed and the limitless, all have the sense to stay away from such ideas. After you gain enlightenment you must still chop wood and carry water. Whether or not you know that you are that, you must listen to the mahout when he yells at you to get away from the mad elephant. It is just especially strange coming from a Christian. I'm reminded of that cute thing Chesterton said:
If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.
Anyhow. On the off-chance that you've not seen it already, I think this is in the coolest video (and child) on youtube. Maybe it's me, but when I see it I keep thinking of Basil Fawlty yelling 'fire' in his hotel...the same helpless inability to convince others to take one seriously.
Last month, Alex Ross contributed a worthy and encouraging account of Salonen's long career with the LA Philharmonic and his recent departure from the musical leadership of the orchestra. Salonen really is a marvelous musician, composer, and conductor, but as Ross' story suggests, his decision to end an era was perfectly timed and exquisitely executed. I rarely attended full-on LAP performances, but I made it to several Green Umbrella programs over the years while it was "a sparsely attended specialty offering" at the Japan America Theater in Little Tokyo. The JAT has to be one of the best musical venues for small and chamber ensembles in the world. I appreciated its pristine acoustics and the intimacy of the house and stage. When Salonen performed there, sometimes featuring his own compositions, I could tell he was as eager to explore challenging new (experimental, avant-garde, noisy...) music as the attendees were to hear the result.
He'd hang out with the audience during breaks. In fact, the GU series was a wonderful opportunity for an amateur to rub elbows with masters of contemporary music. I recall hearing a world premiere of a piece by Harrison Birtwistle, at which the British composer was in attendance, seated directly behind me. Once Betty Freeman, patron of the arts and dedicatee of John Cage's impossible and intense Freeman Etudes, thought she recognized me and asked if I had recently attended such-and-such a party. "Uh, no, I think you've mistaken me for somebody else." But the music was enthralling and it kept us renewing our subscriptions.
I no longer live in LA, but while Salonen remained at the helm I suspect the GU was not compromised, despite its growing popularity. I hope the program continues to flourish during Dudamel's tenure with the orchestra. Still, I'm no special fan of Disney Hall as an architectural design--Gehry's late work is gaudy--and I can't speak to its acoustics. Ross complains of the sound system, which was not an issue at JAT. I think I'm finding myself happy for Ross' recognition of LA's longstanding contributions to contemporary classical music, while at the same time I'm missing the good old days of new music.
I will be posting very infrequently in the month of June. Unless my co-bloggers find the time to write, there will be little new material on the blog until the middle of July.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court has been characterized by right wing rabblerousers as a racist and a militant femme. She has caught a lot of flak, particularly for one statement she made in a 2001 speech at the University of Berkeley entitled, ‘A Latina Judge’s Voice,’ during which she elaborated upon her experience on the bench as a woman of Hispanic background. Her critics have interpreted the statement as racist and biased against white males (some of them are backtracking now).
Reader Narayan Acharya, who has contributed several interesting opinion pieces here, speculates that Sotomayor was not making a political statement at all when she brought up her race, gender and life experience. The much reviled, awkwardly worded sentence was the result of thinking in Spanish and speaking in English. The grammatical differences of the two languages may have crossed wires in her brain, according to Narayan. Specifically, Sotomayor was tripped up by the "subjunctive!"
Narayan explains:
What Sotomayor said was :
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness o f her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."
This is a daunting sentence to analyze. By now we know all the negative meanings and implications that have been imputed to the speaker by those with an axe to grind. But is there something more subtle going on in the rendering of the sentence? I think so, although I find it difficult to clearly identify it. Simply parsing the sentence is futile because mere structure is not what I’m after – deconstruction is needed. Let me strip it to its skeleton anyway :
“I would hope that X would U than Y who hasn’t V” where X is ‘a wise Latina woman’, U is the verbal phrase ‘reach a better conclusion’, Y is ‘a white male’, and V the verbal phrase ‘lived that life’.
One cannot quarrel with the sentence except to quibble that a strict grammarian of a generation or two ago would take issue with the opening verbal phrase saying that ‘I should hope that’ is the only admissible form. I recall being shown a typescript of a primer that claimed that ‘should’ also signals the subjunctive mood, but have not been able to confirm the validity of this claim from other sources. Fowler states that the pairing of ‘I’ and ‘would’ is an “invasion from the other side of the Atlantic”, and that ‘should’ is the correct word to use with the verbs like ‘like’, ‘prefer’, ‘care’, ‘be glad’, ‘be inclined’ etc.
The crux of the matter, I believe, is that Sotomayor is bilingual, and though she may be a native English speaker, her mother tongue is Spanish. We can agree that she is also a native Spanish speaker without debating which came first. Undoubtedly she learnt both languages at an early age when speech is established through imitation rather than formal learning. At that age one learns to speak correctly memetically, without knowing the whys and wherefores. I maintain that Sotomayor must have learnt the use of subjunctive verb forms well before she knew why they were needed.
I do not recall being taught about the subjunctive in English and didn’t know of its significance until I embarked on a course in Spanish. Since then I have discovered that, except perhaps for the uneducated, Spanish speakers use the correct verb forms when the subjunctive mood is called for. English speakers, even the best educated, are sloppy in this respect, using the indicative where the subjunctive is called for, arguing that the meaning is understood anyway by the context.
From “A Dictionary of Modern English Usage”, H.W.Fowler,1965
“Subjunctive … a verb-form different from that of the indicative mood in order to ‘denote an action or a state as conceived (and not as a fact), and [expressing] a wish, command, exhortation, or a contingent, hypothetical, or prospective event’ – OED. About the subjunctive, so delimited, the important general facts are : (1) that it is moribund except in a few easily specified uses; (2) that, owing to the capricious influence of the much analysed classical moods upon the less studied native, it probably never would have been possible to draw upon a satisfactory table of the English subjunctive uses; (3) that assuredly no one will ever find it either possible or worth while to do so, now that the subject is dying; and (4) that subjunctives met with today, outside the few truly living uses, are either deliberate revivals, especially by poets, for legitimate enough archaic effect, or antiquated survivals giving a pretentious flavour to their context, or new arrivals possible only in an age to which the grammar of the subjunctive is not natural but artificial.”
From “The American Language”, H.L.Mencken
1936 ed : “…virtually extinct in the vulgar tongue”
1948 ed : “On higher levels, of course, the subjunctive shows more life, and there is ground for questioning the conclusion of Bradley, Krapp, Vizetelly, Fowler and other authorities that it is on its way out.”
From “Modern Spanish Grammar – A Practical Guide”, J.Kattán-Ibarra & C.J.Pountain, 1997.
“Sometimes the subjunctive is automatically required by another element in the sentence such as a verb or a conjunction. Sometimes there is a choice between subjunctive and indicative, in which case there is always a difference in meaning between the two. The subjunctive is not ‘avoided’ in Spanish, and is not in any way old-fashioned or unusual.”
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