January 22, 2005

Comments from the Press of the Time on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

Rush quotes reactions in the press of the time to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (”... government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”):

The Harrisburg Patriot and Union wrote: “We pass over the silly remarks of the President; for the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall no more be repeated or thought of.”

The Chicago Times: “The cheeks of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterance.”

The London Times: ”[T]he ceremony was rendered ludicrous by some of the sallies of that poor President Lincoln… Anything more dull and commonplace it would not be easy to produce.”

The Springfield Republican was surprised at how well Lincoln did, though, noting: “We had grown so accustomed to homely and imperfect phrase in his productions that we had come to think it was the law of his utterance.”

The point being that any negative reactions from the press to Bush’s recent speech may be taken with a grain of salt.

re: Differences Between Men and Women

You’ve probably heard about the recent remarks—and the retraction of those remarks—by Harvard President Summers that there were differences between men and women with regard to ability in the sciences:

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers has written a lengthy apology, admitting he was wrong to suggest women do not have the same natural ability in math and sciences as men.

However, this is a whole other kettle of fish entirely:

Woman Promotes the Right to Go Topless

An attorney crusades to change the law because it treats male and female sunbathers differently.

SACRAMENTO As a Ventura County public defender, Liana Johnsson has handled many life-changing cases, but her biggest public crusade these days has been going topless.

For months, Johnsson has been fighting to allow topless women at California beaches and parks, and now the issue has made its way to the Capitol.

A group of lawyers, at Johnsson’s request, has asked the Legislature to make topless sunbathing legal, saying the ban is the last criminal sanction that treats women differently than men.

Anybody who doesn’t think there are physical differences between men and women, is not paying attention.


Update 1-23-05: One of my favorite blogs, Say Anything, posts on this same subject:

All joking aside, Im not sure where I come down on this one. Really, what are the differences between a womans breasts and a mans breasts? Womens breasts, of course, are functional in that they provide milk to infants. They also tend to be much larger then mens except in certain isolated instances of extreme obesity (see: Michael Moore).

But does that necessarily make the lewd or obscene? Im not sure. Certainly some people find exposed breasts to be offensive, but is that a good enough reason to ban the practice?

I responded on that site with this comment:

Hi Rob! I blogged on this too.

This is a good example of how what starts out as, ostensibly, a joke, gets to be taken seriously.

Comedy writers within the past few years starting using phrases such as man-breasts for shock value.

Now we see people trying get legislation passed on the basis of men and women both having breasts.

The only problem with this is that it is false. Men dont have mammary glands, aka breasts. Additionally, evolution or God or whatever you want to call it has set it up that men have a physiological response to seeing womens breasts, whereas there is no equally strong physiological response on the part of women to seeing a mans bare chest. I think its reasonable to take these differences into account in considering standards for clothing on beaches.

This comment is better than my original post on the subject on my site.