Keith Burgess-Jackson

Debra Dickerson hates it that women have minds of their own and make choices of which she disapproves. Why can’t they just toe the goddamned feminist line?

Addendum: Women—even feminist women—are starting to pick Hillary Clinton to pieces. See here for Anna Quindlen’s catty column about the senator and would-be president. If Hillary is defeated, it may be because women won’t accept her as their leader. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Addendum 2: I leave you this fine evening with a column by philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers.

Here is a scene from today’s stage of the Giro d’Italia, won by Italian Danilo Napolitano.

Will Nehs sent a link to this column about the Senate immigration bill, which I believe is being debated today. My two senators—Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn—are on record as opposing the bill, at least in its present form. Have you contacted your senators to make your views known?

Addendum: Here is John Fund’s latest column.

Addendum 2: I have an idea. Anyone (including Ted Kennedy, John McCain, and George W. Bush) who supports amnesty for illegal aliens should have to let a family of illegal aliens move in next door to him or her. Many of the elites who support amnesty will never pay a personal price for it. (Some, such as those who employ illegal aliens, will derive a personal benefit from it.) The social problems created by uncontrolled immigration are experienced primarily by ordinary, hard-working people in the Southwest. I know: I lived in Tucson for five years.

Addendum 3: Here is David Frum’s blog post.

Addendum 4: It boggles my mind that a Republican could support this bill. It shows the extent to which the Republican Party is beholden to business interests. Maybe progressives have been right all along in saying that the Republican Party is the party of big business. This doesn’t mean that I’m against business, but when the interests of business diverge from those of the nation as a whole, as in this case, the latter must prevail.

Here.

Two days ago, I did my sixth bike rally of the year and my 402d overall. The novelty of this particular rally is that it began and ended at the Texas Motor Speedway, which is 29.4 miles from my Fort Worth house. I’ve driven past the speedway many times while on Interstate 35W, but have never been in it or near it. The place is so big that the rally riders were allowed to park inside! We got started at 7:45 under threatening skies. The first mile or so was around the track. We were supposed to stay on the apron, but some of us rode on the track itself. I was astounded by the steepness of the banking (it says here that it’s 24º in the turns). It must be awesome to drive a race car on the track at high speed. I would have ridden on the track even longer than I did, but I was afraid that my bike tires would slip out from under me on the wet pavement. After circling the track, the riders were sent out of the speedway and into the countryside.

We got wet during the first hour, but eventually the rain stopped and the road surface dried. I rode with several friends, which made it all the more enjoyable. I ended up with an average speed of 17.08 miles per hour for 73.9 miles. That’s my longest ride since the Hotter ’n Hell Hundred in late August. I could have ridden 100 miles Saturday, although I would have been very tired at the finish. The course was comparatively flat and there was little wind. All in all, the weather was terrific. During my ride, I heard the shrill note of the red-winged blackbird several times. This took me back immediately to Metamora, Michigan, where my family lived while I was in kindergarten and first grade. There was a marsh near our house, and blackbirds like marshy ground. Sure enough, I was riding past a marsh when I heard the blackbirds two days ago. They were reminding me of my home state and of my childhood.

Certainly warm-hearted fellow-feeling was not Kant’s dominant trait, and he does not appreciate it in others as much as Stoic characteristics of independence, moderation, self-control, coolness, reserve, propriety, fortitude, and the like. But none of these has genuine moral worth in the sense that the good will has it, though they are nonetheless constituents of the good life and the emotional ground upon which moral education must work; without them, duty is only a voice crying in a wilderness.

(Lewis White Beck, “Sir David Ross on Duty and Purpose in Kant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16 [September 1955]: 98-107, at 106 [footnotes omitted])

To the Editor:

In reading “Failing by Example,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, May 16), I was reminded of a job interview I had in the late summer of 2002. I had applied for a position with the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, the state administrative officer position in Indiana, and had a phone interview scheduled.

As the interview was winding up, I was feeling very good about it, when the question came up: “How do you feel about the Bush tax cuts and the rebates?” I was floored, never expecting such a question. I had been working in the human resources field for years, and recognized right away that this question bordered on inappropriate.

I mustered the best neutral response I could think of, and the interview concluded. It has always struck me that that question was somehow an attempt to discover my political leanings. Now I know for sure.

Michael Scherger
Syracuse, May 16, 2007

Here.