E!!

Got an email from an old friend who found me not here.

Should’ve posted a “Gone Fishin’” sign (and have done so now).

I’ll be back someday (when the time is right), but in the meantime here is where to find me these days:

– Editing and managing the Nevada News Bureau

– Blogging on The Blog there (now branded E!!Politics)

– Doing political analysis & commentary wherever I’m hired or invited

Also:  Follow me on Twitter @elizcrum

I recently ran across a quotation that conveys something I have often experienced since losing my sister in November, and which I have noticed in others – most recently, a new friend – who have also lost a loved one to death:

It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life.

– Charles Dickens

Yes.

Since Krista disappeared from this earth, every joyful moment, every deep laugh, every quiet contemplation of beauty summons her memory.  I do not know how long this will continue, and I cannot decide whether I wish it to stop.

It’s like dancing a few perfect steps to a lovely but wistful song.  The moment is exquisite, but joy and grief strike a sudden heartwrenching chord and you find yourself nearly overcome.  Do you go on dancing or walk from the floor?  Either way, your heart is pierced with bittersweet.

And the song plays on.

Pay no intention to this post.

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It is no new thing – at least among educated, well-informed conservative women - to talk about the hi-jacking of Feminism by angry, man-hating shrews bent on perpetuating their anti-paternal, victim mentalities. Unfortunately, many of these women are professors in insitutions of higher learning.  And according to a piece by Christina Hoff Sommers in The Chronicle Review, at least some of these educators are guilty of citing false statistics in their work – and of getting quite testy when it is pointed out to them.

After choosing some sample texts and correcting or critiquing their statistics regarding violence against women and domestic abuse, and after interacting directly with their none-too-pleased authors (click thru and read about it!) Sommers says this:

All books have mistakes, so why pick on the feminists? My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank.

Why should it matter if a large number of professors think and say a lot of foolish and intemperate things? Here are three reasons to be concerned:

1) False assertions, hyperbole, and crying wolf undermine the credibility and effectiveness of feminism. The United States, and the world, would greatly benefit from an intellectually responsible, reality-based women’s movement.

2) Over the years, the feminist fictions have made their way into public policy. They travel from the women’s-studies textbooks to women’s advocacy groups and then into news stories. Soon after, they are cited by concerned political leaders. President Obama recently issued an executive order establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls. As he explained, “The purpose of this council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy.” He and Congress are also poised to use the celebrated Title IX gender-equity law to counter discrimination not only in college athletics but also in college math and science programs, where, it is alleged, women face a “chilly climate.” The president and members of Congress can cite decades of women’s-studies scholarship that presents women as the have-nots of our society. Never mind that this is largely no longer true. Nearly every fact that could be marshaled to justify the formation of the White House Council on Women and Girls or the new focus of Title IX application was shaped by scholarly merchants of hype like Professors Lemon and Seager.

3) Finally, as a philosophy professor of almost 20 years, and as someone who respects rationality, objective scholarship, and intellectual integrity, I find it altogether unacceptable for distinguished university professors and prestigious publishers to disseminate falsehoods. It is offensive in itself, even without considering the harmful consequences. Obduracy in the face of reasonable criticism may be inevitable in some realms, such as partisan politics, but in academe it is an abuse of the privileges of professorship.

For comments such as these, and for her exposure of specious feminist statistics in her 1994 book  Who Stole Feminism? Sommers has been called a “thug,” “parasite,” “dangerous,” and a “female impersonator.”   Early in her piece, she quotes sociologist Joel Best who once said that a bad statistic is ”Harder to kill than a vampire.”  Apparently the egos of feminist professors who cite those bad statistics are pretty hard to kill as well.

All my blog pages and archived posts are now here at the new blog location.  (Thank you, Andrew!!)

Unfortunately, my sidebar widgets, blogrolls, link lists, and ”In the Media” blurbs did not carry over, so I’ll have to re-build those.

But I think  I can safely blog here now without fear of losing things in cyberspace…so, happily, I’ll start blogging again tomorrow!!

Sincere thanks to all my readers for their patience and support during these very trying weeks.

Yes, yes, I know my old blog is back up:  www.elizabethcrum.blogivists.com

and yes, I know this blog is just sitting here.

I was (and am) hesitant to do any work, in either place, that might get zapped, overwritten, or otherwise messed up – either by cyberpowers beyond my control or during the export/import migration process.  I also ran into a file size issue that I am trying to work around.

Please bear with me; I am not a tech genius by any means.  I will try to get this done by the weekend and hope to be happily blogging again by next week.  I’ll send out an E!! alert when I do, so no need to keep checking back for now.

Unless you are not on my mailing list and then, yes, you should check back.  Tuesday-ish.

Happy Memorial Day.

“[R]eligion, or the duty which we owe to our creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and this is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.”

–Virginia Bill of Rights, Article 16

Source:  Founder’s Quote Daily, a service of The Patriot Post.  To subscribe, link to http://patriotpost.us/subscribe.php.

E!! will be off for the next few days and then (probably) posting only sporadically through Jan. 3rd.

September 17, 2008

Hi,

I finally figured it out!

I have decided to settle down and get serious about a career in Public
Garden Management and Horticulture.  This decision allows me to work in
areas where public transportation is readily available, work in a greenhouse
environment, avoid the stress of production related capitalism, contribute
to the beauty of urban areas, preserve plants for future generations, and
educate people who are really interested in plants.  It also solves the
dilemma about what I want to do when I grow up, because this way I can do a
little of everything.

Cornell and the University of Delaware both have fellowship only programs
for Master’s degrees (both fully funded with a living stipend).  There are
other programs out there as well.

I have joined the Horticulture club as an active member (I might consider
running for an office) and am taking an extracurricular Urban Gardeners
Program with a 40-hour community service requirement at the local community
greenhouse (Hunter Park in Lansing – 2 minutes from my door walking).  I am
working on a proposal for an internship with Beal Gardens here at MSU,
probably revamping the website and working on grant acquisition as we all
know that I can weed just fine.

Now to 4.0 everything and do well on the GRE.

 Love,

 Me

“Cultivated plants are neatly planted; wild plants flourish in chaos.”

– Susun Weed

Here are the most recent stories and alerts:

This one in the Lansing State Journal has a good (better) photo of Krista than the previous piece; also her house:

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20081120/NEWS01/811200373

This one was written by a reporter at MSU’s The State News:

http://www.statenews.com/index.php/article/2008/11/family_friends_shocked_after_student_goes_missing

This one is a brief online alert:

http://boards.insessiontrials.com/showthread.php?p=12443140

And here’s a photo taken a few Thanksgivings ago with our maternal grandmother in Florida:

E!! is on hold until further notice.

My sister, Krista Lueth, is missing.  She was last seen on Tuesday, Nov. 11, at her home in Lansing, MI near the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave. and Michigan Ave.  She was reported to the police as missing this past Saturday, Nov. 15.

She is a student at Michigan State University; the school has been notified and is cooperating.

(updated since original post)  Here is the Lansing newspaper story:  http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20081118/NEWS01/811180342

For any who may be in her Facebook networks, this is her Facebook profile:  www.facebook.com/people/Krista_Lueth/723027485

And MySpace:  http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69627212

This is an online alert that was posted over the weekend (includes a photo):  www.powerfulintent.ning.com/profiles/blogs/missing-sister-can-you-help

The police are involved and are following every possible lead.  If you know people in the Lansing, Michigan area please forward this to them.  If you know anyone in the media willing to get the word out, please have them contact me via email (on my Contact page here).

If not, please pray.

Love you!!

(Today is the 10th anniversary of my marriage to The Venerable Mr. Crum. Tonight there will be champagne and peking duck with plum sauce.)

Unbelievable. Client #9: guilty as sin, free as a bird.

The comic genius and killer sarcasm of Iowahawk knows no bounds.  He’s supercalifragalistic, folks!

Fox called Virginia for Obama a few minutes ago.  Not that it matters.

No results for the Nevada races yet.

The Crum household is talking about how the Dem controlled Congress will screw things up so badly that in 2 years there will be significant GOP gains and in four years we’ll be putting a conservative in the White House.  I guess that means we’re conceding that Obama has won this.

I was holding out hope.  (sigh)

We occasionally check the news networks to see what they are saying and doing.  ABC is showing wide angle shots of the staging at Grant Park in Chicago.  It’s so Hollywood.  And my most unfavorite part of our politics.  Governing should be about principles and ideas, not who can gussy up the best stadium setting.

they hadn’t called Ohio with only 15% of precincts in. We’re sitting here debating whether or not the election is “over,” and it all hinges on whether the Ohio call is right.

Well, if that proves out it’s not looking good for McCain. The numbers are nearly impossible with both PA and OH in Barack’s column. And no Republican has ever been elected while losing Ohio (as Rove just pointed out).

Jeez! I just yelled “what are you talking about?!” at Brit Hume on Fox News because he said they were calling Ohio for Obama. He corrected himself a half minute later. Only 3% of the precincts are in there.

They’ve called PA for Obama at this point. (Darn!) I thought maybe the Murtha thing and the coal industry thing would help esp. in the western parts.

NC too close to call yet they say.

So there’s your E!! inside look at the KNPR studio. (Left to right: host Dave Berns, Chuck Muth, Steve Sebelius, E!!, and Jon Ralston)

There’s been some confusion about where/how to find my election predictions among the many in the Symposium on National Review Online, so here it is:

Elizabeth Crum
Like everyone who is willing to be honest about it, I have no earthly idea what is going to happen today in the presidential election so I’m going with the most interesting, historically significant (and actually plausible) outcome I can imagine:   

Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, and Pennysylvania go to The One; New Hampshire, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida go to McCain; and the electoral college is tied at 269. Ten thousand attorneys descend upon these eleven toss up states like one of the great plagues of Egypt. Obama wins because he has more money and more lawyers to defend the fraudulent votes cast by dead people and out-of-staters. 

In Nevada, Democrat Dina Titus will beat John Porter in our Distict 3 congressional race. Many feel that Porter deserves his loss: He has not been a reliable conservative in D.C. and ran a terrible campaign.   

The most interesting and controversial Nevada initiative — to raise our room tax by as much as three percent to fund public education — will pass, even though economic analysts have warned this will harm our already struggling tourism industry. And our educational system will no doubt continue to be ranked among the worst in the nation due to our Board of Education’s general hostility to fiscal responsibility, reform, and charter schools. 

— Elizabeth Crum is a freelance blogger in Nevada. 

Over the past few weeks, the dissenting views of conservatives Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker, David Brooks, and Christopher Buckley et al have stirred up quite a storm.  All have disavowed Palin, McCain, or both, to some degree or another.  Liberals are gleeful that the conservative movement is “falling apart” and many heretofore like-minded and friendly conservatives are thoroughly irritated with one another.

For the record, unlike Jonah Goldberg (with whom I usually agree), I have no problem with these debates, whenever they may occur.  People are free to vent their emotions, push their agendas, explain their motivations, and air their grievances anytime they like.  I do think we should keep cool heads and let pragmatism rule when possible, but those who find they cannot are free to do what punditry permits.  Should they later feel some regret, they can retract and re-state as needed.

I do agree with Jonah on this point, though: 

We’ll all know what we need to know after the election and if McCain and the GOP come out the losers we’ll have a luxurious amount of time to argue amongst ourselves about which way forward and which wrong turns we may or may not have taken. If David Brooks wants to be oncologist in chief of the GOP and tell us where the cancers are, he’ll be free to do so. If some of my colleagues want to crack the whip on the ideological slackers in our midst, they’ll have plenty of elbow room. 

But it’s worth pointing out that if McCain loses and the Democrats surge in the Congress, we’ll also have some greater reminders of what we agree on to help us keep our disagreements in perspective.

This morning, Culture11′s James Poulous called Yuval Levin “one of the sharpest tools in the conservative shed” and provided a link to this piece on why John McCain is a better choice than Obama.

I cheerfully admit to being biased toward all things Levin - you can see what I mean over at The New Atlantis - but the piece is well worth reading even for non-admirers.

According to Yahoo! Finance, Nevada is behind only California, Arizona, and Florida in terms of total state budget shortfall.

Nevada’s budget gap is 16% of the total state budget or $1.2 billion.

Nevada has the worst foreclosure rate in the nation, and falling tourism and gambling revenues has slowed the economy dramatically.

A special legislative session in June resulted in budget caps and cuts, but it’s quite likely another special session will have to be called – after the elections in November.

Written Friday night, soon after scanning the latest polls and reading that Chris Buckley is casting a vote for Obama:

Rich ~ I ask your indulgence with this entire email.  I know we don’t know one another and that a handful of emails from me to you over the years, and you occasionally responding “thanks,” don’t really justify what is to follow.

But, you are the editor of National Review, and tonight I am a distraught conservative, so here it is:

I got tears in my eyes reading Chris Buckley’s whole post.

Chris seems cheerful enough about all this, so it’s not for him I cry. His dear father is no doubt quite content (and causing some kind of harmless mischief) in the great Hereafter, so no need for tears there.

I feel a sense of grief and loss; what is it…?

Chris Buckley is wrong; of that I am sure; but still it feels sad.

It seems to me that the splintering of the conservative movement, and its mixed political fortunes, and a sort of crisis of identity, have led us here. Fractured, floundering, weak, perhaps conservatism no longer knows what It is and so cannot inspire and compel as it once did. (I am so tired of talk of the Big Tent…)

It seems to me attempts at fusionism have (so far) failed: if McCain is the prototype and/or product, surely we must admit that? Chris Buckley admits it, with gusto: he now throws his hat in the ring for the uber-liberal senator from Illinois, saying Obama is preferable to the inauthentic and often unconservative McCain.

Is Obama to be elected and are we conservatives to be banished to the fringe, then, as we once were? For decades the establishment ignored us. Only because of Bill Buckley and then with Reagan did history really take note.

But what principle, what policy, what politician, what philosopher will unite us now?

From 1944 to 1991 we were held together by the glue of anticommunism. Barry Goldwater tried to carry the torch onward; Frank Meyer’s fusionism attempted the same and seems to live on in the postmodern pursuit of authenticity through freedom and virtue.

But. An inclusive doctrine – which conservatism has become – though seemingly practical, can lend itself to problems. Indeed, can anyone deny that we have landed ourselves in quite a spot?

When someone like Chris Buckely throws all hierarchies out the proverbial window and says he is voting for Obama, what then?

Has the postwar conservative intellectual movement lost its way; will it now become unrecognizable?

What has become of American conservatism?

One of the happiest days in the life of a new blogger is a mention at Instapundit. 

Still all warm and fuzzy from my KNPR radio appearance this morning, I logged in to E!! to see that Instapundit linked up to yesterday’s ACORN post.

Thanks Glenn!

Here’s some more unbiased journalism from the national press:

(The premis is a joke. Didn’t anyone see Obama’s eyes darken and veins swell during the debate? At one point I thought he was going to pop his jaw out of joint while waiting for McCain to finish. And what he lacks in temper-mental-ness, Michelle MORE than makes up for.)

(Plus: I kind of like McCain’s grumpy old man routine when he’s had his fill of the crap on The Hill. The man’s got some fire; so what?)

Hat Tip:  All American Blogger

Must be nice to have raised nearly half a billion for your campaign so you can do stuff like this.

Michelle Malkin inquired about the All Obama All the Time channel and got a response from Dish here.

My question:  what is The One paying for his 24/7 satellite channel?  And is that the going rate or did he get some sort of affirmative action discount?

You simply must read this NYT times piece by Stephen Holmes from September 20, 1999.  A few excerpts to whet your whistle:

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.

and

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980′s.

and

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

(Hat Tip:  Nicky Cheese)