Entries for August 2007

REYKJAVIK, Iceland—I had just returned from the wind-battered, historic seaside village of Stokkseyri on the north Atlantic when news broke that Iceland has agreed to stop its whale hunt. Why? Because of lack of demand for whale meat.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson displayed great courage during Michael Vick's guilty plea in federal court, emphasizing that he is not bound by the prosecutors' recommendations to give Vick as short a prison sentence as 12 to 18 months for the Atlanta Falcon's now infamous dog-fighting, dog-torture, and dog-killing activities. Let's hope the judge keeps it up when he hands down the sentence. Federal guidelines allow him to impose a maximum of five years.

Some people just never give up trying to turn back time. The latest wrinkle comes to us from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is fighting back against "the collapse of the American family" by offering bachelor's degrees "with a concentration in homemaking" to women students only. The idea is to reinforce outdated stereotypical gender roles by training women to become full-time homemakers. The degree equips female students with such skills as cooking, sewing, and child psychology.

In Sunday's debate on ABC, Sen. Hillary Clinton displayed her prototypical propensity to put licked finger to the wind rather than say what she thinks. This is her signature flaw as a candidate. She can only play it safe and try to offend no one. By so doing, she fails to inspire confidence. Her answer to the religion question was, "I am very dependent on my faith and prayer is a big part of that." Talkin' loud and sayin' nothin.'

During yesterday's Democratic presidential candidate debate, the most interesting exchange, in this observer's opinion, came in the form of responses to a question on religion. The man who posed the question, Seth Ford of South Jordan, Utah, e-mailed: "My question is to understand each candidates' view of a personal God. Do they believe that, through the power of prayer, disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge collapse could have been prevented or lessened?"

The most relevant portions of each of the candidates' responses follow in the order in which they were delivered:

We are at a bizarre juncture in American politics where one voting bloc's influence is rising, while that same group's representation among state and federal lawmakers is on a plateau and could start to decline. Female voters are increasingly important to presidential and congressional hopefuls, because women are the majority of voters. In the most recent presidential election, 54 percent of voters were women.

What's taken them so long?

Why have American consumers been so slow to recognize important economic weaknesses? A new Reuters/Zogby poll answers that question, sort of.