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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
Tom 70
Published Letters: 185 Editor's Choice: 18
... and so is Parker. The physical differences between men and women on a gender-wide basis don't matter, because the military is perfectly capable of determining how capable each individual solder, man or woman, is. Surely some women are more physically capable than some men, and there are no reasons to keep them from combat positions they're qualified for just because of that sweeping generalization, and no male soldier (unless he's plain sexist) is going to resent that woman's presence. I don't know whether the milltary is actually gender-blind in this respect, but it should be, and it would make the gender-based claims irrelevant. And furthermore, the military should be good at finding front-line positions for less physically capable men and woman that don't require the highest level of strength and fitness, anyway.
Having been driven away from sports radio long ago, the first I'd heard of Cowherd was last week when he insulted the city of Cincinnati for producing what he thinks is a disproportionate number of idiots, and it made the papers here. Even if that didn't happen to be the town I live in, it would still be an amazingly stupid thing to say on the air. (As though Cincinnati isn't a market for his show? As though Connecticut, where he lives, is any different?) And now he's attacking blogs. What a moron. And what a pathetic look at what's become of talk radio.
Contrary to what some posters have claimed here, Kamiya is not wrong in taking a singular verb with the noun "media" ("The media is ..."). In this sense, "media" is a collective noun or mass noun, synonymous with "the press," referring to the group of professionals and institutions as a single group, and there's a well established pattern for the acquisition of a singular usage for an originally plural word like this ("agenda," "data"). This usage has a distinctly different meaning than the use of "media" as the plural of "medium." You may not like it, but this has become standard usage, and if it's not in your dictionary yet, it will be very soon.
Fine. Every time you publish Paglia, I'll write in to say how empty and her obnoxious her columns are, and 90% of letter writers will agree with me. Is that really what you want, Salon? You got my clicks, but you lost my subscription revenue last month, exactly because of crap like this, and if you keep doing this you'll lose my clicks, too.
And while I'm here, I'll continue to say to Paglia's lamebrained defenders that we're not disgusted with Paglia because she's right wing and challenges our opinions. It's because she's a shallow, senseless and self-obsessed thinker and writer.
Sorry for the sideline discussion, but ...
Anonymous, you're neglecting the fact the "the media" is being used as a mass noun, for which there's no clear substitute. I said before that it's synonymous with "the press," but actually it's not; it's a broader category than the press, and it refers to much more than simply the plural of "medium," which would suggest channels of communication but not the individuals employing them. In this increasingly common sense of the word, "the media" is most definitely a thing, a single group, which need not imply likemindedness among its members. Evidence that it's being used as a mass noun can be seen in the fact that with this usage it would make no sense to treat things within that group as countable--we wouldn't say "Three media are ..." unless reverting to the other (and quite different) meaning of the word (the plural of "medium").
Merriam-Webster already accepts the use of singular verbs with "data," by the way, and usage guides are now acknowledging this as standard usage for "media," too. (See Garner's Modern American Usage.) "I graduated Notre Dame" is simply incorrect because it has no meaning apart from the grammatically correct phrasing, and thus is unnecessary. This case is different.
Yes, a ban on guns would be inffective, but Shapiro didn't call for that. Repealing the 2nd Amendment wouldn't be a gun ban; it would simply allow legislatures to regulate gun ownership however we see fit without the obstacle of that amendment.
And no, the absence of guns wouldn't prevent incidents like the one at Virginia Tech, but Shapiro never said it would. While determined lunatics will still find a way to do harm, guns make it a lot easier to do harm, and it's almost axiomatic that making it more difficult to acquire guns will reduce (in the aggregate) the frequency and carnage of deadly rampages.
Also, the biggest delusion in this argument has got to be the idea that gun ownership, enabled by the 2nd Amendment, give us the ability to defend ourself against (let alone overthrow!) a tyrannical government. We're long past the time when even organized militias (let alone individuals) can effectively defend themselves against the military power of our government.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
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