Researchers insist they can tell someone’s politlcal affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms. Messy? You’re a lefty. A neatnik? Welcome to the Right.

According to a controversial new study, set to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, the bedrooms and offices of liberals, who are generally thought of as open, tend to be colorful and awash in books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials in their personal spaces, according to the study. Their bedrooms and offices are well-lighted and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags—especially American ones.

[...]

“It’s pleasurable for liberals to think more. They gravitate toward art, to things that are not as concrete,” says Carney. “Conservatives have a need for order, for there not to be ambiguity. There you see that expressed by being more orderly, having more cleaning supplies, needing to have everything lined up and organized so that one feels one’s environment is predictable and therefore safe.”

So how do they explain this?

A new Gallup poll (HT: Tempus Fugit) suggests that we’re both wrong to a degree: Islamic radicals don’t cite religious motivations, but they’re not economically downtrodden, either.

“Suppose a man was in charge of a large and powerful animal, and made a study of its moods and wants; he would learn when to approach and handle it, when and why it was especially savage or gentle, what the different noises it made meant, and what tone of voice to use to soothe or annoy it. All this he might learn by long experience and familiarity, and then call it a science, and reduce it to a system and set up to teach it. But he would not really know which of the creature’s tastes and desires was admirable or shameful, good or bad, right or wrong; he would simply use the terms on the basis of its reactions calling what pleased it good, what annoyed it bad. He would have no rational account to give of them, but would call the inevitable demands of the animal’s nature right and admirable, remaining quite blind to the real nature of and difference between inevitability and goodness, and quite unable to tell anyone else what it was. he would make a queer sort of teacher, wouldn’t he?”

“Very queer.”

“But is there really any difference between him and the man who thinks that the knowledge of the passions and pleasure of the mass of the common people is a science, whether he be painter, musician, or politician? If he keeps such company, and submits his poems or other productions, or his public services, to its judgment, he is going out of this way to make the public his master and to subject himself to the fatal necessity of producing only what it approves.”

Republic 493

I was particularly interested in the psychology of her abductors. The men who kidnapped Carroll murdered her translator, and they were apparently closely associated with al-Zarqawi. Yet they repeatedly expressed concern that she be comfortable, and they even repaid her for her laptop when they released her, seeming to want her to think she was treated well by them. What explains this hodgepodge of cruelty and kindness?

What actually happened was that Stephen Colbert, a comedian, recently delivered a speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (was it funny? imagine a junior higher having just learned about sarcasm, trying to insult someone).

Part of his speech contained these lines: “By the way, Senator McCain, it’s so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University.” Folks, Colbert was making jokes, not reporting the news.

Sadly, it’s no surprise so many people who read The Da Vinci Code think they’re learning theology.

Kenneth Chase, a language school owner from Belmont, said Kennedy _ and not the Republican presidents who launched each war _ was responsible because he had not insisted on an energy policy that weaned the United States from its dependence on foreign oil.

“The nation’s at war and the war was easily avoidable,” Chase said. “If we didn’t need the oil, we wouldn’t be in Iraq. One man had all the legislative power concentrated in his hands over the past 40 years to ensure we had an energy policy: Ted Kennedy.”

With the prospect of Republicans losing control of one or both houses of Congress in the 2006 midterms, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are starting a campaign in churches to support pro-family candidates. It’s called “Left Behind but not Left Now: What End-Time Prophecy Says About American Politics.” The first day of the two-day seminar will focus on “Patterns of Destruction,” the parallels between the disintegration of the family and the nation in Greece, Rome, England, America, and the tribulation; the second day is on “Hope in the Midst.”

Nevertheless, a number of voters did sign the petition, including BU School of Management Dean Louis Lataif, as BU’s student newspaper, The Daily Free Press, reports. Lataif had no comment, but the paper’s reporter had no trouble finding students willing to describe the current state of campus free speech:

“I’m surprised,” SMG sophomore Natalya Kamenetsky said. “You wouldn’t expect that from a dean from any school because BU is so diverse.”

Who would ever expect diversity of thought at a “diverse” university?

Now, you might think that only a reactionary conservative would oppose making website lists of one’s political opponents. Consider this: recently the conservative “Bruin Alumni Association” of UCLA published website lists of UCLA professors it considers liberal proselytizers. What do liberal academics think of that?

Adrienne Lavine, chairwoman of UCLA’s academic senate, agreed that the university could do little more at this point. She said she found the profiles on the alumni group’s website “inflammatory” and “not a positive way to address the concerns that Mr. Jones has expressed.”

. . .

On one of its websites, the Bruin Alumni Group names education professor Peter McLaren as No. 1 on its “The Dirty Thirty: Ranking the Worst of the Worst.” It says “this Canadian native teaches the next generation of teachers and professors how to properly indoctrinate students.”

McLaren, in a telephone interview, called the alumni group’s tactics “beneath contempt.”

“Any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism. Any decent American is going to see through this kind of right-wing propaganda. I just find it has no credibility,” he said.

The website also lists history professor Ellen DuBois, saying she “is in every way the modern female academic: militant, impatient, accusatory, and radical — very radical.” In response, DuBois said: “This is a totally abhorrent invitation to students to participate in a witch hunt & against their professors.”

What of KnowThyNeighbor.org? Is it “inflammatory” and “not a positive way to address the concerns”? Is it true that “any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism [and that] any decent American is going to see through this kind of [left]-wing propaganda”? Perhaps it’s “beneath contempt” as “a totally abhorrent invitation to [citizens] to participate in a witch hunt against their [neighbors].” You decide.

TED KENNEDY is deeply troubled by the ethics of the Supreme Court nominee. Between 2001 and 2006, Samuel Alito, who is currently an appeals court judge, accepted $7,684,423 in “donations” from special interests who perhaps wanted the law tweaked in their favour. That included $28,000 from defence contractors, $42,200 from drug firms and a whopping $745,373 from lawyers and law firms.

No, wait. Those are Senator Kennedy’s conflicts of interest—or, rather, a brief excerpt from a long list compiled by the Centre for Responsive Politics. The lapse for which the senator berated Mr Alito was considerably less clear-cut.

Nice. Those weren’t even the same Kennedy ethical lapses I had in mind as I watched him attempt to slander Alito as a bigot. True, were Alito a bigot or unethical, Kennedy’s character would be irrelevant: in that case Alito’s nomination should be rejected. However, from the hearings it seems clear that whatever he is, Alito is neither bigoted nor unethical. Kennedy’s attempts to characterize him as such should have struck any fair-minded observer as only political grandstanding.

I also had the same impression about the respective abilities of Alito and his senatorial interlocutors as does the Economist‘s writer:

Judge Alito seems shy and bookish—his wife, a former law librarian, says it took him 13 months to ask her out. When he first appeared before the Senate, he was so nervous he was briefly struck dumb. But he soon found his stride, because he clearly knows more about the law than his inquisitors do.

Even a cursory look at his record shows that the sound-bite charges against Judge Alito—that he doesn’t think machineguns should be regulated, that he never sides with blacks alleging discrimination—are simply untrue. His record on the bench is one of cautious rulings and scrupulous deference to precedent.

HT: Professor Bainbridge

But Kennedy’s attempt today to sully Alito’s reputation was saddening. The links between Alito and bigotry or unethical behavior are so tenuous, and the numerous opposite testimonies about him are so clear, that it seems Kennedy is only trying to find excuses to vote against the nomination. I’m not surprised that Kennedy has apparently made up his mind in advance; I’m disappointed that he has no respect for a man’s reputation. He’s willing to destroy Alito’s reputation if it will help advance Kennedy’s political goals. I’m sure Kennedy does not bear Alito any ill will–for him besmirching someone’s character is just another move in the game. That he thinks so, and that we keep electing a man who operates that way, is sad.