Human Behavior

Defining the Family Down

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Taranto links, with some irony, a NYTimes article emphasizing one aspect of census news, an increased percentage of black children live within a family:

Demographers said such a trend might be partly attributable to the growing proportion of immigrants in the nation’s black population. It may have been driven, too, by the values of an emerging black middle class, a trend that could be jeopardized by the current economic meltdown.
 
The Census Bureau attributed an indeterminate amount of the increase to revised definitions adopted in 2007, which identify as parents any man and woman living together, whether or not they are married or the child’s biological parents.

We suspect the third “indeterminate” reason is key and the news may not be all that great. But how do we know? Taranto has fun with this, but it has serious implications. It appears a combination of “political correctness” (ah, he says he loves the child; isn’t that the same as being a father – even better, perhaps?) and post modernism (words can mean whatever the hell we want them to, so can traditions, so can biology).

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Montana-Bahn

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There is a comment thread here Chicago Boyz responding to my post on Chicago drivers tearing down the left lane of I290. Someone asked if there was any experience about the experiment of unlimited speeds in Montana (they do have limits at night).

I… uh… found this photo on the internet of someone driving quickly in Montana. Rumor has it that there are many wide open spaces where you can see far ahead and the flat landscape means that there is no where for authorities to find you, should they care to do so.

There are speed limits at night and these are taken seriously; there is an amazing amount of wild life in parts of Montana and you do not want to hit them with your car at high speed.

Blagojevich, Obama and The Chicago Way

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I think most people familiar with Illinois politics expected that eventually some kind of Chicago landmine was going to go off under President-elect Barack Obama – it’s just that few people expected it might happen before the 20th of January.

Likewise, I think most informed watchers expected that Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-IL), perhaps the most unpopular pol in Illinois history, would follow his predecessor, disgraced ex-governor George Ryan (R-IL) to prison someday, few of us anticipated the depths of the grotesque quality of Blagojevich’s grasping venality that would have made Alderman Tom Keane blush. Ryan at least didn’t talk like a thug when he raked in his small-time bribes (have to wonder if Ryan’s chances for a presidential pardon just improved or gotten worse?).

The real political trouble for Obama can be read here in a post at “The Smoking Gun” regarding today’s indctment:

” ….Blagojevich, 51, and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested this morning on political corruption charges. While the affidavit does not specifically name the six prospective Senate candidates discussed by Blagojevic, Harris, and the governor’s aides, it appears that several are easily identified. “Senate Candidate 1” is Jarrett. “Senate Candidate 2” is Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Emil Jones, an Illinois state legislator, is “Senate Candidate 5.” And “Senate Candidate 6” appears to be J.P. Pritzker, a wealthy Chicago businessman. Additionally, Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, is referred to in the affidavit as “President-elect Advisor.” (21 pages)”

Aside from Lisa Madigan, Attorney-General of Illinois and daughter of Springfield powerbroker Speaker Michael Madigan, this list is composed of Obama’s Best Friend, Political Godfather, a campaign Mega-Donor and his future White House Chief of Staff. Holy Cats!

I think this is what some folks used to quaintly refer to as “The Sleaze Factor“.

Pearl Harbor – 67

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Let’s not forget.

If you want information, the Naval Historical Center archive that we linked in last year’s post is as good a place to start as any.

Maybe it’s normal for cultures to lose their memories, or at least to roll them forward to more-recent events. By that logic, perhaps September 11, 2001 should serve as the current generation’s version of December 7, 1941. Does it? I don’t think so. I think we’re losing the memories, old and new, as we lose cultural self-awareness. We’re losing cultural self-awareness because we are losing cultural self-confidence. We are losing cultural self-confidence in large part because we allowed our educational system to be taken over by people who see cultural self-confidence as a crime.

From the Naval Historical Center:

By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan’s diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.

Change the details and this story becomes generic. The most important events tend to be unanticipated, and not for anyone’s lack of trying to anticipate them. We should remember this truth even if we fail to remember specific events, though I suspect that the forgetting of events begets the forgetting of principles.

Interesting times ahead.

UPDATE: Via David Foster, this excellent post from Neptunus Lex.

Quote of the Day

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Sometimes the kindest, best, most useful six words one man can say to another, whether brother, father, friend or wharever are, she’s crazy, get rid of her.

–Tom Smith