That blood doesn't look healthy

I've noticed something strange here in Scotland about the wine used at Catholic Masses for the Eucharist.

It's white.

I've been to about three different churches and they've all used white wine.

Normally, churches use red wine so that calling it the "Blood of Christ" doesn't induce a huge cognitive disconnect.

I mean does this look like the "blood" of Christ?



Can anyone offer any explanations for this phenomenon?

World's Top 200 Universities

According to the (UK) Times Higher Education Supplement, Harvard comes in at #1, followed by Berkeley, MIT and CalTech.

Dartmouth (which is a College, not a University) is #138 after such notable competitors as Penn State, Michigan State, UNC, Brandeis, University of Glasgow (where I'm currently studying), Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Alabama, and Tufts.

The data is clearly skewed toward research--a large number of points are awarded for faculty citations (i.e. the number of times a paper is cited in other works). Another questionable emphasis is counting international students and faculty (defined simply as someone teaching or attending outside of their home country)--which skews again toward big universities (as it seems to be a straight count, not per capita), especially non-US schools. Weighting a category that helps the rest of the world disproportionately, though, is not surprising given that this is a British paper, and their mission is likely to make UK universities appear to be on an almost even footing with American institutions.

We are the last of the Ivies, but the first American institution labelled a "college" on the list. But Dartmouth really has no excuse--its peer review score was an 18.

You have to register to see the list here or a (very ugly) copy of them is here.

Vatican Rules Out Married Priests

A face only God could love?

Story here.

As a Catholic, I basically understand the reasons for clerical celibacy--the historical examples of Christ, Paul, and the apostles (many of whom actually had wives, but left them) and the commitment principle--as a priest, your primary and almost only commitment is to God and His Church, but there are equally good arguments why those reasons are insufficient for today's status--the success of married clergy in Protestant and Jewish churches and synagogues and the desperate need for more priests.

Benedict XVI has said he believes the Church needs to grow smaller to become more pure. Perhaps denying many people Communion and the other sacraments because there aren't enough priests to go around is one way to do that. Jerk.

More Catholic news: Texas diocese looks up Miers's baptism & first Communion records--and can't find them. The Archdiocese of Dallas would like to inform you, "Harriet Miers was never a Catholic." She apparently worshipped at Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches. Which means, I think, that her "conversion" was not so sudden after all--she had been searching for religion for awhile and found it in evangelicalism.

In other news, congrats to Notre Dame, the White Sox, and Northwestern. Go Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Fuck you Texas.

Harvey Mansfield Gets No Respect (and Deserves None)

Harvey Mansfield, a Harvard prof who recently graced Dartmouth with his quaint arcadianized Victorian notions of gender, has been spilling the same swill on his home turf. (The Harvard Crimson has the coverage here. Oddly enough, when citing Simone de Beauvoir as a primary source of what Mansfield calls "radical feminism," they give her a sex change--> "Simon de Beauvoir." No comment necessary.)

Some feminist blogs have lit up about it--mediagirl, feministing, and Echidne of the Snakes to name a few, and Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online has fired back, saying they went "nuts over [a] sensible talk." [sigh--those hysterical women are at it, again, right? don't they have sensible shoes to be putting on? ]

A Harvard student who actually went to the talk, Cambridge Common [which looks like an excellent blog] said this:

What the Crimson story today failed to note (among many things too long to list in this post), was the fact that most of the audience spent most of his talk holding back laughter and looking at each other with amazed bemusement.

However, this comment on feministing just plain kills:

Manliness... huh? Those who can't do... teach.

BlogThis!

What's Right with Kansas

Kansas Court rules that underage sex laws cannot be harsher on gays.

Also, Hit and Run compares Harriet Miers and Fidel Castro. Seriously.

One last thing: I'm really looking forward to the new The Darkness release, which comes out November 29th. This is the description from Rolling Stone:

"The album's first single, 'One Way Ticket,' features a pan-flute intro immediately followed by the distinct sound of someone cutting up and snorting a line of cocaine. 'It's a song of redemption, really,' says singer Justin Hawkins, who spent part of last year in rehab. 'It talks about drugs, the inevitable downward slide into hell, and how it's never too late to turn back.'"

Marriage "in Crisis"

Over at Volokh Conspiracy, there has been a lively debate going on over the entries of a new guest-blogger, Maggie Gallagher, a major opponent of same sex marriage.

Without going into her arguments too much, I'd just like to make a point about the idea of "preserving" marriage, and of marriage being "in crisis." Basically, my point is, if we wanted to "preserve" marriage, we'd actually be preserving a constant state of "crisis." Marriage has always been in crisis, insofar as it has never been completely nailed down in all of its particulars--its purpose, its use, its nature, its reality--much like another major part of life--government, or governance.

Marriage has always been adapting and evolving. Current issues like same-sex marriage, new reproductive technologies, and new lifestyles may put a certain (orthodox Christian) concept of marriage more in crisis than it's been in for some time, but marriage has never been static, just as governance has never been static. "Preserving marriage" as a general and unspecific notion is as ludicrous as "preserving government"--which government do you want to preserve? One that has a long history of oppression, inequality, and injustice? Ok, let's talk...(just kidding--I'll save that conversation for later)

The comparison between marriage and governance has been made repeatedly--John Milton specialized in it, the epistles of Paul and Peter use the metaphor pointedly, it features in novels like Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Lolita, Madame Bovary, and The Scarlet Letter (and in a qualified way, The Quiet American), it becomes rather obvious in many of Shakespeare's plays (Macbeth, Richard III, and especially Taming of the Shrew), it's a subtext in many movies (High Noon, Shane, Giant, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Straw Dogs, and The American President come to mind), and it's probably the dominant metaphor in Greek tragedy and (obviously) Lysistrata. Christ's relationship to the church is even described as a marriage. (Leave a comment for any explanations)

And it's a good comparison--nearly every question you can put to the notion of governance applies equally well to marriage--contract vs. covenant? fairness vs. welfare? partnership or leader/led? based on negative or positive rights? how shall property be held? rights vs. obligations? when should it be dissolved? etc.

The point I want to make is simple. It is ludicrous to talk about governance as something with only one purpose and as something that has been perfected, even if only in writing. There has been no perfect image created of governance, and there never will be. Likewise, there has never been a single understanding of what government is for (in practice or in theory), and there never will be.

Marriage, like governance, accomplishes many tasks, and it works best when it is not constrained by fulfilling any one task. It works best when the relationship between the governors and the governed is not static and unidirectional. And it works best the fewer restraints are placed on who can take part in the union.

And like marriage, governance is constantly "in crisis"--and it should be. Marriage, like governance, is a craft, not a science. It is not based on a recipe; it is based on experience and logic. The experience of humanity does not point to a single purpose for marriage, and logic should carry us to a conclusion that we should not give it an imaginary one.

Crisis--yes, please!

[note: I crossposted this at Vox in Sox with another bit that tackles her concluding arguments. Read it here.]

Also, if you haven't read it yet (unlikely as that may be), the Leon Kass/Crooked Timber exchange is amazing. Leon Kass here, Crooked Timber here.
And I'm not sure if this is completely fair to Maggie, but it does make a solid point--the opposition to same-sex marriage is self-interested in the same narrow, non-societal sense that they believe defenses of it to be.

Did Riner Just Tell the 09s to Rush the Field?

His op-ed in the D today:

That day, nearly a dozen students ran across the field -- some upperclassmen, some freshmen. As the pack of runners reached the middle of the field, the crowd exploded in admiration. In an absurd way, those students were saluting the Dartmouth community and the community loved them for it. They were proud that day. They felt the support of every student there, as they ran for and after the Dartmouth spirit. The group rushed the field not out of rebellion or hate for the administration or even disdain for the opposing team -- they rushed because of their love for this college

Also, he ends with a paraphrase of the quote Janos ended his Convocation Speech in 2003 (or 2004) with--"I wouldn't recommend rushing the field for everyone, but to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, it has worked for some." Hunter S. Thompson, apparently, is the new Jesus--"as your attorney, I advise you to streak the field."

What the hell has gotten into this 'man of character?' Advocating "certain incarceration?" Tsk tsk. Someone please tell me if they find Noah pissing on Wright's lawn this weekend.

O Gawd...

Karen Hughes to replace Rove if he is indicted.

I mean, I'd rather have an inarticulate, utterly inconsiderate moron helping Bush think than a shrewd, cruel, and calculating mastermind, but I'd also not like the entire government to collapse due to (further) incompetence.

US News & World Report describes her as "a longtime Bush aide now in charge of Arab outreach at the State Department." If by Arab outreach, you mean the entire Arab world would like to reach out and slap her.

Is there a wordplay on "Plame" left?

Things are starting to come to a boil, it seems. Besides the rumor floating around that Bateman posted about just now, ThinkProgress reports that Bill Kristol told Fox News "there will be one or more indictments in the next three weeks of senior administration officials." (ThinkProgress also has a terrific cribsheet of all the players and their possible involvement with the leak which will help you catch up if you don't know all the details.)

However, Slate thinks it could be pretty easy for Democrats to blow this, or at least get less bang for the buck by shoehorning the indictments into the larger story of how Bush/Cheney fucked up the Iraq War. Here's the relevant quote:

Democrats can refight Iraq anytime, and they should... But the indictments won't be indictments for waging an imprudent war, or slanting intelligence. They'll be indictments for improper leaks. Democrats should be able to pocket the winnings that come from these leak-related criminal charges, and then separately make the case about Iraq based on what's happened in Iraq. If the latter isn't enough to make the anti-Bush argument, pumping Fitzgerald's case up into something it is not isn't going to make up the difference.

Also, it's possible that the email Chris got was a fake. Checkt the whole story here.

Rumors

Email I received through a grapevine of older, semi-important, well-connected people:

----------
From: XXXXX
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2005 10:01 AM
To: XXXX
Subject: FW: Re the war in Iraq

Probably you already know this.

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXX
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 5:23 PM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Re the war in Iraq

Not only is the Internet ablaze with that speech of Powell's aide, but it was on the front page of the FT this morning.  Also, a very plugged-in friend of mine in DC sent me this e-mail last night:

At least 8 indictments have been prepared and 10 more are possible. Those whose lawyers have been told letters are coming include Libby, Fred Flights(SP?) Special assistant to John Bolton, and Steve Hadley. A plea bargaining process has begun on Dick Cheney himself. A Rove indictment seems highly probable. A parade of senior republicans senators is pressing McCain to go for VP when Cheney goes, Lindsey Graham is viewed as an alternative. This should hit the fan in next days--sooner rather than later given the way rumors are flying."

I thought Cons Liked Family Guy

The Parents Television Council just released their top ten lists for best and worst prime-time shows for a family audience.

Best: 1. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 2. Three Wishes 3. American Idol 4. The Ghost Whisperer 5. Everybody Hates Chris 6. Reba 7. Bernie Mac 8. Dancing with the Stars 9. 7th Heaven 10. Not available.

Worst: 1. The War at Home 2. The Family Guy 3. American Dad 4. The O.C. 5. C.S.I. (Crime Scene Investigation) 6. Desperate Housewives 7. Two and a Half Men 8. That ‘70s Show 9. Arrested Development 10. Cold Case

This is what the Parents' Council had to say about Family Guy:

This unbelievably foul animated series made a strong come back after being off the air for two years, thanks to the success of DVD sales among young males. The raunchy series follows the Griffins, a blue-collar New England family which includes a martini-swilling, talking dog and a matricidal baby bent on world domination. The show bases its humor on scatological and sexual references (including masturbation, incest, bestiality, necrophilia), and spoofs on popular culture. Institutions such as the church and family are held up to ridicule on a near-weekly basis. One episode this season featured Meg being deflowered by Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live. Parents of young children should be especially concerned because Family Guy's animated format is sure to attract young viewers. Shockingly, since its return in May, Family Guy is the highest ranked show among 12-17 year olds, and the fifth highest ranked show among children ages 2 to 11.

Once again proving why cons have less fun.

Democrats shake up structure of Primary Season

Some members of the DNC Primary Calendar Commission plan to circulate a formal proposal guarding IA and NH's first-in-the-nation stati and add two-to-four caucuses eight days after Iowa, according to commission members...One draft of the plan calls for IA to hold its precinct caucuses on Jan. 14 and for NH to hold its primary on Jan. 29. On Jan. 22, eight days after Iowa, several states would hold caucuses. The plan would also keep the seven days after NH free of events.

Likely candidates for the added caucuses are South Carolina, Arkansas, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Delaware.

(via Hotline)

Also, there is now a New Hampshire Primary Blog. The blog is, so far, pretty moronic and juvenile ("The purple theme in the borders of this blog design is my way of saying that New Hampshire can't ever be colored all red or all blue. And you might also notice that I use purplie text to set off anything that is clearly my opinion, not fact"), but it'll probably collect some decent sources.

However, I am a little worried--the author says s/he'll be using The D as their primary source for candidates' Hanover stops. Umm, that's probably not a good idea.

The Trials of Juelz Santana

Capital letters added by popular request. I do it for the lay-deez.

It kind of got overshadowed by Kanye's "George Bush does not care about Black people" comment, and it may be old news to some, but Juelz Santana said something equally rockin' about Barbara B a couple of weeks back that deserves noting.

This was of course after Barb got everyone atwitter by asserting that those people in the Astrodome may actually have been made better off, holistically, given that they were economically disadvantaged and all.

Anyway, this angered Juelz so much that he momentarily stopped working on that album he almost lost cause his jump drive crashed and descended from his roost in Harlem to spit the following at whoever was listening:

"No disrespect and I really don't mean that, but that sounds like something a stupid bitch would say to me," Juelz offered. "For that to come out of somebody's mouth at a situation like this, the first thing to come out of my mouth would be 'Which stupid bitch said that?' I don't have no personal vendetta against her, so for anybody to say that at a time like this, I would reply with that answer like what type of bitch said that?"
from sohh



Needless to say, a sixteen-year-old potty mouth such as myself can't reasonably be expected to refrain from using "What type of stupid bitch said that?" and "That sounds like something a stupid bitch would say" as catchphrases. And you know I needed some of those.

Semi-relatedly, there must be a 2-for-1 on Haterade down at Foodstop or some shit; I don't see how else you people could stay supplied. I'll tell you what; you keep chuggin' that shit, and I'll keep pimpin' futuristic, and we'll call that a fucking day.

O'Reilly--Now Part of a No Spine Zone

Accurate labels are always good things.

(This image has not been altered)

(via Think Progress)

Creepy Grinning Elf

In the annals of infamous celebrity mugshots, DeLay's doesn't rank up there with Michael Jackson or anything. I mean, that was a picture that gave us all nightmares. But, to watch the mighty fall so far, well, this one has a special place in my heart. Mustering up all the cheeriness he can, DeLay's I've-got-confidence-in-me mughshot doesn't give him the bad press that it could have, and in some sense, it fits all this "I'm not guilty" spin his office has been giving out.



But seriously, its a mugshot. Tom DeLay is done.

Falcons are badass

This picture of a peregrine falcon scattering a flock of starlings recently won Manuel Presti the 2005 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, which is given by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum.

Wicked.

(Article--with the other winners)

Libby: Now the Whipping Boy?

"Rove Told Jury Libby May Have Been His Source In Leak Case"

Is it me, or does this seem to be turning into a giant game of Telephone?

Mary Matalin is one of the many Cheney staffers that have been questioned by Fitzgerald--I wonder how James Carville feels about that.

yeah i know

three my first day, i'm a fucking diva
not quite a CONSERVAdiva, but i'm hoping

anyway check this for some much-needed truth about the miers nomination and abortion as a distraction.

an excerpt:
"'My fear is that if [the religious right] get their main issues settled, they'll go home. The Christian Coalition represents a lot of white Southerners who used to be quasi-socialists. They used to buy into the whole Democratic Party's class warfare arguments. With a lot of those constituencies, we've brought them along so that they're as good on the tax issue as anyone else.'"- grover norquist, asshole

this should tell you a couple of things: firstly, grover norquist is an evil fucker. second, the evil fucker is telling is in print that the forces of economic conservatism are using lower-class people with strong religious affiliation to vote through economic packages that remove the safety nets from capitalism. there's a lot more at stake here than abortion, although of course abortion is important

read the article it's fucking imperative that you do so

tha beacon

i don't know if this is old news to you people, or what, but does anybody else think it's hysterical that they routinely publish an entire magazine with like five articles in it? on glossy-ass expensive paper?

i don't know if this is on purpose or what, but it's such a performance of their entire worldview- "fuck yeah, we waste space. today i filled up half a page with a pull quote. why not? i can afford it. and the paper? this gloss is the finest gloss in all italy. we thought about newsprint, but it's so, you know, plebian. this is a fucking Magazine. we're fucking Professionals."

cause i'm a h-u-s-t-l-e hustla.
you'll never find a dime that ain't mine, mothafuckaaaa

malchow and teh gheyz

malchow has some new shit up about how the damn liberal media is discriminating against some chastity group at princeton for being homophobic. i shouldn't have to tell you that his headline, "Promoting chastity is homophobic," is meant sarcastically, as if to say that liberals percieve any sex-negative activity to be homophobic, or something. you can't really tell.

you're not going to be surprised that this group is fucking homophobic. it takes all of two clicks on their website to find the following preface to a big ol' heap of religious/pseudoscientific pile of bullshit bibliography: "We have not shied away from religious based arguments - or arguments advanced by religious leaders - as we are open to a good pluralism in which arguments from all vantage points that buttress familial and sexual life and ethics are welcomed."

let's go over the "religious based" (sic, motherfuckers, come on. i thought you went to princeton) argument against homosexuality: in leviticus 18, the bible gets to talking about whose nakedness to uncover and not to uncover, etc, and then drops a bomb in verse 22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." now, that sounds like a pretty serious indictment. but rewind 7 books back to leviticus 11. in verse 10 he says: "And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: they shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination."

now, essentially, we have a normative position taken by leviticus, or God, or whoever, against "abomination." what constitutes abomination? for one thing, hot, gay assfucking. wait, i mean assfucking AND/OR the consumption of mussels, clams or other oceanic bivalves. at this point it should be pretty clear that the "religious based" arguments against homosexuality are really fucking stupid, and we should move on. perhaps i am betraying my identity as a left-wing cultural elitist when i say that it's okay to go ahead and define any group or individual who gives the slightest bit of credence to the "religious based" arguments against homosexuality to be homophobic, as well as a gibbering fucking moron.

this wouldn't be such a big deal, except there really AREN'T any other arguments against homosexuality. malchow likes to trip on its "biological abberance," but first of all, being biologically aberrant/engaging in "aberrant" behavior should not carry any kind of normative weight as far as whether society should confer rights on an individual. i could go on and state that we're seeing more and more results of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, etc., but i shouldn't have to.

is he really talking about people "hoisting" (or foisting) homosexuality on other people? what the fuck kind of bullshit is that? homosexuality is about a man or woman wanting to fuck an individual of the same gender. the only way that could be "foisted" on me is if a dude tried to rape me. going up to me and screaming "I THINK IT'S OKAY THAT I WANT TO FUCK OTHER DUDES IN THE ASS" isn't foisting shit, except for what should be an obvious statement of fact.

jesus, malchow, stick to writing about foreign policy and shit, where at least your arguments are sort of factually rooted. don't point at some mangled, diluted, politicized ancient text that tells you not to do teh butts3x right after it tells you never, never to eat mussels. from "this modern world" (this is a paraphrase, i'm too lazy to dig up the comics)man: you know what your problem is? you're out of touch with millions of americans who believe that gay sex and abortion are sinful acts which will cause the sinner to burn in hell.penguin: you say that like it's a bad thing.