The question of whether psychiatry is a science or not seems to have been settled as far as the Spanish Senate is concerned.[1] When a political party has to apologize for the professional statements a professor makes inside his field, then clearly we are not dealing with science.

That being said, I think this demonstrates something about the homosexual lobby and movement. Clearly they think that science is only infallible and must only be bowed down to when it serves their purpose. Thus if they think they can prove homosexuality is genetically based, we must give in to science and accept it. However, if we can prove that it is a disease, the science must be apologized for, and is not to be used to stand in the way of “progress” and “tolerance.”

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4118374.stm

I read today an article talking about the New Madrid fault.[1] Apparently they now think that there will almost certainly (seventy percent chance) be a significant earthquake there in the next fifty years or so. The interesting thing here is that while they insist that plate tectonics is behind it, there is only one plate on both sides of that fault. What other plate is the rubbing, sliding, snagging, whatever going on against? How does plate tectonics explain a mid plate fault line?

[1] http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050622_new_madrid.html

Once, in talking at the 4P’s, I was requested to refer to the pro-abortion movement as “pro-choice.” I refuse to do so. I ought to refer to it as the “pro-death” movement. Because this talk of “choice” and “a woman’s right to choose” masks the all-important fact on which the morality of abortion hinges.

Mr. George Weigel understands this.[1] With every abortion, a human life is ended. Most undebatably true of the “partial birth abortions,” it is equally clearly, undebatably, true of every child yet unborn past five months, as we save the lives of such babies when born prematurely. Indeed, it is this critical time that an Arlington woman is being kept alive in for, in hopes that her unborn baby might be saved.[2] But even though it is less clear of one month, one week, one day, or one hour year old babies, they are yet alive, distinct, their own person with a soul all their own. And the abortion kills them. That is the fact to remember when abortion comes up. When do you ever have the right to choose to kill an innocent person?

[1] http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2376/pub_detail.asp
[2] http://www.schierer.org/~luke/log/20050616-1021

Law.com has an interesting article that I really am at a loss with how to respond to.[1] Bartenders at a casino somewhere on the west coast (Ninth Circuit) are required to conform to a personal grooming policy.

Five years ago, the company changed its appearance standards to require female bartenders to look more feminine by wearing their hair down and using nail polish and makeup. Male bartenders had to keep their hair above the collar, keep their nails clean and neatly trimmed and couldn’t wear makeup, ponytails or nail polish.[1]

Clearly it should be legal for an employer to require that employees such as waiters, waitresses, and bartenders, conform to the image the restaurants (or casino) wants to send to its customers. The grooming of the waiter, waitress, or bartender will clearly reflect on the establishment, and on the willingness of patrons to return (would you return to a restaurant if the waiters were all filthy?). Are there limits on this? I am not sure. It is a burden to require waiters to wear a tux, but I have seen that (we had a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant once). And clearly the grooming for men and women will be different, must be different, and yet both policies would reflect the same overall standard. A man with long hair sends a different image from a woman with long hair; the latter may be acceptable without the former being so. Is it a burden then that the man has to get his hair cut more often? Make-up is even messier. I have no clue how to approach that one. Does society require makeup of a well dressed woman? I really do not know. Is it fair to ask it of her? Beyond my ability to judge.

But these seem to be different questions from “This is a different burden than is placed on the males, is that allowable?” Clearly the standard, and thus inevitably the burden, must be different. Men and women are not the same and different does not necessarily mean unequal. Is it unequal after all that the bathrooms are segregated by sex? I hope not…

[1] http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1119431121751

A couple days ago, I wrote an entry in response to a pair of articles I read on Townhall.com.[1] I pointed Andrius at this entry because it deals with the State Department, and he instigated a further look at it on my part. Specifically, I found what I am fairly sure is the article that Ms. Mona Charen was writing about.[2] Both articles at least partly miss-characterize the article in question. I think, reading them again today, that I disagree with Andrius that Ms. Charen’s article was an irresponsible miss-characterization.

Polemical writing has its place in political debate. While rightly considered a lesser form of debate, it is never the less a tool that can be effectively used to stir people to act on a topic of importance where a more reasoned approach would bore the listeners. In that respect it is much like satire. So I am not too upset about Ms. Charen’s reporting. I do take the hint that I need to be a little bit more credulous when reading about organizations (such as the State Department) about which I am inclined to dislike anyway.

My overall point however is not undermined by the reality of the article. It is entirely possible to look at the move towards dressier clothing and better grooming, if such exists (I have my doubts), entirely separately from the metrosexual disorder. Consider how long the devolution of men’s’ fashion has been going on to reach its present point. The tux of the present day was the standard formal wear of the past. The three piece suit, now relatively rarely seen, was standard means’ wear for anyone with a “white collar” job. Even the “blue collar” worker would have worn a suit coat away in many settings, away from his actual employment. He would certainly have often worn a button down shirt. Note that this held true at times and in places where women were far more strictly restricted from the workplace than has been the case in decades.

Similarly, the great architects of the past have been men, and often men with skill in engineering. Some of them have been artists as well. While the Aristocracy of the 17Th Century is often labeled effeminate, you still see numerous other examples of the value of being dressed well in history. The well tailored suit never really stopped being critical for the lawyer in the courtroom for example, and the oriental cultures provide an example of one where personal grooming has been considered important without as much blurring of the genders.

So it is clearly bias that causes the Hi magazine article to refer to what they call “Fashionable Men” as being the result of an influx of women in the workplace, and an adoption of women’s values and women’s practices. As such, my comments that this is highly objectionable fare for our State Department to be funding remains entirely accurate.

[1] http://www.schierer.org/~luke/log/20050621-0953
[2] http://www.hiinternational.com/articles/art1_en.cfm?topicId=1&id=392