Via a commenter at Jerry’s, a salient remark by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker in 2002, in a Talk of the Town piece on Niceness.

The problem, of course, is that niceness is overrated as a virtue. Many cultures are nice. The Southern antebellum aristocracy was marvellously well-mannered; its members left tasteful calling cards, entertained gracefully, and conducted their personal affairs with the utmost discretion. But they had few other virtues; in fact, it was the practice of niceness that helped to keep other values, such as fairness, at bay. Fairness sometimes requires that surfaces be disturbed, that patterns of cordiality be broken, and that people, rudely and abruptly, be removed from their place. Niceness is the

I’m relieved to see that somebody in the UK is aware of the…….erm……..the lack of warmth in the ahem service professionals there. I wondered if it was just me.

No I didn’t really; instead I wondered if everybody there is crazy.

Surly, slapdash and dreadful. That’s how chef Michel Roux Jr sums up customer service in the UK.

“It’s not just in restaurants, you get bad service anywhere,” he says. “Even buying a newspaper you can find that you’re not even acknowledged. There’s no eye contact, no greeting or anything. Bad service is unforgivable and it’s everywhere in the UK.”

It’s true you know. It’s the surliness I can’t stand. Dignity would be all right; a polite reserve would be … Read the rest

Two of the ACLU attorneys who signed the letter to the feds did a blog post on it. The ACLU website has a whole section on Reproductive Freedom. Useful stuff.… Read the rest

I’ve been reading the bishop of Phoenix again. (I have my reasons. I’m doing a talk at CFI Vancouver in a couple of weeks, and I intend to draw on the bish.) I’ve been doing a close reading, as one might with a poem or a PR release. I noticed some things. Here’s one of them.

The decisions regarding life and death, morality and immorality as they relate to medical ethics are at the forefront of the Church’s mission today. As a result, the Church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility to remain actively engaged in these discussions and debates.

Look at what he’s saying there. He’s saying that decisions regarding life and death are at the forefront … Read the rest

Eww!

I was browsing Churchandstate.org, via a post on Eric’s blog, and what did I find but a fetid little abomination called “the stay-at-home-daughters movement.” As in “stay at home because you are inferior and subordinate and your Duty in life is to be a conduit for child production and a domestic servant.”

The stay-at-home-daughters movement, which is promoted by Vision Forum, encourages young girls and single women to forgo college and outside employment in favor of training as “keepers at home” until they marry. Young women pursuing their own ambitions and goals are viewed as selfish and antifamily; marriage is not a choice or one piece of a larger life plan, but the ultimate goal. Stay-at-home daughters

Hitchens notes a difference between Mumtaz Qadri, and Paul Foot and Nelson Mandela.

A decision to resort to violence was not something to be undertaken without great care—and stated in terms that were addressed to reasonable people. From his prison cell, Nelson Mandela had joined the great tradition of the French philosophes, of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, of Marx and Engels in 1848, and of Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1930s—of men and women who felt the historic obligation to make a stand and to define it.

In other words, to give reasons.

Now look at the grinning face of Mumtaz Qadri, the man who last week destroyed a great human being. He did not explain. He boasted.