The state of the culture

In my last vacation post from Texas on Friday, I lamented the left-right camps we let ourselves get pushed into during campaign season, an exercise in political extremism that is at odds with the way I think most of us live our lives, which is to assess each issue as it comes, making the best decision we can based on the available evidence.

If you're giving out free hats, better make sure the lawyer gets one:

Long before the Baltimore Orioles passed out lipstick and the Red Sox and other baseball teams began selling pink hats, ``ladies-night" giveaways have been a fixture of America's pastime.

What's the big controversy here?

When I started college, I think my parents were disappointed I went to IPFW. "What, you're still going to live at home?" When I quit after a year and a half and joined the Army, I could almost read their minds. "Ah, a little peace and quite at last." How times change. Parents now have so much trouble letting go that universities such as Indiana and Purdue have to conduct orientation sessions on it.

I rather suspect that some readers of this blog:

1. Are probably white,

2. But don't feel sufficiently guilty about it.

This little exercise, from The Michigan State University Web site, will set you straight. You are so privileged, you see, that you don't even recognize how privileged you are. Now, go out and apologize to everybody who isn't  white for the circumstances of your birth.

You know, if you go through life thinking mostly in terms of victims and victimizers, you probably see yourself as victim rather than victimizer, so you're likely to be unhappy most of the time. That's my take on the guest column we published by Judy Harris, an adjunct faculty member in women's studies at IPFW. She quotes approvingly the work of another academic, Rose Brooks of the University of Virginia School of Law:

One of the things I've never understood about the abortion debate is why some of the strongest opponents make these exceptions:

US President George W. Bush signalled his opposition to a South Dakota abortion ban that forbids the procedure even in cases of rape or incest, saying he favors such exceptions.

If you're going to start altering works of art based on people objecting to certain things, here's a tip: Better act on everybody's complaints, or you've got some explaining to do:

OK, enough; the "Christmas wars" are getting tiresome. I like this take that strikes a "plague on both their houses" attitude:

The modern world rolls on -- a new way to cheat, a new way to catch the cheaters:

Indiana colleges -- and even some high schools -- have reached the end of the semester armed against a surge of student cyber-cheaters who would rather copy, paste and plagiarize than spend all night on a term paper.