It’s no big surprise that the R.I. Senate Democrats–33 out of the 38 State Senators–unaminously re-elected Joseph Montalbano (D-N. Providence) to be Senate President and M. Teresa Paiva-Weed (D-Newport) as Senate Majority Leader. This despite the fact that Montalbano may currently be the target of an FBI invesigation. (Something, by the way, that both Bill Rappleye of NBC10 and the ProJo’s Katherine Gregg brought up at the Dems celebration). From Gregg’s story:
In June, the citizens group Operation Clean Government filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission about Montalbano’s failure to mention on his annual financial disclosure statement the income his law firm had been getting since at least 2003 from the Town of West Warwick. Last month, the commission itself lodged a complaint against Montalbano for failing to disclose additional income derived in 2002.
Both stemmed from the disclosure by The Providence Journal on the day the Senate was poised to vote on placing the doomed West Warwick casino proposal on the ballot that Montalbano’s North Providence law firm had been paid $86,329 including expenses by the town since 2003 for legal work that included clearing the titles on two parcels of land near the proposed Harrah’s-Narragansett Indian casino.
By late last month, the FBI was involved.
The FBI subpoenaed records regarding his title work in West Warwick, a town councilwoman confirmed that she had been questioned by the FBI about how Montalbano came to be hired by the town, and Montalbano acknowledged the FBI “questioned several senators, members of my staff and they questioned me.”
Montalbano said he welcomed the investigation because he had nothing to hide and had been assured he was “not a target.”
Asked yesterday if he had taken any steps in advance of last night’s Senate Democratic caucus to assuage any concerns his colleagues might have about his predicament, Montalbano said he saw no need: “To a person in the Senate, no one has questioned my determination that I will protect my integrity to the bitter end.”
To be fair, there are no charges against Montalbano. But note the careful wording of his last statement: “no one has questioned my determination that I will protect my integrity…” I’m sure he’s determined to protect his integrity, but not questioning his determination to protect his integrity isn’t the same as not questioning his actual integrity. (Sure, I may be parsing a bit too closely, but Sen. Montalbano is a lawyer and has experience in the art of wordsmithing).
Yet, then again, even if they had such questions, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Montalbano’s re-election reveals questionable judgement on the part of the Democrat caucus who have decided that someone who is currently under a cloud of ethics charges is worthy of leading them. So much for the negative repercussions of the appearance of impropriety. Why didn’t they elevate Sen. Paiva-Weed instead? She’s proven to be an effective leader and there are no clouds threatening rain upon her parade. Instead, I’m left to believe that fear of political repercussions–or maybe just habit–has put Montalbano back on top.
Remember how the Democrats told us that a vote for Chafee would be a vote for Bush, because Chafee–though he may disagree with the President on almost everything–would ultimately help keep the President’s “corrupt” party in power? The same applies on the state level here in Rhode Island, folks. Your local legislator may be a good person–just like Senator Chafee–but the votes and support of these average, “good guy” Democrats serve to prop up the same political problem children with whom everyday Rhode Islanders are supposedly so disgusted.
Natalists rejoice! A few weeks ago, I linked to an item describing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call for an Iranian baby-boom. Yesterday, in a column about the proliferation of Iranian prostitution, the Asia Times columnist called “Spengler” provided some insight into Ahmadinejad’s probable motivation — an Iranian birthrate slowdown on a scale more commonly associated with European population trends (h/t Instapundit)…
As the most urbane people of Western Asia, the Persians grasped the hopelessness of circumstances quicker than their Arab neighbors. That is why they have ceased to bear children. Iran’s population today is concentrated at military age; by mid-century, today’s soldiers will be pensioners, and there will be no one to replace them.There is a difference, of course. Euro depopulation is generally attributed to people being too complacent about their welfare-state existence. Spengler suggest Iran’s problem is rooted in too much despair…
That is why it is folly to approach Iran as a prospective negotiating partner, and meaningless to offer the clerical government security guarantees, for the threat to its security arises from within. Once a people has determined to extinguish itself, nothing will prevent it from doing so. There is no doubt as to the demographic data, which come from the demographers of the United Nations.
It is not just poverty, for poor women bear children everywhere. In the case of Iran, deracination and cultural despair impel millions of individual women to eschew motherhood.If the data quoted by Spengler is accurate, Iran is now in full or partial retreat on two grand-strategic fronts. 1) As Spengler discusses in detail, Iran is showing signs of the internal malaise common to totalitarian states and 2) the Iranian economy has likely passed its high-water mark. Unless there is a sudden and steep decline in the price of oil, alternatives to conventional oil are going to become economically viable on a permanent basis. Either scenario, lower prices or more alternatives, means less cash for the Iranian government, meaning more despair and more internal stress. (Totalitarian states are not good at facilitating diversified economies).
The important points here relate to the work of the Iraq Study Group. Does it make sense to offer an enemy state “security guarantees” at the time when the internal structure of its society is crumbling? If the forces that hold Iran together are openly starting to break down, then isn’t this the ideal time to put a policy of containment — a real policy of containment, i.e. pressure aimed at changing the nature of an enemy regime, not the lumpencontainment of Bill Clinton or Colin Powell, which is nothing more than holding the line and hoping for the best — into place? [Open full post]
It ought to raise suspicions about their cause when marriage advocates seek to advance it through divorce:
[Karen L. Loewy, staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders] said Rhode Island recognizes marriages validly entered in other jurisdictions, unless there’s a strong public policy reason not to, and she said there’s no such reason in this case. She said it’s the common practice of comity, in which one state recognizes the laws of another.
The sticky area with same-sex marriage — which one is apt to find with any issue that involves the assertion of a wholly new definition of legal terms — is that the “strong public policy reason not to” derives from the fact that, in Rhode Island, marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. Note the Rhode Island General law respecting marriage licenses:
15-2-1 License required – Proof of divorce. – (a) Persons intending to be joined together in marriage in this state must first obtain a license from the clerk of the town or city in which:
(1) The female party to the proposed marriage resides; or in the city or town in which
(2) The male party resides, if the female party is a nonresident of this state; or in the city or town in which
(3) The proposed marriage is to be performed, if both parties are nonresidents of this state.
If Chief Family Court Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. decides to grant the divorce, he will have — despite all of the language throughout Rhode Island law proving marriage to be an opposite-sex affair — acknowledged that a marriage can indeed exist when the spouses are of the same sex. Combine such a decision with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling that Rhode Island need not be seen as forbidding same-sex marriages for the purposes of Massachusetts law, and same-sex marriage will have been successfully imported to Rhode Island purely via judicial maneuvering.
[Open full post]I found this line, from Ethan Wingfield, particularly interesting:
Brown is one of the most relaxed institutions there is. Students can drop out of a course on the last day of the semester and get the class erased from their records.
Perhaps the key would have been to pitch a grade-inflation angle to keeping the evangelical group on campus.
[Open full post]Yesterday, I read in the ProJo about how Brown University had rather suspiciously banned an on-campus student evangelical group.
Leaders of the group say they were given different reasons for the action. At first, they were told it was because their local sponsor, Trinity Presbyterian Church, had withdrawn its support, which it hadn’t. Then they were told that it was because the group’s former leader had been two months late in September 2005 when he submitted the group’s application to be recognized as a campus organization. But the third reason is one that group leaders say is most baffling: the Rev. Allen Callahan, Protestant chaplain, asserted they were “possessed of a leadership culture of contempt and dishonesty that has rendered all collegial relations with my office impossible.”
Student leaders said they still don’t know what he meant, and wrote a0 long letter to the chaplain’s office seeking elaboration. There’s been no response.
“We were disappointed that the university administration should treat us so lightly that they wouldn’t even acknowledge our letter,” said the fellowship’s president, Ethan Wingfield, a senior philosophy major. “We felt disrespected.”
The F.I.R.E. organization has taken up the students’ cause, but the group has yet to get a concrete explanation as to why it has been barred. Arlene Violette also had one of the students on her show yesterday (I didn’t catch his name, but it may have been Wingfield) and he did state that the local chapter of the ACLU was helping the students.
Now I’ve discovered (via Instapundit and Judith Weiss) that Brown also cancelled a talk by Nonie Darwish last week. Darwish is an Egyptian who has gotten publicity for her willingness to talk (and she’s written a book) about the radical Muslim culture in which she grew up. According to Adam Brodsky of the NY Post:
MUSLIMS are often accused of not speaking out sufficiently against terrorism. Nonie Darwish knows one reason why: Their fellow Muslims won’t let them.
Darwish, who comes from Egypt and was born and raised a Muslim, was set to tell students at Brown University about the twisted hatred and radicalism she grew to despise in her own culture. A campus Jewish group, Hillel, had contacted her to speak there Thursday.
But the event was just called off.
Muslim students had complained that Darwish was “too controversial.” They insisted she be denied a platform at Brown, and after contentious debate Hillel agreed.
Weird: No one had said boo about such Brown events as a patently anti-Israel “Palestinian Solidarity Week.” But Hillel said her “offensive” statements about Islam “alarmed” the Muslim Student Association, and Hillel didn’t want to upset its “beautiful relationship” with the Muslim community. Plus, Brown’s women’s center backed out of co-sponsoring the event, even though it shares Darwish’s concerns about the treatment of women. Reportedly, part of the problem was that Darwish had no plans to condemn Israel for shooting Arab women used by terrorists as human shields, or for insufficiently protecting Israeli Arab wives from their husbands.
In plugging their ears to Darwish, Brown’s Muslim students proved her very point: Muslims who attempt constructive self-criticism are quickly and soundly squelched – by other Muslims.
Is there a pattern here? Brown did an admirable job of justified self-flagellation in their investigation into the role that the University played in slavery (though some dispute portions of it). Perhaps they should start a new investigation into why there is a pattern of silencing those whose views–on the face of it–seem to run counter to the on campus conventional wisdom.
[Open full post]“DON”T LOOK AT THE TV!”
Exclaiming that sentence–directed to my unsuspecting daughters–is a regular occurence in my household on any given Saturday or Sunday afternoon when Dad (me) is watching “the game.” Especially now that the weather is getting colder and there’s less to do outside. On the weekend, when they are taking a break from playing, the kids may wander into the living room to see what Dad’s up to. Occasionally, they’ll take a seat, ask me questions about the game and cheer when the Pats score a Home Run (they’re still learning the details of which team plays what…). Eventually, on comes the commercial break. I’ll let Steven Spielberg do the ‘splainin’ from there:
Steven Spielberg urged TV networks to be mindful of what they show on the air because of the effect it might have on children, and said programs like “CSI” and “Heroes” were too gruesome.
“Today we are needing to be as responsible as we can possibly be, not just thinking of our own children but our friends’ and neighbors’ children,” Spielberg told an audience Monday at the International Emmys board of directors meeting here.
Spielberg decried on-air promotions for television shows like “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” that showed “blood and people being dissected.” He also said that when his favorite TV show of the new season, NBC’s “Heroes,” showed someone cut in half in the 9 p.m. hour, he sent his younger children out of the room.
“I’m a parent who is very concerned,” he said.
Spielberg is correct to be concerned about the times that gruesome shows are aired. Yet, my big problem is when I’m on the couch on Sunday at 2:25 in the afternoon watching the Pats, with a little girl on each side of me, and the latest CSI commercial comes on, complete with a shootout and at least one, “well-used” cadaver laying on the table. (By the way, I don’t care what they say, the volume of a commercial is louder than the show).
I completely understand that TV networks are attracted to sports programming because they provide an opportunity to promote their cheaper and higher revenue generating fare to a particularly attractive audience demographic (18-34 year old males). No problem. Just remember that the content of the commercials for TV shows need to be appropriate for the time in which they air. I suppose if you’re showing a slasher flick at 2 PM on a Sunday, it’s OK to expect that the audience for that wouldn’t be offended or scared by the image of a bloody cadavar. But not when a kid is watching a game! (This goes for advertisements for “male enhancement” products, too, by the way!)
Have my kids been irrevocably harmed? No, but I haven’t caught one episode of CSI (any version) since it came on the air.
Today, the Projo is running its second Scott MacKay story in three days on the dismal state of the Northeast GOP. Today’s story is focused on Rhode Island; Sunday’s story was about the Northeast in general. Neither story breaks much new ground, although today’s does confirm that Patricia Morgan is seeking another term as Rhode Island’s State GOP Chairwoman…
As their election rout of two weeks ago sinks in, Rhode Island Republican leaders are trying to figure out how to rebound at a time when their state party chairwoman, Patricia Morgan of West Warwick, says she would like to be reappointed to the post she has held for the past four years.It is worth noting that the party getting all of the media attention is the one most observers would deem the “irrelevant” one. When are the stories about what the Democratic party plans to do with its legislative mandate going to appear? Everyone loves a winner, apparently, except the assignment editors of the mainstream media.
Could the lack of interest in the majority party be because they have no plans to address any problem nor change anything at all (except maybe to increase the state subsidization of failing urban governance)? [Open full post]
I’d like to thank Justin for elaborating upon my initial post and also direct you to Stanley Kurtz’s post on the NY Times Magazine piece, “Gay Donor or Gay Dad?“. As Justin explains:
With “alternative” families, it’s not so much that the family’s story is more complicated as that it must be made complicated in order to create the illusion of this intangible purpose. Merely from the fact that the parents inherently refuse to acknowledge that their relation to their child is not “normal” — let alone “ideal” — the emphasis changes. Their relationship was never about merging themselves in the person of a child. The surrogate parent — from the start a necessity — was chosen, at best, for “traits that I want for my child” or, at worst, for being “amenable to the lifestyle that I wish to live.”
Kurtz also treads along a similar path:
Implicitly and explicitly, the NYT article makes the case for accepting this radical new family form–using arguments we’re familiar with from the battle over same-sex marriage. These families want the same thing as everyone else, we’re told. Structural novelty notwithstanding, it’s said that the day-to-day lives of these bold family experimenters are boringly normal. Yes, we’re told, there are problems and instability, yet the same can be said of conventional families. And we’re led to believe that many of the problems faced by these unconventional families stem from the lack of role-models and legal safeguards. That lays the groundwork for a “conservative case” for defining conventional marriage and family out of existence. Just give us the legal safeguards and social precedents for three- and four-parent arrangements and we can prevent many tragic misunderstandings between potentially warring adults…
To be clear, my primary concern is for the children, not the parents. Do I have sympathy for parents in alternative relationships who want to start a family? Yes. But just because they have the legal ability to bring a child into this world, it doesn’t mean it is right. In the aforementioned piece, Kurtz points to a study, The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children’s Needs, which can be read here. Here is the explanation of the problem that needs to be confronted (for the entire Executive Summary, please read the extended entry, below):
This report examines the emerging global clash between adult rights and children’s needs in the new meaning of parenthood. It features some of the surprising voices of the first generation of young adults conceived with use of donor sperm. Their concerns, and the large body of social science evidence showing that children, on average, do best when raised by their own married mother and father, suggest that in the global rush to redefine parenthood we need to call a time-out.
Whether it is through redefining marriage or genetically rengineering children (so they can have, say, 3 genetic parents): all are done to sate the desire of the parents–the children are secondary. These same undesirable motivations are not unique to non-traditional families, but the innovations that are cropping up to accomodate the changing definition of family are being implemented with little forethought for the consequences that will be most felt by the children of such genetic creativity.
The call for a time-out–to say “Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”–needs to be heeded. In 1955, William F. Buckley was referring to the political and ideological movement of Liberalism. Now, we are confronted with forces that are changing the meaning of the definition of family, which is the fundamental cornerstone of civilized society. Yes, I think the least we can do is say, “Time out.”
I wonder if you’ve fully articulated your beliefs, here, Marc:
I agree that–other than their unique family structure–there is nothing that sets these folks apart from “average” people.
I ask because I think your “however” is insufficiently strong to stand its own ground in the cultural arena:
However, I think that the baseline structure of the parent/guardian relationships that they have cobbled together, which form the foundation for the family they have “designed,” is inherently more complicated and, thus, potentially more confusing and damaging to the children who are supposed to be the most important star(s) of these family constellations.
Already, within the quotation that you provide, one can find the argument that families formed around heterosexual relationships can be equally complicated — perhaps more so, for having not been “designed.” And what if sociologists and psychologists — ever ready to define normalcy into their own intellectual preferences — are able to show that complication is not a detriment to children? I agree with your conclusion, though, so I’d suggest we look for ripples in more fundamental waters.
However complicated they may become, traditional families offer a very compelling narrative for children’s place in the world: They are born through the sexual expression of their parents’ love and act as a bridge from ancestry to progeny. In Christian terms, they are the full fruit of their parents’ spiritual joining in matrimony, binding their parents (and their parents’ families) together in a relationship reminiscent of God’s creation of mankind. In evolutionary terms, they represent the joining of their parents traits in a purposeful development of their species. Anywhere within this range of perspectives, they are a significant end, a significant achievement, in themselves.
Even if they were the product of a “Whoops! We’re pregnant!” conception, children have access to this meaningful construct. Even if the parents separate, the child still has a claim to the romantic, religious, evolutionary context within which he or she was born; it’s the parents who have fallen short. Even if the parents adopt the child, he or she fulfills a role for them that the biological parents were not able to need, just as the adoptive parents fulfill a role of which the biological parents were not capable for the child. Now, I’m not saying that we moderns haven’t dulled the shine of the marriage ring, or that parents’ choices after their children are born do not matter, but in whatever set of terms one chooses, there is an inexpressible truth to this: the genealogical tree is much more than a breeding chart.
With “alternative” families, it’s not so much that the family’s story is more complicated as that it must be made complicated in order to create the illusion of this intangible purpose. Merely from the fact that the parents inherently refuse to acknowledge that their relation to their child is not “normal” — let alone “ideal” — the emphasis changes. Their relationship was never about merging themselves in the person of a child. The surrogate parent — from the start a necessity — was chosen, at best, for “traits that I want for my child” or, at worst, for being “amenable to the lifestyle that I wish to live.”
I can hear the objection, already, that heterosexuals choose spouses for the same collection of reasons, but that only highlights what’s missing: that the relationship chosen for the sake of the children is at least intended to be the most significant relationship in the parents’ lives, in a manifest confirmation of that incalculable meaning.
I do not doubt (especially having just read a New York Times piece so naked in its leveraging of emotional weight) that the majority of homosexual parents will do the best that they are able for their children, nor that any given family will find broad social or metaphysical considerations possible to overcome. However, they are drawing on a pool of cultural capital while insisting that its plain basis be ignored for their sake, and that is “what the big deal” is.
I urge everyone to read this NY Times Magazine piece, “Gay Donor or Gay Dad?” about the complicated nature of family relationships that can develop when two same-sex partners seek a donor to assist them in starting a family. Reading the whole thing is essential because it is a complicated piece about a new, complicated family structure. Here is what would be considered a picture of a successful relationship:
Mark, 48, Jean, 37, and Candi, 34, now have two children — Mark (named after his father) is Candi’s biological son, and another boy, Joseph, now 7 months old, is Jean’s biological son. For a long time Mark, who was working as a freelance information technologist and financial consultant in Minneapolis until he took the job at the museum, could arrange his schedule to suit the mothers’ needs. He spends time with the kids once a week, sometimes alone, sometimes with his long-term partner, Jeffrey, who is 36 and went to college with Candi, and sometimes with one or both mothers. The relationship among the fathers and mothers has been a surprise benefit, he said, creating a brother-sister feeling. Despite the fact that the mothers are still financially responsible for the children, Mark has put them in his will. Each birthday and Christmas, he deposits a $1,000 bond for their education. Like any good father, he said, “I want to see them do well.”
Then there is this confusing explanation of another family (I stress that the story must be read to sort it all out):
When [R.’s] daughter was 2, her nonbiological mother became impregnated with sperm donated by a gay black friend. She bore twins. A couple of years later, the mothers split up. A custody battle ensued, in which the white mother tried to gain sole custody of all three children. The judge ruled against her. The final agreement essentially assigned the three mixed-race children to the white mother roughly 60 percent of the time and to the black mother 40 percent of the time.
The current family tree is a crazy circuit board: The black woman has a new female partner. The white woman is now living with a man, and the two have had their own child. So, as R. said, between the one child that R. has with the black mother, the twins borne by the white mother with a black donor and the newest, fourth, child born to her with her new male partner, all of whom have some sort of sibling relation to one another, things can be a little confusing. “They’re quite a little petri dish of a family, as you can imagine,” R. told me.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that such confusion doesn’t occur within heterosexual relationships, but these sorts of unions as constructed and designed are–of necessity–complicated from the start. Evidence of both are found in this explanation:
Candi’s attention returned to me: “Why is this worth a story? It’s not even worth discussing. We’re just as American as our next-door neighbors. You see all these families with stepdads and stepmoms and half brothers and half sisters. What do you say about marriages that 50 percent of the time end in divorce? Why are we so threatening?” Most heterosexual parents, she said, marry, have sex “and then suddenly: ‘Whoops! We’re pregnant!’ Our families are designed. They’re conscious. They don’t just happen by happenstance. We had to sit down and say: O.K., what’s your relationship to the kid going to look like? What’s our relationship to each other going to look like? What’s this family going to look like?” She didn’t understand what the big deal was. “We want the same things that every other family wants! You know? We shop at Costco; we shop at Wal-Mart; we buy diapers. We’re just average. We’re downright boring!”
I agree that–other than their unique family structure–there is nothing that sets these folks apart from “average” people. However, I think that the baseline structure of the parent/guardian relationships that they have cobbled together, which form the foundation for the family they have “designed,” is inherently more complicated and, thus, potentially more confusing and damaging to the children who are supposed to be the most important star(s) of these family constellations.
I say “supposed to be” because much of the entanglements and complications described in the story arise from the attempts to delineate what “rights” each of the adults have in these relationships with regards to seeing and interacting with the kids. It seems that’s what’s best for the kids is less important than the type of relationship that the adults will have with those kids. That’s not really out of the ordinary: too many adults put their own feelings and desires regarding the parent/child relationship ahead of the children’s. Yet, if such misplaced prioritization is bad enough when you have a typical two-parent family, what the heck do we expect can happen when you have a 3 or 4-parent one?