Via MSNBC.

One shooter is dead by police at the Texas military complex. Two more soldiers are in custody for yet undisclosed reasons.

The facility at which the events took place hosts medical screenings for troops before deployment, and treats brain injuries and psychiatric problems. The tentatively identified dead shooter, Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, was a psychiatrist or psychologist at the fort.

May post updates as they come.

My sympathies go out to survivors and the families of those killed serving the common security.

Caroline Campbell deserves high props for her story in today’s Tribune on a loosening of overnight policy between 1992 and 1994 and spike in reports of uwanted sexual conduct during those years, though the approach it takes is hardly scientific. The sample size is one. If there is data comparing the average number of reported acts of violence and the weakness or strength of in loco parentis policies across several hundred or more colleges, Campbell did not avail herself of the information. Correlation does not equal causation, and the spike could have been a fluke. In 1994, there were four reported incidents. Five years after the repeal of the liberal policy, there were four again, under normalized, harsher policies. Moreover, Public Safety did not disclose whether all incidents occurred in dorms.

However, she deserves credit for bringing to light a topic not discussed as much as it should, and also for relaying the reasoning behind keeping in tact a policy which is, perhaps wrongly, unpopular.

Free of memory and of hope,
limitless, abstract, almost future,
the dead man is not a dead man: he is death.
Like the God of the mystics,
of Whom anything that could be said must be denied,
the dead one, alien everywhere,
is but the ruin and absence of the world.
We rob him of everything,
we leave him not so much as a color or syllable:
here, the courtyard which his eyes no longer see,
there, the sidewalk where his hope lay in wait.
Even what we are thinking,
he could be thinking;

we have divvied up like thieves
the booty of nights and days.

-Jorge Louis Borges, A Remorse for Any Death

New study shows that fathers are just as important in child’s development as mothers are.

… Mother’s support of the father turns out to be a critical factor in his involvement with their children, experts say — even when a couple is divorced.

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, found that when couples scored high on positive relationship traits like willingness to compromise, expressing affection or love for their partner, encouraging or helping partners to do things that were important to them, and having an absence of insults and criticism, the father was significantly more likely to be engaged with his children.

Uninvolved fathers have long been accused of lacking motivation. But research shows that many societal obstacles conspire against them. Even as more fathers are changing diapers, dropping the children off at school and coaching soccer, they are often pushed aside in ways large and small.

…includes this:

[A] little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

But presumably not hormone treatments.

The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”

Couldn’t “spiritual healthcare” be construed as broad enough to encompass every New Age crystal quackery, or a Vodou fetisher’s sacrifice of an animal in supplication for good health? Wouldn’t it cover dianetics, free personality tests and e-meter readings? Is it too much to ask that subsedies be restricted to that which  has been proven to actually work on a reliable basis?

I’d actually been leaning towards supporting the proposed healthcare regulations reforms. But if this is the level of seriousness the legislators writing it up are exercising, I’m not sure I can.

Election day way yesterday. Did you vote? No? Well, here’s the stuff you care about:

Washington same-sex couples got everything but marriage.

After a wave of scare-mongering ads (THEY’LL TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THE GAY!), illegal donor concealment and possible money laundering, Maine voters revoked marriage enfranschisement for same-sex couples the legislature had granted them earlier this year, though, fortunately, Issue I entailed no new state constitutional amendment defining marriage as opposite-marriage only.

From the correspondence, by way of D.A. Williams’ 1973 “Psychological determinism in ‘Madame Bovary,’” in the Journal of Occassional Papers in Modern Languages:

La fatalite, qui m’avait courbe des la jenesse, s’etendait pour moi sur le monde entier, je la regardais se manifester dans toutes les actions des hommes aussi universellement que le soleil sur la surface de la terre.

And he was a self-confessed Spinozist!

Neither of these facts is helping me write my research proposal for a Madame Bovary term paper. I should stop blogging now.

Because I’m incredibly lazy I leave you all with one of my favorite youtube videos from one of my favorite youtube video-makers, Picnicface.

or,

In Defense of Blasphemy, or

Blasphemy is a Humanism.

Via USA Today:

While attracting surprisingly little attention, the Obama administration supported the effort of largely Muslim nations in the U.N. Human Rights Council to recognize exceptions to free speech for any “negative racial and religious stereotyping.” The exception was made as part of a resolution supporting free speech that passed this month, but it is the exception, not the rule that worries civil libertarians. Though the resolution was passed unanimously, European and developing countries made it clear that they remain at odds on the issue of protecting religions from criticism. It is viewed as a transparent bid to appeal to the “Muslim street” and our Arab allies, with the administration seeking greater coexistence through the curtailment of objectionable speech. Though it has no direct enforcement (and is weaker than earlier versions), it is still viewed as a victory for those who sought to juxtapose and balance the rights of speech and religion.

This is disgusting. The measure, like apparently everything that comes across the UN desk, has no real legislative weight, but it’s the symbolism of the thing. No gesture is truly “empty.”  This one signifies, ”We do not promise you freedom of speech as a right. Instead, it is a privilege, afforded to those who toe the lines of the state, party, the prejudices of politeness.”

In the resolution, the administration aligned itself with Egypt, which has long been criticized for prosecuting artists, activists and journalists for insulting Islam. For example, Egypt recently banned a journal that published respected poet Helmi Salem merely because one of his poems compared God to a villager who feeds ducks and milks cows. The Egyptian ambassador to the U.N., Hisham Badr, wasted no time in heralding the new consensus with the U.S. that “freedom of expression has been sometimes misused” and showing that the “true nature of this right” must yield government limitations.

His U.S. counterpart, Douglas Griffiths, heralded “this joint project with Egypt” and supported the resolution to achieve “tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” While not expressly endorsing blasphemy prosecutions, the administration departed from other Western allies in supporting efforts to balance free speech against the protecting of religious groups.

This will protect no religious groups. It will only infantilize them. Thin skin can never be outgrown if swaddled forever in censorship.

 One who does not learn to tolerate criticism, mockery, blaspheming of their own creed has no tolerance. We cannot keep the Establishment Clause and throw out Voltaire.

Rabelais, Swift, Twain, Bierce, Parker and Stone; their jests have done more to make the world a safer place than two thousand years of philosophizing and encyclicals. Even if this is not strictly true, one must admit those societies which  tolerate The Satanic Verses or South Park have been more peacable and healthy than those which have not.

By bringing religion down to a worldly level, the great satirists have revealed it to be a human institution, no more and no less, and at least slightly ridiculous in the way all anthropic endeavors are–some more so than others. This measure is more so than others. The most, maybe.  This measure disowns a thousand steps towards wisdom of the last two centuries. In that time, it has been increasingly understood the imperative to empower speakers to express, not shield would-be listeners.

The UN has taken a great leap forward into the 18th century.

Fantastic prizes for getting the flu shot you should get anyway! (Seriously. Over fall break back in Ohio, I stood in line for five hours with a friend from high school to get the H1N1 vaccine, so I’m not about to let any of you get me sick with regular flu. Also, my Ohio friend isn’t allowed to pick our activities anymore.)

All students who get a seasonal flu shot from Student Health Service by tomorrow, Nov. 3, will be eligible to win a number of donated prizes, including a flat-screen TV, Apple iPod and gift cards. SHS is offering the seasonal flu vaccine tomorrow, Nov. 3, from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., while supplies last, in the AMU second floor lobby.

Your attention was also drawn to the contributions of female professors of philosophy:

During the early decades of the 20th century, women at Marquette made significant advancements in entering the male-dominated world of Jesuit higher education. However, the heart of Jesuit education — the liberal arts — remained the domain of men. That changed when the Department of Philosophy decided to challenge the status quo.

Want to know more? Go to the Centennial Celebration of Women Web site. A new note will be featured each week.

Also, this, for nurses:

The College of Nursing will host “Centennial Celebration of Ethnically Diverse Women in Health Care” Thursday, Nov. 12, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Cudahy 001. RSVP deadline is Tuesday, Nov. 10.

Panelists include Dr. Norma Martinez-Rogers, associate clinical professor of family nursing at the University of Texas Health Center, San Antonio; JoAnn Lomax, manager of patient relations at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, Milwaukee; and Kate Harrington, graduate of Marquette’s Nurse-midwifery program.

Panelists will describe their roles and the populations they serve, as well as the “facilitators and barriers” encountered in their roles and how they’ve overcome the barriers.