SO MUCH MATERIAL

I don’t blog more than a few times a month for the summer, and suddenly I have stuff every day. Good thing I’m not a columnist. I’d be screwed. Anyway, we’re off to the races . . .

HIGH COMEDY

I won’t even bother to discuss Alan Keyes and the Illinois Senate race. The Illinois GOP is an inept as any party organization I’ve ever seen, and the indictment of former Governor George Ryan just goes to show the corrupting influence of power. However, Keyes recently hit upon a fascinating opinion it appears many social conservatives share. Namely, he said that homosexuals were “selfish hedonists.” Dictionary.com defines “hedonist” in three senses. They are: “Pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses. Philosophy. The ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good. Psychology. The doctrine holding that behavior is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.”

The inherent assumption in these definitions and in Keyes’ statement is the pleasure of homosexuality, and homosexual sex. That is very odd to me. Is Alan Keyes constantly showing his resolute morality in not blowing guys and having anal sex with them? I mean, I am pretty sure I’m hardwired to be straight. Thus, gay sex does not seem very inherently pleasurable to me. It is fine for people who are gay, but it is not attractive to me. I guess I’m no Alan Keyes though.

ENTER THE DRAGONOVIC

I have regularly ripped the Houston Chronicle. Now I see the error of my ways. The Chronicle appears to be the sole newspaper that ran this story (although it is an AP story). It seems that in the ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar, a statue of Bruce Lee is to be erected. This is because he embodied the values of “loyalty, friendship, skill and justice.” As such, he is an international hero that all ethnicities can agree on. One of the planners, Gatalo, an ethnic Croat, hopes the statue will help erase the city's tarnished image as a place of bitter ethnic rivalries. “We want that people, when you say Mostar, to respond, 'That's the city that has a monument to Bruce Lee,'” he said. Couldn’t hurt, right?

NOW TO THE SCIENCE PORTION OF OUR BROADCAST

Today there was a very interesting story indicating that because different parts of the brain are used to process different kinds of written language, disorders like dyslexia are different in different cultures. For instance, the parts of the brain used to process this sentence, and the part of the brain used to process Chinese characters are not the same. Thus, dyslexia cannot (likely) be treated the same way for people from different writing traditions.

Brains are cool.

PROBLEMATIC INDEPENDENT POLAND

The Poles are proving to be difficult partners for the new European Union friends. Just as the French have spent decades bullying other EU members, the Poles are now making the most of being the biggest of the new entrants. First the Poles supported the US in Iraq, which the French in particular disapproved of. Next the Poles bought Boeing planes instead of Airbus, pissing the French off again. Then they temporarily blocked the “Constitution” for the EU, which pissed the French off yet more. Now the Poles are planning to strongly support EU membership for Turkey and Ukraine. The poor French and Germans. They’ve spent 50 years explaining why Turkey could be a NATO ally, but not an EU member (i.e. you can die for us, but not share a tariff), and Poland kicks the door in. Don’t they know a “gentlemen’s agreement” when they see one? The Europeans are going to keep the Asiatic, Muslim Turks out of the EU. They just have to change their rationale periodically.

See, this is the problem with having forced the Poles to throw off the Soviet yoke without European support. Poles seem to perceive the United States and the Vatican as the only two powers willing to support them as they worked to free themselves (again). Meanwhile the Germans and the rest of western Europe were willing to consign them to the role of historical victim. Now the Poles aren't beholden to any of their new partners, but seem to have the crazy idea that they are . . . gasp . . . equals. The Poles just need to be careful if the Germans, Austrians, and Russians starting having meetings about the troublesome Polish behavior. That never works out well for Poland.

KOBE

Say what you want, but with Kobe’s last big contract from the Lakers he can probably pay his accuser to write a book saying that he never raped her. Since it appears she was never going to testify against him, this all starts to smeel like an expensive ATM trip to the Bank of Kobe. I am starting to get the feeling that the woman who accused him may not be entirely stable (see also, William Kennedy Smith’s latest accuser).