Random Blogging – Page 364

Gender Matters

Back in 1980, when Republicans were members of a political party and not a religion, I was the Republican candidate for Congress from Indiana’s (then) eleventh district. In 1980, it was still comparatively unusual for either party to run a woman, and I had plenty of opportunity to grit my teeth over the tendency of reporters to focus on what I was wearing rather than what I was saying. My Washington-based consultant advised me to “look tough,” so that my gender would not be read as feminine softness–advice that, in retrospect, probably just made me look unpleasant.

In the 30+ years since that campaign, women have arguably made considerable progress–but we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think sexism still frames political contests. Gender bias remains, but it manifests itself more subtly. In 2008, Sarah Palin tried to sell herself as a conservative version of a feminist, but that claim rang hollow to real feminists for many reasons, not the least of which was that much of her support was based upon her undeniable good looks. I am firmly of the opinion that neither Palin nor Bachmann would have achieved political prominence had they looked like Janet Reno.

Which brings me to an intriguing, if depressing, study recently reported in the Journal of Religion and Politics.

The authors were investigating the oft-noted tendency of today’s religiously conservative candidates to use “dog whistles”–phrases that don’t register with the more secular among us, but that signal to the extremely religious that the candidate is one of them. (George W. Bush was a master at this.) They found, however, that this tactic was more effective when used by male candidates that when it was used by females. As the authors noted, “The code functioned as a highly sophisticated, closed-circuit cue for Evangelicals regarding male candidate acceptability…the code does not work in the same way for female candidates.” While reluctant to draw conclusions, they raise a pertinent question: “What if the Republican ‘advantage’ in using religious appeals is based on an inherent characteristic–gender–of those making the appeals?”

Whatever the answer to that question, if we have learned anything about politics during the past decade, it is that–for good or ill–race, gender, religion and sexual orientation continue to frame our responses to those who run for office.

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Crime and Promises

When Greg Ballard ran for mayor, we were treated to a lot of rhetoric about crime. Public Safety was going to be “job one” in a Ballard administration. Well, if crime has been job one, I shudder to think of how we are doing with jobs two through ten.

The media have reported on our distressing rates of violent crime; it seems as if there’s a murder every day or so. But there are fewer reports of the so-called nonviolent and “petty” crimes: thefts from cars parked on city streets, burglaries and house break-ins, etc. And those have grown alarmingly.

I live in the Old Northside now, but my husband and I have lived in downtown neighborhoods for 30 years. We were part of the Hudnut Administration that jump-started the renaissance of the city’s core. In that thirty-year period, I have never seen the rate of what police call “household invasions” anywhere near this high. Just in the past month, I’ve had three neighbors I know personally burgled, and the neighborhood listserv has circulated reports of several others. One friend was in his house, in bed with his wife, when intruders broke in and took computers and other electronics. (Talk about shaking your sense of security!)

My friends in IMPD report significant issues of morale and management in the department. Whether those issues affect the crime rate, I don’t know. What I DO know is that crime is increasingly a topic of concern among my friends and neighbors, and that there is a perception of a significant increase in criminal activity. That’s troubling enough, but what is even more troubling is that the Mayor does not seem to recognize either the problem or the challenge that the growing concern about crime poses to other important city goals.

Promises, promises………

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One-Handed Lawyers

You’ve probably heard the old joke about the one-armed man who couldn’t be a lawyer, because lawyers all have to say “on one hand….but on the other hand…”

What made me think of it was an excellent post by Doug Masson this morning, which I encourage everyone to read. Doug was commenting on the unseemly effort by local media outlets and others to find someone–anyone–to blame for the tragedy at the State Fair. (Okay, anyone with money.) Now, perhaps when all the facts come out, there will be evidence that the stage collapse was the result of negligence, but given what is now known, it is more likely that this should be filed under “shit happens.” It’s probably human nature to want someone to blame when bad things happen, but sometimes an accident is simply an accident.

On the other hand (you knew this was coming, right?) some lawsuits that seem frivolous aren’t just examples of our amply documented American litigiousness. One example is the widely mocked and misunderstood “McDonald’s coffee” case. An elderly woman spilled her coffee on her lap, and was so severely burned she had to be hospitalized. When a jury awarded her several hundred thousand dollars, the “tort reform” chorus took to the airwaves to demand limits on lawsuits, and the case became a rallying point for those who want to make it more difficult for injured people to sue.

What most of the media didn’t report was that McDonalds had been sued numerous times before over injuries caused by their practice of brewing unreasonably hot coffee (apparently, you get more coffee from the same amount of beans if it is really, really hot). In this case, the elderly woman’s suit initially asked only for payment of her hospital bills, and McDonalds had refused to pay anything. It’s likely that the size of the verdict was a product of jury outrage, in the nature of punitive damages.

Not long after I was married, I went with my husband to a convention of architects. When one of the other attendees found out that I was a lawyer, he cornered me and lectured on the evils of frivolous litigation. I finally asked him what he would suggest as a remedy. “Why, just outlaw frivolous lawsuits!” he responded, with an inflection suggesting that only an idiot would ask such a question. He didn’t take it kindly when I pointed out that you can’t identify “frivolous” cases until they’ve been litigated.

On one hand, I’d love to be able to weed out suits brought by the greedy and unscrupulous, or just by people looking for a scapegoat.

On the other hand, justice isn’t served by rules that make it difficult or impossible to litigate legitimate grievances.

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Tales of the Times

When I settled down this morning with the Sunday New York Times, I couldn’t help but be struck by two totally unrelated stories that seemed–at least to me–to summarize the choice we face as a nation. These stories weren’t momentous public events by any means; they were more like indicator lights on your car’s dashboard.

The first was the front-page coverage of the (non-binding) Iowa straw vote. Michelle Bachmann (anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-choice, anti-evolution, anti-environment) came in first, with Ron Paul (“we don’t need no stinkin’ government”) a close second.

The second story was from “Vows,” the Times’ weekly wedding feature. It focused upon a wedding conducted just a few days after same-sex unions became legal in New York. In the large photo accompanying the story, two elderly men in wheelchairs are holding hands; the accompanying text explains that the two had been admitted to the hospital together–one with leukemia and the other with advanced Parkinson’s. “Faced with the prospect of their own mortality and separation after 39 years together, they asked the doctors to postpone Mr. Beaumont’s chemotherapy until–in a last grand gesture–they could get married.” The hospital staff provided white smocks, an Episcopal Priest performed the ceremony, the hospital’s chef baked a cake. Friends sang love songs. I’ll admit it–the story brought tears to my eyes.

So–here are two vignettes of our possible futures. We can express our fears and frustrations by flocking to the banner of people who deny complexity, reality and humanity, or we can act on our better natures, recognizing that the human family–just like our own families–is composed of many different kinds of people, all of whom are entitled to respect and affection.

We can live by slogans and ideologies, or we can try to understand the world we occupy. We can reject reality, wrap ourselves in self-righteousness and insist that others live by the rules of our particular gods, or we can admit (to ourselves as well as others) that we don’t have all the answers, that our common life is messy and times are tough, and that the only certainty is that human compassion and kindness will serve us better than denial and intolerance.

Yesterday, in Indianapolis, there was a terrible accident at a State Fair concert. A stage collapsed, pinning the front rows of the crowd under massive girders and equipment. Out of all the coverage, perhaps the most poignant picture was one showing how many of the other people in attendance rushed to help–a picture of dozens of hands trying to lift the debris so that the injured could be rescued. No one stopped to ask the politics, religion, race or sexual orientation of those who were pinned beneath the rubble. No one stopped to ask whether they “deserved” assistance. They were fellow humans who needed help.

What I want is a future and a country that nurtures that instinct.

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Climate and the Culture War

A recent profile of Michelle Bachmann included several past statements in which she explicitly rejects the Enlightenment, which explains a lot.

The Enlightenment (dubbed the “new learning” in the colonies) ushered in a new sensibility, a new way of seeing the world–it substituted empirical observation for biblical “truth,” and thus made science possible. I’ve often thought that what today’s culture warriors really want is to reverse the Enlightenment; if that’s true, it’s ironic, in view of their constant references to the Constitution, because the Constitution was a direct outgrowth of Enlightenment philosophy. (Think John Stuart Mill, Montesquieu, Hobbes, Voltaire, and–above all–John Locke.)

As historians explain the paradigm shift that accompanied the new way of understanding our world, before the Enlightenment, you began with biblical “truth” as that had been interpreted by religious leaders, and education was the process of fitting what you saw into that pre-existing framework. If something didn’t fit, you ignored it. After the Enlightenment, you began by observing your surroundings, and when you had sufficient data, you formulated a theory to explain it. If subsequent observations called elements of that theory into question, you modified the theory. Today, we call that the scientific method. (It is in this scientific sense that evolution is a theory–not in the sense the term is often used in casual conversation–i.e., a guess.)

As Edward McMahon, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, has recently written,

“Despite overwhelming scientific consensus and mounting evidence all around us, why are so many elected officials unwilling to accept that climate change is a serious threat that demands immediate attention? One theory is that climate change is now “part and parcel” of America’s “culture wars”. Similar to abortion, gay rights, school prayer and other social issues, climate change has become a partisan political issue.

This might explain why earlier this summer, House Republicans pushed legislation to overturn a 2007 law, signed by President George W. Bush, that would gradually phase out old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs in favor of new energy efficient bulbs. “Having to buy energy efficient bulbs is an affront to personal freedom”, they said; never mind the fact that the average homeowner would save almost $90 a year by switching to the energy saving bulbs, and also never mind that the law, once fully implemented, would eliminate the need for 33 large power plants, according to one estimate.

A Gallup Poll conducted earlier this year found that a majority of Americans support the energy efficiency bulb law and that most Americans have already switched to more energy efficient bulbs. So what else explains why some politicians’ views on climate change are so out of sync with our scientific community — or for that matter, with the rest of the world? A cynic might say that fossil fuel interests, like coal companies, have used the tobacco industry’s playbook: disinformation, high priced lobbyists and their own so-called “experts” to confuse the public and delay action. However a new study published in the Spring 2011 issue of Sociological Quarterly suggests another reason. It finds that “conservatives’ failure to acknowledge the real threat of climate change, has more to do with its implications rather than skepticism of scientific facts.”

Conservatives believe in small government, reduced spending, and a go-it-alone foreign policy. But solving climate change will undoubtly require robust government, increased expenditures, and a great degree of international cooperation. People will go to great lengths to rationalize their deeply held beliefs. Science and logic are a lost cause in the face of ideological rigidity. To accept climate change is to question the wisdom of some people’s core beliefs.”

Questioning and testing the wisdom of our core beliefs was what the Enlightenment was all about. It was what the American Experiment was all about. And at the end of the day, that’s what our culture war is all about. Will we return to a time when the answers are handed down by a deity (and if so, whose?), or will we continue to question, learn and grow?