The Next Level

In a column posted at National Review, Mona Charen comments on the Republican debate, and includes this:

Rudy Giuliani completely missed the point of the question about abortion. Asked whether he saw a parallel between the anti-slavery and anti-abortion movements, he seemed mystified and responded, “Well, there [are] no circumstances under which I could possibly imagine anyone choosing slavery or supporting slavery.” But the point was that just as no one would choose to be a slave, no unborn child would choose to be aborted.

So is her point that a pregnant woman is a slave holder? If that's not the inference, then does the analogy fall apart?

I find it disturbing that politicians must have concrete positions on certain issues despite whatever importance they place on it. Not that I follow politics as closely as I should/you might think, the one takeaway I've gotten from Guiliani's position on abortion is that it is not a critical issue on his agenda. That's a negative in March, but less so in November.

I can understand why it gets built up as an important issue--it's a touchstone moral issue that "says" something about the candidate's world view. What I don't understand is how it is basically the only issue that politicians can run with a strong position on that issue only a win (which is changing, to some degree, with an influx of immigration-focused pols), and what appears to be a sizeable block of voters who will be persuaded by that single issue.

Particularly an issue in which the legislative process is subservient to the the legal process.

In Letting go of Roe (Atlantic 2005), Benjamin Wittes argues that the fight to sustain Roe is a hindrance to the pro-choice view:

Still, the liberal commitment to Roe has been deeply unhealthy—for American democracy, for liberalism, and even for the cause of abortion rights itself. All would benefit if abortion-rights proponents were forced to make their arguments in the policy arena (rather than during Supreme Court nomination hearings), and if pro-lifers were actually accountable to the electorate for their deeply unpopular policy prescriptions.

The following year, the Atlantic had a cover story, The Day After Roe, by Jeffrey Rosen, which offered a different view of the political machinations, but, in the end, the same outcome:

So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the activists are correct and the long-anticipated moment has finally come to pass: Roe v. Wade is no longer on the books. What happens next?

The results might not be what you expect. The day after Roe fell, of course, abortion would be neither legal nor illegal throughout the United States. Instead, the states and Congress would be free to ban, protect, or regulate abortion as they saw fit. But in many of the fifty states, and ultimately in Congress, the overturning of Roe would probably ignite one of the most explosive political battles since the civil-rights movement, if not the Civil War. A careful look at how the pieces of the Rubik’s Cube might begin to turn the day after Roe suggests that access to abortion wouldn’t necessarily become less widely available than it is now; that the Democrats could gain politically, perhaps even seizing the White House and both chambers of Congress; and that, when the dust settles, in five or ten or thirty years, early-term abortions would be protected and late-term ones restricted.

I lean towards Rosen's perspective, maybe not so much in the final conclusion, but in the scope of the political battle. It would make gay marriage look like a .

No worries

So as a Knicks fan, i know about the leaving the bench thing. Kind of. That debacle happened in 1997 when I was in Edinburgh, so I didn't actually see it. Anyway, a Baylor U. blogger (likely Spurs fan) has a good recap of the Suns defense:

"If the league decides to apply the letter of the law to the Stoudamire incident, then they would almost be forced to do the same regarding a little noticed play earlier in the game which has since been pointed out by Steve Kerr on Yahoo! Sports:
"In a play that went entirely unnoticed until well after the game was over, both Duncan and Bowen actually left San Antonio's bench early in the second quarter after Francisco Elson and James Jones were entangled. Replays clearly show Duncan walking several steps onto the court as Elson and Jones appeared to be ready to get into it. Bowen then followed Duncan onto the floor, grabbed him and led him back to the bench. If the league does indeed follow the letter of the law, both Spurs players would also be suspended for Game 5."

And Duncan and Bowen made it further onto the court than Diaw or Stoudamire. The Spurs might have a better "altercation" argument, but they have a much worse "immediate vicinity" argument. Intent doesn't matter, right?

So, I would have to think not much to worry about. I'm not familiar enough with suspension history to know how strictly "vicinity" of the bench is applied. I do know that key word was added after the PJ Brown became PJ F. Brown.

And has it ever been noted that Steve Nash is a talented Teen Wolf? Except for the dunking of course...

More meta

So rather than a blog about something, this is turning into a blog about a blog. The output has been more sparse than I intended. I believe I've mentioned that a time or two already. What's disturbed me more is the lack of additions to "On Topic" over there on the left. In the past couple of weeks I just haven't found bigger topics interesting. Recent posts support this--the mantel, windows and century plant. As I think about/deal with these regular life things, my interest (for the moment) has waned in more global issues. Even my leisure reading is effected--when I pick up an Atlantic or the Economist, my attention wanders pretty quickly and I don't read as much as I had intended.

Anywho, I actually have a handful of posts started but not completed. I have the germ of the idea, an intro with no meat, so they are, on the most part, unfulfilling both in terms of me taking the time to make them readable, or in their present state, being readable. It's not inconceivable that I just don't have much to say.

Technically, I knew that at the beginning, but that's one of the reasons I started this was to get practice at developing a thought. One of the blogs that I check in on had a post about the composition time of different types of posts. There were 3 main types:

• the quick hitter: a link or random thought for the day, maybe 10-15 minutes.
• commentary: longer, but not too involved covering a personally well known issue. still this was a couple of hours in terms of writing, editing, checking etc.
• research piece: longer term, added to here and there over a couple of weeks. at least 10 hours of work, if not more. and it maybe gets some outside editing.
  

My vision/hope/goal was, and to some degree still is, to do a fair amount of the second and an occasional foray into the third. However, i have yet to spend over two hours on any post--even the thinkier ones are fairly stream of consciousness, with a final lookover from Joanne. Spending the longer time--that's homework! That's why I'm not pursuing yet another degree--I don't want (nor I'm a currently capable) to do that anymore.

But personal growth is supposed to require some effort, and I still have plenty of growing, and, for the time being, time to do it. So the challenge becomes "doing", instead of "thinking of doing," which is a fairly big problem for me, from this blog, to home projects, to purchasing decisions, and many other things.

To conclude, the underutilized question to get comments is: how do go about recognizing and addressing the need or desire for self improvement?

A new view

We got four wood clad, fiberglass windows from Craigslist for a very nice price ($~700 windows for $125 each) and got the first two installed this weekend. And I followed that up with my first stab at real trim carpentry.

Joanne thought it was worth the savings to get the picture windows for the TV room since we only opened the sliders that were there maybe twice in the almost four years we've had the house. So while we do not have the flexibility for venting, we get to enjoy unobstructed site lines. If only we had a better view...

At some point I'll break away from "This Old as Me House" trend I'm on and move on to something that interests you even less.

If you see it...

You will eat it. The New York Times has a piece on Brian Wansink, a Cornell professor who wrote “Mindless Eating”, about (as you might have guessed), the essentially thoughtless/instintive eating habits people develop.

But those plates have their own problems. Like most American dinner plates, ours are big — almost 12 inches in diameter. “Pretty ample,” as Mr. Wansink said. Fifty years ago, when Americans were a lot skinnier, plates were a lot smaller. Large plates and bowls lead to more eating for the same reason giant popcorn buckets do: they make portions look smaller. Short, wide drinking glasses have a similar effect.

There is also a quick list of 5 tips that effect eating:

• Hide the cookies, uncover the carrots
• Same goes at the office
• Convenience leads to consumption
• Don't get rid of the evidence
• Use your eyes to your advantage

1 & 3 are biggies with me. Well, almost. What I've found is not so much the hiding/out in the open is the big factor, but who purchased it. I feel like I'm more likely to eat the healthy stuff, rather than junk if I'm the one that made the purchase. When Joanne buys it, it's out of sight out of mind. But I'm equal opportunity on the snack food, on the most part.

As to the initial point above, we have the big plates and our regular restaurants have big servings, and I feel compelled to fill and finish, which isn't a great combo. Portion size is tricky. Maybe the smaller plate is the way to go. One thing I have been keeping track of (in some respects) is the weight of the food we prepare, but this more in regard to meat and pasta. The tricky part: the better job we did of making it, the more of it we'll want.

The point is that small changes can lead to meeting long-term weight goals. A pound is 3500 calories (roughly), so that means the reduction in caloric intake by that amount a month (~120 day) leads to 1 pound lost/not gained. And 120 calories is a fairly small amount--it's 8 ounces of Mountain Dew!

In good hands

When is the last time you priced your insurance?

Joanne & I had Allstate for the first couple of years (auto, then home), but I started shopping for new auto coverage shortly after Joanne got the Pilot. Progressive came back about 40% cheaper (I want to say it was $900 down to $520). The next closest was, IIRC, was about $700. So we went with Progressive.

Aside from the cost savings, the one thing that I've really liked about Progressive is the ability to easily price out changes in the policy. One big thing I discovered is that full glass coverage is probably not worthwhile. Based on our comprehensive deductible ($250), the increase in the premium for full glass would cover the deductible in 1.5 years. So unless I planned to replace glass at that rate (which, to be fair, is close to the rate my Civic got broken into), we're better off taking the risk of paying a glass deductible and self insure instead. Or maybe Progressive charges too much for that. At any rate, the transparency of rates is very nice and easy to get.

More recently, we changed our homeowners from Allstate to Liberty Mutual, with a savings of approaching 50% (from $800 to $430), but that included upping the deductible from $500 to $1000. What's odd is that I got two different quotes from LM. One was through a local broker, the other from the corporate office. Because of the ASU Alumni program, that knocked off about 15%.

Before moving on to life insurance, the one difficulty in shopping for home & car insurance is the importance of service quality. Is it worth paying a little extra for a good reputation of paying on claims? In the end, for us, it came down to the feeling that since no one is happy with their insurance company (looking at online reviews) except for those with Amica and Chubb, price can be the deciding factor, assuming a certain amount of due diligence.

Moving on to life insurance, we recently got matching policies from AIG through Accuquote. The initial salesperson was a bit of a jerk, more interested in selling me what he thought we should have (30 years, $500K), rather than what I wanted (10 or 20 years, $250K), so I ended up working more with a backend person (not on commission) to get the policy I wanted. Although there were some issues in getting a medical issue with Joanne sorted out (records from her surgery 2 years ago) and later, some paperwork from me, we eventually ended up with the 20 year policies.

I went back and forth on which was better, 10 or 20 years, but I concluded for us it was worth the extra money in years 1-10, to lock in the rate from years 11-20. I'm not positive that was the right call, but the difference isn't that huge (<$30/year). The 30 year was cost prohibitive, but the 20 year policy won't quite cover the college years of prospective offspring, so a 10 year policy, then a reassessment of needs at that time might be better... Anyway, there's no right answer here. One thing that I was more confident on was the amount. While most experts say 5-10 times salary, I thought we'd be fine on the low end, given our only debt is the mortgage, which if anything did happen to one of us, the policy would cover, and we each have token amounts from our jobs.

Two policies we don't have are an umbrella liability policy and disability insurance. The former provides additional coverage above the liability in other insurance (ie, it has a really high deductible), but I'm not sure I can see the benefit for us, thought it may be valuable to others. As for the latter, I *think* we each have some amount as job benefits, but that's not something I've looked at that closely. Perhaps I should...