Republican National Convention

The commenters at this post on Just One Minute had great links to material of the last night of the Republican National Convention including Clint Eastwood at a couple of links and Mitt Romney's acceptance speech.

Circumcision

JAG (Just a Girl) had a comment in Volokh I thought rather definitive: there may be no way to measure the difference for a man who was circumcised to know if he has lost any sensation.... and they say they don't.... HOWEVER... speaking as a woman, who has dated men in the USA... and in Europe, where I currently reside.... There is a DIFFERENCE for the woman.... Men who have NOT been circumcised are FAR more sensitive, than men who have been.... This has been my experience.... and have also had many talks with girlfriends, about this issue as well.... and EVERY woman I have spoken to, on this issue, says that men, who are NOT circumcised are more sensitive... therefore making it more enjoyable for the woman.... as they respond more....

I suppose the model is Ronald Reagan; maybe the model has been misunderstood. Reagan stood on the Capitol stops supporting an antiabortion amendment. And you know he opened his presidential campaign near the site of a famous child murder in the South, and he went to a cemetery where SS were buried. With this history, I suppose you might expect him to have the USO bring flowers to SS graves. But I don't think that would be a correct conclusion. As an actor I suppose he was sensitive to how there is inertia in a drama, a preconception in our judgments. I suppose he saw that Southerners were typecast as racists, Germans as callous murderers, those against abortion as benighted. I suppose he didn't think that an original sin had been committed which would carry forward ad infinitum in any of these groups, and this was his way of saying don't cast them with this stain of sin. Let them arise in innocence to make their own choices, be seen for their present actions.

My Lai

From a link in Popehat:

“the Lieutenant Colonel started his lecture abruptly. Listen Lieutenants. I want to make one thing clear, William Calley is a convicted MUR-DER-ER!”

Yes, the voice of authority. My understanding is that another colonel had called out the platoon the night before at 2 AM and had them stand at attention. He told them they were to kill everyone in the village. He had been a mortician in civilian life. The platoon had taken casualties approaching the village on foot apparently from female black clad female NVA, Relevant? When they helicoptered in, there was no resistance. Apparently the NVA had pulled out though a machine gun positioned outside the village prevented a counterattack. The platoon stood around. Calley raised his rifle and said he would kill anybody who didn’t start shooting. As the valedictory to historian John Keegan quotes in Volokh today, “Codifications of international law are a useful template for organizing the categories of a soldier’s duties. But, in the end, the culture relevant to respect for inter-national humanitarian law is not the culture of legality and the cult of lawyers, but instead it is the culture of the professional honour of soldiers, and what they are willing or not willing to do on the battlefield.” By the way, the colonel here was shortly shot from the sky in a helicopter, killed.

Hay Moros en la Costa

Wyo sis postulates a talion punishment for the acid attacks on a woman's face. I think it would be male castration. Being physically 'so pretty' for the female is equivalent to phallic narcissism in the male. In some sense the drill team or cheerleaders are appropriate, equivalent displays in the female to the football game for the male.