Taking back the sexy

The marketing geniuses at Victoria's Secret have recently had a revelation: maybe you can overdo sexy.

Victoria's Secret likes to ask in its marketing, "What is sexy?" Now the lingerie chain is trying to figure out, "What's too sexy?"

The chief executive of the brand known for its provocative televised fashion shows and alluring stores made an admission yesterday. In her mind, the brand has become "too sexy" -- or at least the wrong kind of sexy.

"We have so much gotten off our heritage," CEO Sharen Jester Turney said in a conference call with analysts. Responding to the past year's weak sales and focus-group feedback, she said, "We will return to an ultra-feminine lingerie brand to meet [customer] needs and expectations."

Now, I'm going to come out and say it: frankly my dear, I don't want to go around all the time feeling sexy. Thank God that those hormonal days of youth, in which one spent most of the time either thinking or trying not to think about sex, are past!

Perhaps it has become financially obvious (and what other kind of obvious is there, marketing-wise?) that a relentless emphasis on defining your brand as "sexy, sexy, SEXY" may start to grind on the core customer base, most of whom a) do not have the body they did at nineteen, and b) do not desire to be classified as skanks, and therefore want to look good with their clothes on.

I like the idea of "ultra-feminine". It implies a foundational garment with superior support that is pretty. "Sexy" implies scanty and flimsy, and does no practical good if the concept can't translate into actually looking fine on a real female body. Is underwear that makes you look fat really sexy? I don't think so, Victoria's Secret, and so I applaud your move into "ultra-feminine" territory. Everyone wins when real aesthetics trump fake aesthetics.

Now, if you'd do something about your sleazy posters in the mall window, I'd really be grateful.

Welcome to baby Sophia

Our congratulations to the Bettinellis, who welcomed Sophia Therese into the world yesterday.

Why A Right to Bear Arms?

Patrick of Orthonormal Basis pointed out that my post yesterday about Prof. Tribe's view on the second ammendment and DC's handgun ban didn't necessarily fully make the case I was attempting to make.

I'm not sure about your critique of Dr. Tribe. He doesn't here deny the possibility that a law-abiding citizen might have good reasons for preferring a handgun to other firearms, and I don't think you deny that there are also reasons why citizens might collectively prefer that nobody have access to handguns. (Whether the government can effectively prevent the distribution of illegal handguns is, of course, another question.)

Just because the government might have the authority and good reason to prohibit something, doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate uses that will get proscribed as well. The law can't be perfect.

Reading this, I realized that I hadn't fully laid out my thought process, perhaps in part due to my habit of writing blog posts over the course of brief interruptions in work over several hours.

I think that Prof. Tribe makes a potentially solid point that a right to bear arms does not necessarily mean a right to bear any arms that one pleases anywhere one likes. No one sane, clearly, is arguing that citizens be able to buy anti-tank rockets or .50 caliber machine guns.

However, I think it stretches a bit when he then turns around and argues that this means it is clearly acceptible to ban all handguns. Handguns account for roughtly half the guns manufactured and/or sold in the United States, so we're not talking about some small subset here.

More to the point, however, it seems to me that this line of thinking runs contrary to any reasonable purpose one might give to the second ammendment. Very often, it's argued that the second ammendment protects people's right to have guns "for hunting and sport". Now, I'm sure that in the late 1700s many people had a reasonable reliance on hunting rifle to provide a significant portion of their diet, but does it really seem to make sense that it is actually "hunting and sport" which resulted in the second ammendment being added to the constitution? Certainly, there's nothing in the text of the ammendment itself which would suggest such a purpose.

Rather, it seems to me that the purpose is explicitly defense against tyrrany and (by what seems like a very reasonable extension) defense of one's family and property in general.

This is where I think Prof. Tribe's perference to retain all current gun restrictions in DC runs into trouble. There is, unfortunately, a lot of overlap between what makes a good offensive weapon at close quarters and a good defensive weapon at close quarters. And so the current gun laws in DC have the unfortunate effect of banning just about all the guns (handguns, short-barrelled semi-automatic carbines: "assault rifles", and short barrelled folding stock shotguns: "tactical shotguns") which would be of most utility in the purpose for which a reasonable interpretation of the second ammendment would suggest guns should be allowed. In contrast, the guns which are legal in DC are those best suited for hunting medium to large game and for fouling -- activities which are clearly impractical and illegal within city limits.

Now, I certainly know some good and well-intentioned people who would rather not see civilians owning guns for the purpose of self defense, and would rather see all such activities done by civil authorities. That's a view which can legitimately be debated. But it seems to me that the bill of rights which we currently have pretty clearly deliniates a right to armed self defense.

Laurence Tribe on "Sane Limits"

Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe has an editorial in todays Wall Street Journal on the case regarding Washington DC's total handgun ban which will be coming before the Supreme Court shortly. His conclusion (if that's not too strong a word) is that the second ammendment does indeed protect some sort of individual right to bear arms (as opposed to the "collectivist" view, which holds that this merely protects the right of each state to maintain the National Guard) but that the court must refrain from overturning the ban based on a fully indivial interpretation because that would (in his mind) suggest that almost no limits could be placed on said individual right.

It is true that some liberal scholars like me, having studied the text and history closely, have concluded, against our political instincts, that the Second Amendment protects more than a collective right to own and use guns in the service of state militias and national guard units. Opponents of the District's flat ban on handgun possession have cited my words to the court and in newspaper editorials in their support.

But nothing I have discovered or written supports an absolute right to possess the weapons of one's choice. The lower court's decision in this case -- the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found the District's ban on concealable handguns in a densely populated area to be unconstitutional -- went overboard. Under any plausible standard of review, a legislature's choice to limit the citizenry to rifles, shotguns and other weapons less likely to augment urban violence need not, and should not, be viewed as an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of the people to keep or bear arms.

For the Supreme Court to go any further than this in overturning the lower court's decision -- for it to hold, for instance, that no firearms ban could violate the Second Amendment unless it were to prevent states from organizing militias in their collective self-defense, as the District appears to urge -- would gratuitously fan the flames of doubt about the court's commitment to core constitutional principles, and would save no lives in the process.

Equally foolish would be a decision tilting to the other extreme and upholding the lower court's decision simply because the right to bear arms is, judicial precedent to the contrary notwithstanding, a right that belongs to citizens as individuals. Such a holding would confuse the right to bear arms with a right to own and brandish the firearms of one's choosing.

Now, professor Tribe does something rather mischievious here in suggesting that if the total ban on handguns is overturned, there will thus be a right to "brandish the firearms of one's choosing". If he's going to talk about gun laws, he ought to be (and in his more considered moments doubtless is) aware that it is illegal even in areas with very open gun laws and concealed carry laws to branding the firearm of one's choosing. such brandishing is classified as "disturbing the peace" and gets the brandisher taken to jail and the gun confiscated.

I think he also errs (and shows a certain unfamiliarity or lack of care about gun use) when he says, "Under any plausible standard of review, a legislature's choice to limit the citizenry to rifles, shotguns and other weapons less likely to augment urban violence need not, and should not, be viewed as an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of the people to keep or bear arms."

What reasons might a citizen reasonably want to own guns for? Well, according to the constitution, in order to protect against tyrrany. For fighting against one's own government, the AK-47 is certainly traditional, though any weapon which is semi-automatic, a fires fairly small cartridge (and thus has low recoil), and possesses the capacity to function reliably with little maintenance will do. Still, though it might be fun to own an AK some day, I don't think this should be the priority assigned in what we make sure citizens have readily available. I have it in me to hope that the time when we are forced into resisting our own government by force of arms is rather distant.

Generally, it's argued that citizens mostly have the right to use guns for sport: hunting, target shooting and even (according to Senator Obama) fishing. Hunting requires a rifle or shotgun. Target shooting (especially if done at an indoor range in the city) is at least as often done with handguns as with rifles. I'm not clear how you fish with a gun, other than shooting fish in the proverbial barrel.

Honestly, though, if I lived in DC, one of the reasons I would have near the top of my mind would be potentially using a gun to protect myself and my family in our home. In the close confines of a house or apartment, a handgun is much more maneuverable than a long gun. Handguns also fire larger, slower bullets which in most cases will not travel through walls and injure innocent people three apartments away. (If you shot at an intruder in your apartment with a deer rife, you could easily kill someone several several apartments away.)

So there's definitely a reason aside from concealment (which is generally illegal without a license anyway) that people want to be able to own handguns in a place like DC. Dr. Tribe seems either not to know this, or perhaps to have allowed his political instincts (which he has stated oppose the individual ownership of guns) to overcome his ability to think clearly about the issue.

Lenten Meditations on Purgatorio: Sloth

As the poets reach the next terrace of Mt. Purgatory, the sun sets, and so the poets have to stop where they are for the night. No movement goes on in Purgatory under cover of dark. Dante suggests they talk while they pass the night so that their delay may not be spend unprofitably, and so Virgil embarks on a meditation on the nature of love and how it may be wrong in object or in degree.

We never wish ill upon ourselves, he argues, and so when we sin we either desire an evil upon someone else, or we love secondary goods out of proper proportion. The three terraces below serve to purge Pride, Envy and Wrath, which Virgil defines as three different forms of wishing ill upon one's neighbor:

"There is the man who through his neighbor’s fall
Hopes to advance, and only for this reason
He longs to see him cast down from his greatness,

"There is the man who dreads the loss of power,
Favor, fame, and honor at another’s rise,
And pines so at it that he wants him ruined;

"And there is the man who grows so resentful
For injury, he’s greedy for revenge,
An such a man must seek another’s harm.
(Purg. XVII, 115-123)
The next three groups of penitents, Virgil explains, purge from themselves a love that is rightly directed, but not proportionate. This terrace is where sloth is purged, a lack of zeal in love.

Dante wants to continue their conversation on love and will, and so Virgil continues with a discussion of the levels of natural appetite and the human person's unique power over desire through free will. Then the moon rises, throwing light across the terrace, and a few moments later they hear the sound of a great crowd running towards them and calling out encouragement to each other as they run.

How soon they were upon us — since that whole
Huge company was moving at a run,
And two of them up front cried out in tears:

"Mary ran with haste to the hill country!
And Caesar to subdue Lerida thrust
First at Marseilles and then sped on to Spain!"

"Faster! faster! let no time be lost
Through little love," the rest who followed cried,
"So zeal for good may make grace green again."
(Purg. XVIII, 97-105)

While on previous terraces the examples of virtue contrary to the vice being purged have been passively seen or heard, those overcoming the vice of sloth call out their examples themselves as they run around the mountain. And perhaps in keeping with their newly-learned urgency, they have two examples of zeal rather than three.

Virgil calls out to the running souls asking for directions, and they exhort the poets to follow them, but say they cannot stop to talk. One penitent calls out his name to Dante as he passes: he was an Italian abbot and provided his monastery with more momentum than leadership. The crowd ofpenitents is now moving off into the distance, but the poets hear them call out their two examples of sloth: the Israelites who, having been delivered from Egypt, fell away from God while wandering in the desert, and the companions of Aeneas who, having reached Sicily with him in his wanderings, refused to go any farther.

The sound of the running penitents then dies off into the distance, and the poets are left alone for the remainder of the night. Dante falls asleep, and while sleeping has a dream. She is cross-eyed and crooked-legged, pale, sickly and stooped. But as Dante looks at her, she rapidly becomes beautiful, and then begins to sing. She is, she sings, the Siren, whose song has led many a traveller from his planned course.

Another lady then appears, a beautiful and saintly one who appears by Dante's side and demands that he turn his gaze from the Siren. She tears at the Siren's dress, and beneath the shining exterior which Dante's gaze has allowed the Siren to build, a repulsive creature is exposed who smells so badly that Dante awakens suddenly from his sleep.

Virgil has been trying to wake him for some minutes, and now that Dante is awake, the poets quickly reach the angel who guards the pass to the next terrace. Another "p" is wiped from Dante's forhead, and they move upwards. However, Virgil sees that Dante remains troubled by his dream:

"What’s wrong, that you keep gazing on the ground?"
My guide began to say to me, just when
We had both climbed a bit above the angel.

And I: "A strange new vision makes me trudge on
With such mistrust: it bends me inwardly
So that I cannot stop from thinking of it."

"You have beheld," he said, "that ancient witch
For whom alone those now above us weep:
You saw how man sets himself free from her.

"That is enough! now beat your heels on earth
And turn your eyes up to the lure spun from
The mighty spheres by the eternal King."
(Purg. XIX, 52-63)

The Siren, thus, is the symbol of those secondary goods which grow under our desire to appear to be great goods unto themselves, and thus turn us away from seeking the true goods. And on these next terraces, Dante will encounter sins which result from excessive love of lesser goods.

---

Thanks to:

The translation and notes of James Finn Cotter

The translation, original text, and notes provided by AllenMandelbaum

And most especially the translation and extensive commentary by Dorothy Sayers, which Penguin keeps appearing to drop, but never quite has.

On the odd dilemma of not holding one's nose

As everyone knows, both Texas and Ohio are holding primaries today. For weeks I've been dithering about which candidate is best -- not in the presidential race, but for district representative. We have four contenders for the Republican nomination, and frankly, all of them sound like excellent and qualified prospects. My online research doesn't turn up any glaring negatives that would disqualify any of them, though I've ruled out one of the four because he doesn't sound like he'd be as effective as the others.

This is an unusual position in which to find oneself. A voter gets so accustomed to all politicians being sleazy, or to having one of out two being so obviously unvotable that the choice isn't that difficult. And here we're faced with not two, but four people who really do seem suitable for the job. This is a pleasant dilemma, but in a way it's far more frustrating than the usual political crapshoot. I'd like all of these people to represent me.

So, all things being equal, I've made it a religious decision -- I'm voting for the Catholic.

Why Do They Do These Things?

I got a call from my younger sister tonight. "Darwin, do you know if a consecration with bread that is probably leavened is valid?"

Circumstances had caused her to go to a different parish than usual (she lives in the Seattle area) for a 5pm mass, and on entering a few minutes before mass she saw on the table in the back of the church a large ciborium full of cubes of what looked like spongy pita bread.

I don't know the answer to this for sure. I'm thinking probably valid but illicit -- after all, the Eastern Rites use leavened bread. But the advice I eventually gave was: If you're really not sure and there's not another mass you can get to, attend but don't receive. You'll know for sure you met your Sunday obligation as best you can, and you won't be participating in the illicit elements any more than necessary.

After getting off the phone, I found myself fuming a bit. Why do that kind of thing? I'm a comparatively laid-back guy liturgically. I'm not one of those types who gets high blood pressure the minute I see a female alter server or an EM (I think we'd be better off without, but resign myself pretty easily), but for goodness sake, what possible good reason is there for messing which the communion species? There is absolutely no difficulty getting hold of real communion wafers in the modern US, and there is no cultural or traditional reason to even think about using anything else in the Roman Rite here. The only reason for it is to be "different" (read: defiant), and really: Why? You're not going to make anyone feel any better (unless its some sort of "we're so open minded" pride which isn't good for you anyway) and it's a good bet that you'll cause someone distress.

Good grief...