Rebecca Walberg

One of the more distressing aspects of the culture war is the way in which consumerism, mass media and the popular culture in general seem to conspire against parents’ best efforts to raise sane, healthy, happy kids. An interesting new book, So Sexy So Soon, takes on this theme from a liberal perspective, and it is refreshing to see that proponents of healthy childhood from across the spectrum can agree on the importance of letting kids be kids, and not tiny, sexualized and commercialized adults, for as long as possible. I reviewed this book for the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, and the full review is posted here.

If American elections and the primaries that precede them are like soap operas, with convoluted plots, large casts, and an ability to consume the lives of fans and followers, elections and leadership conventions in Canada are more akin to a sitcom: shorter, frivolous, and usually forgotten the day after. I can see why the age of the permanent campaign is exhausting for those involved in American politics, but it’s fascinating viewing from the outside.

The Washington Times had an editorial over the weekend painting Obama as a Canadian politician.  The column makes some good points about the substance of Obama’s platform.  Inspired in part by Sean Wilentz’ new history of Reagan, though, I see a striking congruence between Obama in 2008 and Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Their policies, platforms and ideals could scarcely be more different, but their positions relative to the electorate and the rest of their parties are very similar.  The smart money never makes firm predictions with this long to go until the general election.  Nonetheless, I see a lot of potential for Obama to win big, and then to make changes that would stay with us for a generation, as Reagan did.  My column on this is up at Pajamas Media today.

The central conceit of Barack Obama’s candidacy is that he is a new kind of politician. His race aside, there is little about him that is genuinely refreshing; although he is young, there have been younger candidates, and he would not be the youngest president, if elected. His much heralded moderate status is entirely fictitious, and his most clearly elucidated positions, such as on foreign policy and taxation, are simply left-liberal orthodoxy.

The most insightful comparison of this election season may have come from Obama himself , who proposed, to howls of outrage from Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, that he was a politician in the mold of Reagan. Obama was, with the self-flattering hyperbole that has become the hallmark of his speeches, suggesting that he might make the same lasting impression on America and the world that Reagan did. In reality, the most salient parallels between the two men lie in the appeal they have within and beyond their parties, their position relative to members of their own parties, and the break they represent from recent history.

For the rest of the column, click here to go Pajamas Media.

The amusingly named head of the WHO’s AIDS department issues the following words of wisdom, confirming what a lot of people have known for a while, but weren’t allowed to say:

Kevin de Cock, who has headed the global battle against Aids, said at the weekend that, outside very poor African countries, Aids is confined to “high-risk groups”, including men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers. And even in these communities it remains quite rare. “It is very unlikely there will be a heterosexual epidemic in countries [outside sub-Saharan Africa]“, he said. In other words? All that hysterical fearmongering about Aids spreading among sexed-up western youth was a pack of lies.

The sad reality is that it will take a long time to undo the damage that’s been done by a couple of decades of AIDS hysteria. Public health educators put a tremendous emphasis on condoms as the best way to minimize risk of AIDS, leaving untold numbers of teens and young adults unaware of the diseases that can be sexually transmitted even with a condom, including HPV, a precursor to cancer. This emphasis on condoms and AIDS avoidance is also in no small part responsible for the increasing perception that only vaginal intercourse is sex (well, partial credit also to Bill Clinton) and the escalation of other forms of sexual activity amongst ever younger kids.

In a more abstract sense, the preoccupation with AIDS, condoms, and physical safety led to the increased commodification of sex, and an emphasis on sex as a physical act. It’s not a coincidence that a generation who was taught all about the physical details of sex, and almost nothing about the emotional or moral implications of it, proceeded to create the hook-up culture. By all means, let’s do everything we can to minimize unplanned pregnancy, STDs, and non-consensual sex. But if we’re serious about making more responsible choices, we have to ask people to consider their hearts, minds and souls, and not only their bodies.

We should also learn from this the folly of directing healthcare spending according to fads and crazes. AIDS kills far fewer people than cancer, heart attacks, and car accidents, as well as suicides, and for those under 35, homicides. An honest evaluation of who is actually at risk for AIDS would enable us to focus education and prevention where it will help the most, give kids in health class accurate and helpful information, and avoid needlessly scaring people who were never at risk to begin with.

Crossposted to ProWomanProLife.

Stylish, but nonetheless hard, leftism pervades the New York Review of Books.  This isn’t surprising, given the weltanschauung of many of its regular contributors.  It remains not only a good read - the quality of the writing is excellent - but also a helpful one.  For every book that I manage to read, there are five or six that I’d love to, but don’t have time for, and so a 2500 word essay on an important book (or more often, two or three on the same theme) is invaluable, even considering the built-in bias.

The June 12 issue has a review by Michael Tomasky, editor of The Guardian’s American website, of three recent books on John McCain.  There are some interesting points made, and a useful recap of the Republican candidate’s earlier years in politics, before his Presidential aspirations became clear.  Of course, any changes in McCain’s positions are dismissed as political opportunism, and while this is undoubtedly the case some of the time, there is no reason to suppose that conviction and principle have no role in McCain’s changing views.  Unlike some politicians, when the facts change, he changes his opinions.

One line early in the essay, though, is breathtaking in its bad faith.  After establishing his conviction that, however admirable a man McCain had once been, he is motivated entirely by his own ambition, Tomasky suggests that “in doing what he had to do to become the nominee of a party of orthodox conservatives, he has so sublimated his honorable instincts that they have all but atrophied.”  Staggering, isn’t it?  Clearly there is no possible way that honorable instincts could lead one to agree with orthodox conservatism.

Like so much high-brow popular culture these days, NYRB is, it seems, best enjoyed if one can maintain a certain anthropological detachment.  The natives of Manhattan editorial offices do produce some fascinating art, but we can’t allow our appreciation of it to obscure the fact that their socially constructed reality is about as rational as the Greek pantheon, but far less awe-inspiring.