In Which Historians Are Made Obsolete

I saw this on the Daily Dish this morning:

While we may not hold athletes to the high of standards we hold politicians, we clearly hold them to higher standards than musicians . . . For our distant ancestors, athletic skill was much closer to political power. Small forager bands feared that the few most physically powerful members would attempt to dominate the band by force. Foragers had much less reason to fear domination by the few most musical folks in the band. So it made sense for foragers to hold athletes to higher moral standards than musicians.
So I suspect our tendency to hold athletes to higher standards than musicians is a holdover from our forager days . . .

Well, my job just got a lot easier. Why bother with 10,000 years of history when we can just explain the nuanced peculiarities of modern American culture in paleolithic terms? Robin Hanson is probably right — 21st-century Americans' expectations for athletes and musicians most likely have more to do with the politics of "small forager bands" than with the 1960s.

I think the United States has a bicameral legislature because hunter-gatherers recognized a  hierarchy of earth and sky. This belief in two realms of influence — the "upper" and "lower" spheres of power — is reflected in the structure of our legislative branch.

See? Easy.

Does the Historian's Hat Fit the Associate Justice's Head?

Like many Americans, I find the news that the Taliban has executed a seven-year-old boy to be deeply sickening. Reaction from world leaders has been fairly predictable — those who have commented on the case use it as an example of the unfathomable cruelty and depravity of the Taliban:

Afghan president Hamid Karzai:

"hanging or shooting to kill a 7-year-old boy . . . is a crime against humanity"

British Prime Minister David Cameron:

"If this is true, it is an absolutely horrific crime . . . If true, I think it says more about the Taliban than any book, than any article, than any speech could ever say."

When I read this story, I immediately thought back to Justice Thomas' recent dissent in Graham v. Florida, in which he argued that the Eighth Amendment should be understood to prohibit "methods [of punishment] akin to those that had been considered cruel and unusual at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted." In a footnote to that dissent, Justice Thomas argued that the Founding Fathers would not have considered sentencing a juvenile offender to life in prison without parole "cruel and unusual" because the common law "theoretically permitted [even] capital punishment to be imposed on a person as young as age 7,” reasoning that "It thus seems exceedingly unlikely that the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on a person of Graham’s age would run afoul of those standards."

Did you notice the sleight of hand?

Traditional Food?

CNN has an article up today focusing on a blogger's recent challenge to her readers to eat "real food" for a whole month. Participants committed to avoiding all processed foods, including white flour, sugar, refined oils, and low- or non-fat milk, for 28 days.

There are several interesting things about this article, but the one that really caught my eye was the use of the word "traditional" to describe the foods prepared during this challenge. Though the CNN article does not really elaborate on what "traditional" meant, other websites have lengthy descriptions:

What are Traditional Foods? The traditional food movement focuses on real, whole foods: foods that our ancestors ate. The main deviation from the standard American diet can be found in the attitude towards fat and carbohydrates. Generally, traditional foodists eat fewer carbohydrates (particularly in grains and sugars) than most Americans and don't feel it necessary to limit their fat intake. A typical day for someone who eats according to traditional foods may start with eggs, bacon, and some fruit, followed by meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables for lunch and dinner. If grains are eaten, they're generally soaked to neutralize anti-nutrients called phytates contained in raw grain products. Meats are generally grass fed, and dairy products are eaten raw: that is, not pasteurized. Processed foods, soy, trans fats, white flour products, and factory farmed meat and dairy products are generally avoided.

I'm trying to imagine an era in which anyone's "ancestors" ate cheese, but not grain, and I've got nothing.*

Hot Baby Names for 1710

Over the past few weeks, the onomasts on the internet have been publishing their lists of the top baby names of the past decade and their predictions for 2010's hot trends.

Reading these lists got me wondering about the top names of 1710. I'm usually on the lookout for unusual names (Orange Wedge, Belcher Noyes, Fanny Forward, etc.) and pass over the Johns and Marys without comment. But what better way to engage the  modern interest in classic (and faux-classic) European baby names than to run the numbers for the 18th century?

Without further ado, the top baby names of 1710 Boston*:

1. Mary
2. Elizabeth
3. Sarah
4. Abigail
5. Susanna
6. Hannah
7. Ann/Anna
8. Rebecca
    Lydia

10. Jane

      Martha

12. Johanna

      Katherine

      Lucy

      Margaret

      Mercy

      Ruth

1. John

2. William

3. Thomas

4. James

5. Samuel

    Joseph

7. Nathaniel

8. Jonathan

9. Richard

    Henry

    Daniel

10. Abraham

      Benjamin

      Ebenezer

      Edward

      Francis

      Josiah

      Robert

Catholic Obstetrical Textbook Quote of the Day

"A system of education that ignores the will, upon which morality and virtue are based, and substitutes a sham intellectuality as elaborated by ignorant boards of education and administered by emotional, half-educated women, together with a lack of genuine religion, is a prolific source of mental and moral deterioration and consequent degeneracy in the physical and moral orders. Our American public-school system is such and its deity is the unwashed and crassly depraved god Demos, whose bible is the evening newspaper. If we could civilize our schools, we should have no mention of legislation by vagary."

- Austin O'Malley, relevantly

The Ethics of Medical Homicide and Mutilation (1919)

This is the concluding paragraph of O'Malley's obstetrical textbook.

Catholic Obstetrical Textbook Quote of the Day

"Prolongation of the lactation period beyond the usual time for weaning, from the ninth to the twelfth month, is common among ignorant and lazy women. Some women prolong lactation in the erroneous notion that it prevents renewed impregnation. Such lactation is injurious to the child, as a rule. Ploss says hyperlactation is frequent in Spain, and that some Japanese, Chinese, and Armenian women may nurse their children for years, but this practice in undoubtedly injurious, especially among European races."

- Austin O'Malley, knowledgeably

The Ethics of Medical Homicide and Mutilation (1919), pg. 155

Catholic Obstetrical Textbook Quote of the Day

"Obstetrical text-books, unfortunately, are written by such emotional men; by men who lack all training in ethics other than that inculcated in childhood out of the mental vagaries of the women in the household."

- Austin O'Malley, professionally

The Ethics of Medical Homicide and Mutilation (1919), pg. ix

This is an endlessly fascinating book. The frontispiece is a giant diagram of a vasectomy. Other books might have a photo of the author before the title page, but not this one.

Catholic Obstetrical Textbook Quote of the Day

"The vast majority of women are too lazy to take physical exercise as a hygienic duty at any time, and during pregnancy, their aversion to all effort to overcome indolence is so great they make even themselves believe they cannot."

- Austin O'Malley, respectfully

The Ethics of Medical Homicide and Mutilation (1919)

Scalia on Grave Markers

It's not every day that a Supreme Court Justice comments on grave markers. Today, Justice Scalia held forth on the subject and, once again, demonstrated the The History of the United States According to Antonin Scalia is made-up bullshit.

In the course of arguing that a giant cross erected in the Mojave Desert in 1934 cannot be regarded as a specifically Christian symbol, Scalia told the court that, "The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead."

Actually, that's not all he said:

JUSTICE SCALIA: It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It's the -- the cross is the -- is the most common symbol of -- of -- of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn't seem to me -- what would you have them erect? A cross -- some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?

I'm no legal scholar, but I know a thing or two about gravestones. And Scalia is talking out of his ass on this one.