Distinct Advantages

The End of Civilization
At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time. She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating. What was he up to? He texted back: Come over. So she did. They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep.

“We don’t really like each other in person, sober,” she said, adding that “we literally can’t sit down and have coffee.”

Ask her why she hasn’t had a relationship at Penn, and she won’t complain about the death of courtship or men who won’t commit. Instead, she’ll talk about “cost-benefit” analyses and the “low risk and low investment costs” of hooking up.

“I positioned myself in college in such a way that I can’t have a meaningful romantic relationship, because I’m always busy and the people that I am interested in are always busy, too,” she said.

“And I know everyone says, ‘Make time, make time,’ ” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity but agreed to be identified by her middle initial, which is A. “But there are so many other things going on in my life that I find so important that I just, like, can’t make time, and I don’t want to make time.”

It is by now pretty well understood that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline, replaced by “hooking up” — an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse — without the emotional entanglement of a relationship.

Until recently, those who studied the rise of hookup culture had generally assumed that it was driven by men, and that women were reluctant participants, more interested in romance than in casual sexual encounters. But there is an increasing realization that young women are propelling it, too. (NYT, 7/12/2013)

We read one page of this seven page New York Times article and got sick.  Here we have the logical endpoint of Liberalism, Feminism and Hollywood. 

--Never mind waiting until marriage to have sex. 

--Never mind having sex with your steady boyfriend. 

--Women are now free to have sex with men they don't even like.

War on women? Yes, indeed.


Spot On
House Republicans find themselves in a difficult spot on immigration, caught between the needs of the national party to broaden its appeal to Hispanics, and the views of constituents in gerrymandered, largely safe conservative districts. (NYT, 7/10/2013)

Hmmm...have we ever heard of "gerrymandered, largely safe LIBERAL districts?" 

The Times does not say whether they exist.


Standardized
The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion clinics to the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers, among other requirements. Its supporters say that the strengthened requirements for the structures and doctors will protect women’s health; opponents argue that the restrictions are actually intended to put financial pressure on the clinics that perform abortions and will force most of them to shut their doors. (NYT, 7/13/2013)

A question for opponents of Texas's new abortion law: do you think that abortions should NOT be performed in clinics with highly qualified doctors and high standards of safety?


Stamped Out
Ms. Pelosi's anger must be especially amusing to House Speaker John Boehner, because the Democratic leader helped to defeat the original $1 trillion version of the farm bill last month. That version included some $740 billion for food stamps, but Democrats opted to kill it because they wanted even more money for a program whose cost more than doubled from 2008 to 2012. They objected to a modest GOP proposal to allow states to adopt pilot work requirements for able-bodied food-stamp recipients. (WSJ, 7/12/2013)

Always good to get the complete story, isn't it?