"We felt that it was important for people to know that there was more to the narrative of Reeva than an exceptionally beautiful girl in a bikini."

"... that she was strong and vibrant and funny and lovely and that this is a tragedy on an unspeakable level."

Reeva's cousin, Sharon Steenkamp, told the Associated Press news agency the family did not oppose the airing, saying: "Her last words to us personally was that she wants us to watch it."

"It" is a TV realty show called "Tropika Island of Treasure." Reeva Steenkamp is the woman Oscar Pistorius is accused of murdering.

The "noble behavior" of Germany and Europe on climate change is "inviting freeloaders."

German government adviser Kai Konrad says: "It's a mistake to believe our noble behavior will so greatly impress others in these talks that it will move them to make concessions in return."

At an international level, we can expect that our one-sided measures to avoid emitting climate-damaging CO2 actually serve to suppress reductions other countries might otherwise make. On balance, our well-intentioned behavior is expensive for us and does nothing to protect the climate....

Everything we know suggests that Central Europe will suffer comparatively little from global warming. Berlin will simply have the temperatures that Rome does today. The adjustments we will have to make are quite manageable....

The amount we're spending in an attempt to reduce CO2 would be better invested in education and health in the regions that are under threat. Our goal should be to improve economic conditions in developing countries, because that in turn strengthens those countries' ability to adapt to climate change.

NOTE: Adapt to climate change. This is where we are heading. That's the inconvenient truth right now. The change will come, and we will need to adapt as actual changed conditions force us to adapt. We've been told the problem with adapting as the change occurs is that it will happen too quickly. Climate is always changing, but the problem with man-made climate change is that it comes too fast.

Why can't we slow the pace of change by changing what we do before the real-world change happens? It would require radical sacrifices and readjustments before we feel the pressure of the actual changes in the climate. People have trouble adapting quickly, which is supposed to be why we must act now, but it's also why we're not adapting to the predictions. The only thing we will adapt to is the climate change as it arrives. If it arrives quickly, it will challenge our capacity to adapt quickly, but we will do what we must, which will vary from place to place.

That's what Konrad is recognizing, even as he gives some sympathy to the people in the parts of the world who will suffer the most. They are also the "freeloaders" who won't make "concessions" to the first-world countries like Germany that might have nobly embraced sacrifice early on.

NOTE: In the comments, please don't rehash the question of whether global warming is a hoax, whether the predictions of climate change are correct, and so forth. Assume for the purposes of this discussion that the predictions are correct, that Berlin will become like Rome — and Madison like Mobile, Alabama — by midcentury. This post isolates a specific set of ideas that requires this assumption and the other — oft-discussed — topic will be a distraction.

"Carpenters' union protests Madison businesses; refuses to back up claims."

"On two occasions, two people at two separate NCSRCC offices have sworn emphatically that a phone call would be returned that day or the next, but no calls ever materialized. Someone named 'Tony' from the union once left a voicemail, but then never answered a returned call."

I've seen the 3 guys holding up the sign out by Hilldale shopping center. Twice I tried to read the sign to figure out which place they had a beef with. I assumed it was the steakhouse, which was the place they were closest to, but I couldn't read the name of the place at the bottom of the sign, because the men were letting the sign droop. Now I see their target was Lululemon Athletica, a shop with some nice-looking athletic-wear. Makes me want to run over there and buy some toasty tech tights.

Belgian doctors give suicide injections to 45-year-twins who were going blind.

Marc and Eddy Verbessem, who were deaf, decided they didn't want to live anymore, and the doctors fulfilled their death wish.

Euthanasia is legal under Belgian law if those making the decision can make their wishes clear and are suffering unbearable pain, according to a doctor's judgement....

Mr Dufour, the doctor who presided over the euthanasia, told RTL television news that the twins had taken the decision in 'full conscience.' He said they were 'very happy' and it had was a 'relief' to see the end of their suffering.

'They had a cup of coffee in the hall, it went well and a rich conversation,' Mr Dufour said. 'Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful. At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone.'

This is a shocking story. We're told the men were "terrified" of being institutionalized once they went blind. But they hadn't gone blind yet, and they hadn't attempted to learn how to live independently while blind and deaf. Why not at least wait until they actually became blind? Why advance-euthanize? And what kind of a society facilitates death for the disabled while scaring them with the loss of their freedom? When are the blind institutionalized?

Where was the "unbearable pain"? There was no physical pain, only mental anguish, accepted as pain. And the anguish seems to have been premised on a fear of institutionalization. Why were they threatened by that? If their fear was reasonable, something is wrong with the treatment of the disabled in Belgium. If their fear was unreasonable, their decision should not have been enough even in a system that authorizes physician assisted suicide.

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo (who is a doctor) offers a passage from Robert Jay Lifton's book "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And The Psychology Of Genocide."

"No to the man with 762 home runs. No to the pitcher who won 354 games. No to the hitter who got 3,060 hits."

Baseball Hall of Fame vote against steroid-era stars.

"Very soon, [the Washington Redskins] will find out if they have lost a quarterback, Robert Griffin III..."

"... and, if so, to what new injury to his right knee and for how long. It could be not much. It could be a great deal. And so could the repercussions."

Hold your breath. But understand that, from Griffin’s first play to his last, this game epitomizes the emergency-room world of NFL mayhem that all players accept and that quarterbacks, as team leaders, must play by a carry-me-off-on-my-shield code.

"Thirteen years ago, I happened to be at my folks for New Year's."

"Both my Dad and my significant other were asleep in couches and Mom and I were sitting drinking and gossiping."

The subject of resolutions came up and somehow we decided we were going to do a good deed at least once every day for a year.

It seemed so much better than depriving ourselves of something or quitting something or losing weight or whatever. It could be as simple as letting someone ahead of us in traffic, helping a person find the right aisle in the grocery or even being nice to a telemarketer.

My Mom passed away that year. I have done a good deed every day since, for the last thirteen years. And every time I do, I think of her.

"Don’t trade up..."

That's a rule that "starts out as a bit of simple, practical instruction — don’t back out of a social engagement just because a snazzier offer came along — and broadens out into an entire perspective on how to live."

Don’t grade friendships on a hierarchical scale. Don’t value people based on some external indicator of status. Don’t take a competitive view of your social life. There are very few rules I carry around with me every day. Don’t trade up is one of them, and I truly can’t tell you how many seemingly complicated situations it resolved into clarity and fairness. I am grateful to you for that.

One of the lessons learned. 

Plus... handmade impromptu gifts, like a little chair made out of that wire that goes around a champagne cork.

Emily Yoffe asserts that I attacked her "as a tool of the racial and ethnic preference lobby."

She stands by her ethical advice to someone, but quite aside from my problem with that ethical advice, I'd like to say that it's unethical to portray what I said so inaccurately.

Here's the post I wrote, which isn't a general attack on her support for affirmative action. I was calling attention to the problem of incomplete honesty from those who seek to benefit from affirmative action and the way the school applying its policy has shared interests that cause it not to want to know about a false or misleading statement. This is the very issue that had been in the news with respect to Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. The schools want to be able to say that they have a good proportion of minority students, so they may not mind if an applicant claims, based on family lore, to be a member of a minority group.

Yoffe professed not to notice any harm to anyone in this interaction between a school and an applicant. That was, at best, willfully blind. As an ethicist, she ought to want to address the larger problem. And now, after linking to me as she did, she has an ethical obligation toward me that needs some attention.

"The great Arthur Miller sent his NYU 1L Civ Pro class the exam instruction sheet. Except… he sent us the whole exam. Lulz."

There may be a couple of solutions, but one is obviously the best, and that's what Miller did. The students got some "lulz," other profs experienced twinges of vicarious pain, and Miller got to teach the world 2 more lessons — what not to do and what to do.

"University of Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez made a choice this week based on nothing more than what he thought was right."

"Mr. Alvarez's and Mr. Chryst's emphasis on commitment and ethics is unusual in a college sports landscape that has seen universities break 50-year-old conference ties for a few extra million dollars in TV revenue or coaches who issue statements of commitment only to leave for a 'dream job' a few days or weeks later."

"[T]he target of my investigation – the man I had publicly shamed – had killed himself."

"I’m used to the people I investigate hating my guts. I’m somewhat used to them screaming at me. I’m used to their attempts to pressure me. Having them commit suicide is somewhat new."

"Photo of Man’s Imminent Demise Covers Front Page of the New York Post, Sparks Outrage."

"Abbasi claims that he was using his camera's flash to warn the train's conductor, possibly suggesting that the photos were incidental. The Post further defends Abbasi, saying he wasn't strong enough to lift Han off the tracks."

Have we lost our soul?

Man pretends to be gay and writes a book about it.

Gets criticized.

“I feel for the gay community of Nashville, and for every person who trusted [Timothy] Kurek enough to flirt with him, hang out with him, and confide in him about their lives,” wrote Amy Lieberman on the blog Feministing. “If I were in that community, I would feel so betrayed right now.”

In a Huffington Post blog post titled “Pretending To Be Gay Isn’t The Answer,” Emily Timbol, a religion blogger, expressed a similar opinion: “What's sad is that every interaction Timothy had during his year pretending was fake.”...

As for his original goal, to radically change who he was, Kurek says mission accomplished. He says he has conquered his prejudices of the LGBT community and is happy with the person he has become.

“If anybody had told me back then who I would be or what I would believe now,” Kurek said, “I would have thought they were completely insane.”

For example, Kurek now thinks homosexuality is completely acceptable.

So... he's a big old faker. He could be faking (or kidding himself) when he says he's not gay.

The book is "The Cross in the Closet," and he's writing a sequel... about his further journeys.... who knows where? His book is #9 on Amazon's gay & lesbian bestseller list.Once you're a successful memoir writer, you've got to have further vivid experiences. [ADDED: I predict: "The Cross Out of the Closet"... planned consciously/unconsciously all along.]

What did Norah Vincent do after "Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man"? I don't remember her receiving much criticism for her fakery, even though as a lesbian, she was sexually attracted to the women she met in the guise of a man. Her encore? "Voluntary Madness"!

At the conclusion of her celebrated first book — Self-Made Man... — Norah Vincent found herself emotionally drained and severely depressed.

Determined but uncertain about maintaining her own equilibrium, she boldly committed herself to three different facilities-a big-city hospital, a private clinic in the Midwest, and finally an upscale retreat in the South. Voluntary Madness is the chronicle of Vincent's journey through the world of the mentally ill as she struggles to find her own health and happiness.

"Even though it’s my job to be an actor, I have given my life to God."

"I am very comfortable and firm in that, but I still have to be on this show. It’s the No. 1 comedy, but it’s very inappropriate and the themes are very inappropriate. I have to be this person I am not."

The continuing struggles of 19-year-old Angus T. Jones, of "Two and a Half Men," the show he called "filth" and urged people not to watch, remarks he now apologizes for if they "reflect me showing indifference to and disrespect of my colleagues and a lack of appreciation of the extraordinary opportunity of which I have been blessed."

"We write ethically when, as a matter of principle, we would trade places with our intended readers..."

"... and experience the consequences they do after they read our writing...."

Those who write in ways that seem dense and convoluted rarely think they do....

The ethics of writing are clearer when writers knowingly use language not to further their readers’ interests but to disguise their own....

A more complicated ethical issue is how we should respond to those who know they write in a complex style, but claim they must, because they are breaking new intellectual ground. Are they right, or is that self-serving rationalization? This is a vexing question, not just because we can settle it only case-by-case, but because we may not be able to settle some cases at all, at least not to everyone’s satisfaction.

Joseph M. Williams, "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace."

This makes me think about legal opinions, but there is so much more. Imagine if, whenever we wrote, we thought about ethics.

"Your wife is having an affair with a person you happen to respect. Why would that last detail change the way you respond to her cheating?"

"Do you admire this man so much that you haven’t asked your wife why she keeps having sex with him? I halfway suspect you’re writing this letter because you want specific people to read this column and deduce who is involved and what’s really going on behind closed doors (without actually addressing the conflict in person). That’s not ethical, either."

Said the NYT Ethicist, last July, responding to "NAME WITHHELD," who some people are now speculating is the husband cuckolded by Petraeus.

ADDED: I'm surprised to see the NYT Ethicist is Chuck Klosterman. I know him as the author of the book "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto." Excerpt:

I’m having a crisis of confidence, and I blame Jesus.

Actually, my crisis is not so much about Jesus as it is about the impending rapture, which I don’t necessarily believe will happen. But I don’t believe the rapture won’t happen, either; I really don’t see any evidence for (or against) either scenario. It all seems unlikely, but still plausible. Interestingly enough, I don’t think there is a word for my particular worldview: “Nihilism” means you don’t believe in anything, but I can’t find a word that describes partial belief in everything. “Paganism” is probably the closest candidate, but that seems too Druidesque for the style of philosophy I’m referring to. Some would claim that this is kind of like “agnosticism,” but true agnostics always seem too willing to side with the negative; they claim there are no answers, so they live as if those answers don’t exist. They’re really just nihilists without panache. Not me, though. I’m prone to believe that just about any religious ideology is potentially accurate, regardless of how ridiculous it might seem (or be). Which is really making it hard for me to comment on Left Behind.

That's the beginning of an essay on the Left Behind series.

What if you had to argue that it's good for children to play "What if you had argue?"

In the previous post, where I'd slipped and made a ridiculous statement in the post title — "46% say Clinton won the debate" — I updated to reminisce about the old game — I called it "crazy" — that I used to play with my sons called "What if you had to argue?"

I'd come up with some strange statement and the challenge was to come up with the arguments they'd make if they had to argue that. What if you had to argue that Bill Clinton won the debate?

See? You could come up with some things to say, and you could have a lot of fun listening to the quasi-cogent or absurd things that would be said. Looking back on the old days with my sons, I tend to self-deprecatingly call the game crazy. Why would you encourage your children to argue persuasively about things that are not true?

What if you had to argue that it's not crazy at all? Actually, I don't think it is crazy. What the children are learning — if you handle the discussion well — is how human beings deceive and manipulate with language. It's a hands-on — brain-on? — experience with how trickery is done, how people can lie with a straight face, how something can be made to sound perfectly plausible when it's clearly dead wrong. They learn how it feels from the inside to construct lies and sophistry, so they can recognize it in others and in themselves. They learn a respect for verbal skills. They learn the power and the danger. That's an important life skill! Like all the other life skills, it can be turned to evil, but critical thinking and verbal skill ought to equip them to discover an authentic ethical foundation.

What if you had to argue that critical thinking and verbal skill lead children to an authentic ethical foundation?

"I am saddened by my daughter’s ongoing disappointment because we could not afford to send her to her dream college."

"Instead, we are paying for her education at half the price (but still over $26,000 a year) at an in-state school," writes some mother to advice columnist Amy Dickinson.

This takes me back to my teenage years, in the 1960s, when my parents told me they couldn't send me to a private school (after my French teacher talked up Middlebury College to me). I didn't consider it an option to complain, though I felt bad about it.



My parents paid all my college expenses, and the notion of taking loans to make up the difference never came up. It was a different culture back then, at least at my house. You understood that you bought what you could afford, and it showed bad character to mope about it, and you didn't want to be ungrateful or selfish. And if I had crossed the line into a display of such bad character traits, my parents would never have considered writing to an advice columnist about what to do about their complaining, ungrateful daughter who won't value what is good about the college we are able to pay for.

Ask Amy says: "Your daughter needs to learn a lesson tougher than any course she will take in college: that she is responsible for her own success and happiness, now and beyond," and maybe she should transfer somewhere she likes better and, along the way, figure out how to cover whatever expenses exceed the part her parents can pay. That's good advice for the daughter. But I prefer advice columnists who go straight for the letter-writer's problem when the letter-writer is saying somebody else is a problem. There are always implied problems belonging to the letter-writer, beginning with the problem of lacking your own ideas of how to extricate yourself from your problems.

What did you do to raise a daughter who would put on a display of complaining like that? At the same time, I look to myself and wonder why I accepted the limitation, imposed by my parents, of attending a big state school and had no idea of how to explore the option of going somewhere else.

The culture has truly tipped, with everyone feeling entitled to things they can't pay for and assuming somebody else over there will pay somehow, some time, and I shouldn't have to think about them.

"It just doesn't make sense to be walking around on your day legs at one height and then you're six inches or so taller on your running prostheses."

"You don't want the sport turning into a circus where, you know, doubles walk in with barely any training under their belt and they are running able-bod (able-bodied) qualification times."

Is Oscar Pistorius a hypocrite?