Link Banana

Ross Douthat’s been on the editorial page of the New York Times for a few months, and while none of his columns have been out-of-the-park exceptional, most are rather good. Yesterday’s example:

When it comes to divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births, Americans with graduate degrees are still living in the 1950s. It’s the rest of the country that marries impulsively, divorces frequently, and bears a rising percentage of its children outside marriage. Indeed, if you’re looking for modern-day Percy Shelleys or Mary Wollstonecrafts (to pluck a pair of Nehring’s romantic risk-takers), you’re more likely to find them in Middle America than among the environmental lawyers and documentary filmmakers who populate Tsing Loh’s depressing social world.

He’s exactly what I thought he could be — a Brooksian conservative who’s not afraid to venture deep into the personal, religious, and moral weeds that Brooks himself mostly avoids.

June Thomas informs us that current literature suggest it’s a Secret Service agent.

Also: Tim, noting the sidebar links to a woman fascinated by Obama’s Secret Service detail and a short note about the  broader idea of “protection porn,” sees the genre as an allegory for all romantic relationships.

Melinda Henneberger tells an emotive story about the complicated love between a couple with adult-onset dementia. This line sums it up effectively:

This was a 21^st-century Romeo and Juliet.

It’s an interesting name, and an obvious reason. I’d like my name to stand for such a great idea.

Twitter — that 140 character “microblogging” engine — officially became the least romantic way to propose when it was recently used for that purpose by Greg Rewis.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had a stroke. And though I’m sure some will dismiss her conclusion about the experience as “new-agey claptrap,” it’s a story worth listening to.

(via kottke)

Rajaa Alsanea offers a small window into the love lives of young Saudis.

Where I come from, dating in the Western sense is not acceptable, either socially or religiously. Though most Saudis sympathized with “the Qatif girl” — a young woman who was gang-raped while in a car with a male friend, then sentenced to 200 lashes for “mingling” — and relieved when King Abdullah pardoned her last year, that does not mean that sitting with a strange guy in his car is considered appropriate.

Some daredevils do meet in coffee shops or restaurants that have partitions to separate the tables so nobody can see the illicit couples. After all, being a Saudi means knowing what the rules are — and how to sidestep them without getting in trouble. But most young women prefer to get to know the guy through accepted channels like the Internet, friends, family or the phone.

These days, Saudi relationships start on Facebook or through Bluetooth. We “date” over the phone or by instant messaging, and we enjoy exchanging gifts — through our chauffeurs or housemaids.

Sarah Vowell’s written the best tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. that’s likely to come out of this day of memory.

…there’s a pleasing symmetry in Reagan forking over a day to Dr. King. Both men owe their reputations to the Sermon on the Mount. The president’s most enduring bequest might be a city-smiting drug war, but thanks to a nice smile and a biblical sound bite that’s not how he’s remembered. Reagan cribbed from the Gospel of Matthew via the Puritan John Winthrop to dream up his “shining city on a hill” legacy. And Americans in general and Republican presidential candidates in particular still believe in it, probably because they’re not watching “The Wire.”

Here’s what Dr. King got out of the Sermon on the Mount. On Nov. 17, 1957, in Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, he concluded the learned discourse that came to be known as the “loving your enemies” sermon this way: “So this morning, as I look into your eyes and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you: ‘I love you. I would rather die than hate you.’ ”

Go ahead and re-read that. That is hands down the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical thing a human being can say. And it comes from reading the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical civics lesson ever taught, when Jesus of Nazareth went to a hill in Galilee and told his disciples, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.”

ScienceMatch.com’s bold claim — with actual science behind it:

Our patent-pending technology uses your DNA to find others with a natural body fragrance you’ll love, with whom you’d have healthier children, a more satisfying sex life, and more. Our personal-values-analysis provides a deep spiritual bond, to complete your path to truly amazing relationships.

Maybe I’m the only one who finds the idea of smell-matching oddly compelling.

(via The Econimist)

I found this odd. Slate’s Jacob Weinberg had this to say about the relationship between the two men (emphasis mine):

But don’t assume that the common qualities or shared goals of McCain and Obama would result in a civil contest. In early 2006, McCain denounced Obama in an unusually nasty letter for a perceived betrayal on the lobbying reform bill. Obama responded (in a joking context, but still) that his goal was to learn how to be as much of a prima donna as McCain. The front-runners are enough alike to dislike each other intensely.

While David Brooks said this:

John McCain has cordial relations with Obama…

Someone’s lying, but who?