Tuesday

Miscellany

My seed-starting operation. I planted eight herbs on Sunday. We'll see if they come up. * * * * * * * It's that time of year again: Christmas wars. According to Glenn Beck's site, if you want to boycott anti-Christmas stores, start with these culprits: American Eagle, GAP, Garmin, Old Navy, Tractor Supply Company, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Other companies receiving low marks: J. Crew, Banana Republic, and Radio Shack. Link. Also: Family Dollar, Barnes & Noble, and Staples. * * * * * * * Most startling headline of the day yesterday: "Study: Porn Stars More Religious, Have Higher Self-Esteem Than Other Women." Needless to say, it's a bogus study. How do I know? Easy: It violates the natural law. We need to look no further, but if we did, I'm sure we'd would find ridiculous shortcomings in the control group, the way they measure "self-esteem," and an assortment of other problems. Or maybe we could just read that article and find a glaring problem. Like this quote: “In terms of psychological characteristics, porn actresses had higher levels of self-esteem, positive feelings, social support, sexual satisfaction, and spirituality compared to the matched group." Emphasis added: "spirituality." I see, so we're including things like crystals, the enneagram, and gnosticism . . . maybe even its highly-sexualized form known as "pneumatic antinominianism," which basically holds, "I'm so spiritual, my body doesn't matter, so I can indulge it any way I want." If such a belief is included within "religion," then I can definitely buy into the idea that porn actresses are more religious than other women. * * * * * * * Note: If you want to read about pneumatic antinomianism, I highly recommend Norman Cohn's classic, The Pursuit of the Millennium.