Back in June, during the last kerfuffle, I offered this brief assessment of Ann Coulter:
Quoting myself quoting myself:
Back on March 2 (on the ancien regime blog--and before the current kerfuffle), I offered this brief assessment of Ann Coulter:
Quoting Myself: "I think she is often uproariously funny and sometimes very insightful, but I also think she can be crude and mean-spirited. Although I give her credit for outwitting Katie Couric (in all seriousness, that was a bravura performance), I think Coulter is something akin to our Maureen Dowd (funny, attractive, possessing a rapier wit but lacking compassion and judgment). Ann Coulter, for me, will forever be the woman who judged John Roberts unfit for the Supreme Court and attempted to reinvent Joe McCarthy as a great American hero."
You get the point: we have been here before.
Ann Coulter is serially inappropriate and often completely erroneous. Last summer, detractors presented evidence against her charging plagiarism.
Having said that, I will refrain from the feeding frenzy fueled by conservative self-righteous indignation.
Why?
1. Our vigilance in pursuit of this hysterical exercise proves correct her assertion that we are all becoming zealots in persecuting semantic transgressions. Joe Biden? George Allen? We are a community of glass-house residents; we ought to discourage stone-chunking mobs.
2. There are plenty of reasons to disown Ann Coulter. I did it long ago. But this posse, formed as a result of a singularly offensive remark, is disproportionate and cowardly. Evaluate Ann Coulter on her body of work. Dissociate yourself from her brand of politics and provocation. Bravo. But let us renounce this increasingly prevalent practice of purging veteran public figures from the body politic because of a momentary albeit egregious lapse in public etiquette.
This Open Letter to CPAC Sponsors and Organizers Regarding Ann Coulter doesn't pass the "ick" test for me. Gentleman, you will have to ride without me on this necktie party.
Quoting myself quoting myself:
Back on March 2 (on the ancien regime blog--and before the current kerfuffle), I offered this brief assessment of Ann Coulter:
Quoting Myself: "I think she is often uproariously funny and sometimes very insightful, but I also think she can be crude and mean-spirited. Although I give her credit for outwitting Katie Couric (in all seriousness, that was a bravura performance), I think Coulter is something akin to our Maureen Dowd (funny, attractive, possessing a rapier wit but lacking compassion and judgment). Ann Coulter, for me, will forever be the woman who judged John Roberts unfit for the Supreme Court and attempted to reinvent Joe McCarthy as a great American hero."
You get the point: we have been here before.
Ann Coulter is serially inappropriate and often completely erroneous. Last summer, detractors presented evidence against her charging plagiarism.
Having said that, I will refrain from the feeding frenzy fueled by conservative self-righteous indignation.
Why?
1. Our vigilance in pursuit of this hysterical exercise proves correct her assertion that we are all becoming zealots in persecuting semantic transgressions. Joe Biden? George Allen? We are a community of glass-house residents; we ought to discourage stone-chunking mobs.
2. There are plenty of reasons to disown Ann Coulter. I did it long ago. But this posse, formed as a result of a singularly offensive remark, is disproportionate and cowardly. Evaluate Ann Coulter on her body of work. Dissociate yourself from her brand of politics and provocation. Bravo. But let us renounce this increasingly prevalent practice of purging veteran public figures from the body politic because of a momentary albeit egregious lapse in public etiquette.
This Open Letter to CPAC Sponsors and Organizers Regarding Ann Coulter doesn't pass the "ick" test for me. Gentleman, you will have to ride without me on this necktie party.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Good, clear thinking on stem cell research from the Orthodox Bishops.
Here is a portion:
From the perspective of Orthodox Christianity, human life begins at conception (meaning fertilization with creation of the single-cell zygote). This conviction is grounded in the Biblical witness (e.g., Ps 139:13-16; Isaiah 49:1ff; Luke 1:41,44), as well as in the scientifically established fact that from conception there exists genetic uniqueness and cellular differentiation that, if the conceptus is allowed to develop normally, will produce a live human being. ( 1 ) Human life is sacred from its very beginning, since from conception it is ensouled existence. As such, it is "personal" existence, created in the image of God and endowed with a sanctity that destines it for eternal life.
. . .
In the first place, debate on this issue has too often overlooked the fact that among the most vocal proponents of embryo research are pro-abortion activists, supported by much of the media. If the government refuses to fund such research, it would thereby tacitly acknowledge that human life begins at conception. This flies in the face of abortion legislation such as Roe v. Wade and would inevitably undermine the view that an embryo is merely a clump of tissue and can therefore be aborted on demand with no moral consequences. The real issue underlying the debate, then, is less the development of potential therapies than the preservation of so-called "abortion rights." ( 3 )
Second, enormous pressures to legalize and federally fund embryonic stem cell research is coming from the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, because of the promise of nearly limitless profits. The "new medicine" based on stem cell therapies is largely driven by the marketplace. As with AIDS medications and other recently developed therapies, market forces will determine who has access to them, and at what cost.
Read the entire letter (it's not too long).
Here is a portion:
From the perspective of Orthodox Christianity, human life begins at conception (meaning fertilization with creation of the single-cell zygote). This conviction is grounded in the Biblical witness (e.g., Ps 139:13-16; Isaiah 49:1ff; Luke 1:41,44), as well as in the scientifically established fact that from conception there exists genetic uniqueness and cellular differentiation that, if the conceptus is allowed to develop normally, will produce a live human being. ( 1 ) Human life is sacred from its very beginning, since from conception it is ensouled existence. As such, it is "personal" existence, created in the image of God and endowed with a sanctity that destines it for eternal life.
. . .
In the first place, debate on this issue has too often overlooked the fact that among the most vocal proponents of embryo research are pro-abortion activists, supported by much of the media. If the government refuses to fund such research, it would thereby tacitly acknowledge that human life begins at conception. This flies in the face of abortion legislation such as Roe v. Wade and would inevitably undermine the view that an embryo is merely a clump of tissue and can therefore be aborted on demand with no moral consequences. The real issue underlying the debate, then, is less the development of potential therapies than the preservation of so-called "abortion rights." ( 3 )
Second, enormous pressures to legalize and federally fund embryonic stem cell research is coming from the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, because of the promise of nearly limitless profits. The "new medicine" based on stem cell therapies is largely driven by the marketplace. As with AIDS medications and other recently developed therapies, market forces will determine who has access to them, and at what cost.
Read the entire letter (it's not too long).
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