William Saletan at Slate.com argues that we need to rethink laws against marrying within the family:

Does science support our laws against incest and cousin marriage? If so, does it also support other laws that would restrict sexual or procreative freedom in the name of genetic health?

To longtime readers of Human Nature, this question should be, if you\’ll pardon the term, familiar. A few years ago, we looked at the science and ethics of \”The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Surname.\” Then we examined the prevalence of inbreeding in nature. Then we considered the awkward question of why, if incest is too genetically risky to permit, maternity in your 40s isn\’t.

He goes on to cite statistics that show very low birth abnormality rates in cultures where marrying relatives is common, in an attempt to convince us that laws prohibiting such activity are overly restrictive.

I actually appreciate arguments like these that challenge conventional wisdom with facts.  Yet, in this case, I can\’t go along with the thesis.  Facts or no facts, inter-family sex should remain illegal for one important, time-tested reason:

IT\’S GROSS.

A small nugget that seems to have slipped by my notice:  It looks like former Washington Post reporter Peter Baker has moved over to the New York Times to cover the Obama White House.

A personal note, for a moment – Baker was my high school\’s newspaper editor-in-chief a few years before I took over the reins.  He came back to our school several times after taking his first job as a young reporter with the Washington Post (once to cover a horrific suicide at our school, where a student crashed his motorcycle into a brick wall), and I had the occasion to talk to him a little.  I still have a letter he wrote me when I was editor of \”The Orange Peal,\” (when he was editor, it was called the \”Farm News,\” but I hated it, so I got the staff to change it), offering me encouragement when entering the field of journalism.  (Apparently, it wasn\’t enough encouragement, given what I do for a living now – but it was always appreciated.)

Aside from being a nice guy and a class act, he is also clearly an outstanding reporter. Obviously, as he has ascended to White House Correspondent for the New York Times, a few important people think so, too.  I\’ve read two of his books and a great number of his reports throughout the years, and I honestly can\’t tell where his political persuasions lie.  And I look pretty closely for that type of thing.

Oh, and not that it matters, but he is also a frequent guest on \”Washington Week,\” on PBS, some episodes of which can be seen here.

O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it.

~Mark Twain, \”The War Prayer\”

Mark Twain dictated this poem in 1904, and it professes to capture the horrors of battle.  Unfortunately, Twain would have had many more horrors to write about had he ever visited Disney World.

It was with this attitude that I took my family down to Florida this past week for a trip to the Magic Kingdom.  As a professional misanthrope, I was not looking forward to this trip at all.  It seemed to involve a lot of walking and purchasing, where my ideal vacation rarely involves me leaving the supine position.  And as it turned out, it was more work than actually being at home.  By day three, I needed a vacation from my vacation.  But I thought my kids were ready for the experience, and parents and sisters were all going, so I felt obligated.

The thing I dreaded the most was the compulsory obeisance the Disney company forces on families.  Being in the complex is really like being in a Disney sensory deprivation chamber – as if nothing that didn\’t involve Donald Duck could be happening in the world.  No television, no internet.  I ran into a restaurant to pick up a pizza one night, and caught a little bit of ESPN (another Disney property) out of the corner of my eye.  It was telling me the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had hired a new head coach.  I had to text my friend Mark to find out what happened to John Gruden.  Maybe this is just a statement on how wired we all are now to get instantaneous information, but it was unsettling.  For all I knew, a fiery meteor could have just taken out Wisconsin (or, fingers crossed, Illinois), and I\’d be sitting there happily, chowing down on some Buzz Lightyear ribs.

The other thing that struck me about the parks was how anachronistic they are.  Everything still has the feel of when I first visited 20 years ago.  This is strange, since the properties that are carrying Disney aren\’t the same ones I grew up with.  Mickey and Minnie have been replaced by Wall-E, the Incredibles, High School Musical, and Lightning McQueen.  Yet when you walk around the parks, these characters are nearly invisible.  In fact, it appears they are now just getting around to crafting some Toy Story rides, and that movie came out a decade ago.

On the one hand, it makes sense that they would want to stay rooted in the original Disney characters that have served them so well for so long.  And it certainly costs a lot of money to create a new ride with the newer characters in mind.  You don\’t want to build an expensive ride for a property that may be fleeting – for instance, there are a couple of attractions centered around \”Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,\” a movie that hasn\’t been played on any DVD player in America in 5 years.

But it does make the parks seem hopefully out of date.  When rides at Epcot are still hailing the advent of FIBER OPTICS, it may be time for a facelift.  It appears the only 21st century upgrades in the whole complex are the new inventions that allow them to vacuum money directly out of your wallet.  When we walked by the Hall of Presidents and noticed that it was closed, I figured they had to re-do the whole show to indicate that black people, in fact, now can be President.  I wonder how long it takes them to build a whole new robot Obama (or ROBAMA, a name I hereby coin as my own.)  In fact, my favorite rollercoaster happened to be \”Women Can\’t Vote Mountain.\”

(For an excellent piece by P.J. O\’Rourke  about how Disney fights to remain cutting edge, read here.)

Despite my general crankiness about being held hostage to the Mouse, it is impossible to be negative when your kids are having so much fun.  And my kids were having the time of their lives – although, as parents know, it\’s always a bittersweet experience when your kids are so happy.  Because in the back of your mind, you know that there will quickly come a point when your kids realize that they will have to stop doing what is thrilling them to death.  Then, it is payback.  You will, without a doubt, get more blame for making them leave Disney World than you will get credit for taking them in the first place.  You just have to hope that at some point in their 20\’s, they have a flashback that Mom and Dad may not have been so bad.

Our third day there, my mother shelled out big money for my daughter to get a princess makeover at the \”Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique,\” which dresses little girls up as their favorite Disney princess.  This was a risky proposition for my 5 year-old daughter, as she almost seems to be equal parts diva and tomboy.  It all depended on what mood she was in.  Plus, the whole thing kind of seemed to be a little \”stage parent\” for me – carting your daughter around a park dressed as a princess just felt a little too \”Jon Benet.\”  As I stood outside the boutique waiting for the makeover to finish, at least 70% of the poor little girls walking out of their makeovers were crying.  It\’s as if they were showing \”Schindler\’s List\” in there.

Ater the makeover, it became clear that my daughter has some issues with being the center of attention – although she warmed to the outfit and actually demanded that she get to wear the dress to the park the next day.  On the other hand, my 3 year-old son is the exact opposite – he is \”Mr. Entertainment.\”  At a Canadian Epcot steakhouse, he could be found holding court for the entire restaurant on a variety of issues: How much he loves elevators, how much he dislikes snakes, and how he thinks turkeys like potato chips.  To top things off, he treated the restaurant to renditions of \”Amazing Grace,\” \”The Star Spangled Banner,\” and Take Me Out to the Ballgame.\”

For my son, however, the highlight had to be the monorail.  Had we not paid a cent to get into a park, he would have been happy just riding the rail for five days.  (Advocates of the Kenosha-Racine rail should hire him as their spokesman.)  In fact, I took him to ride the train in a loop one last time before we left for the airport – and he sadly said goodbye to the monorail.  I have to admit – it really is a great system of moving people around the various parks.  Now, if I can only get one to take me from my couch to my fridge, we\’ll be okay.  (I had to laugh when the announcer on the monorail bragged about how \”ecologically friendly\” the trains were.  As if Disney didn\’t have a larger carbon footprint than most underdeveloped nations.)

While my son was preoccupied with the monorail, my daughter kept dragging me around to more and more rides.  I loved pretending to be scared of the rollercoasters, which allowed her to pat me on the back and gently tell me to \”stop being so chicken.\”  It made her feel great to think she was braver than her old man (and in the case of Space Mountain, which she rode 4 times, she was absolutely right.)

While the crowds did get pretty thick at times, we were always there early and able to hit the rides without much waiting in line.  The park obviously does seem a lot smaller than when I was a little kid, but that may be because people now are so much fatter.  Honest to God – you can\’t walk around anywhere in America now without thinking half the people walking around are about to have a coronary.  And we\’re going to be paying for these peoples\’ health care.  You know on the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons when the little Hawk gets hungry and sees Foghorn as a giant roasted turkey?  I see these people walking around as giant paycheck deductions.

There also seemed to be a group from the Middle East that overtook the Magic Kingdom on Sunday.  They all come wearing the same t-shirt, following someone with a giant flag.  Granted, I have no idea where they were from – but it would be strange if their conceptions of America were derived from Disney World.  They probably still wish death to America – but not until they ride Splash Mountain one more time.

At Epcot, there was also a large group of teens wearing \”Faith in 3-D\” t-shirts, which I assume is some religious organization.  Seems to be that there\’s no better way to get laid as a male teen than going on a trip to Disney with a bunch of Jesus people.  There were a lot of Wisconsin people there – and this is what I love most about people from here: They think they are doing you a disservice by not announcing to you that they are from Wisconsin.  As if your life is poorer if they don\’t wear Badger, Packer, or Brewer paraphernalia.  And they are always friendly.  I love this place.

As for the parks themselves, my kids liked the Magic Kingdom the most, followed by Epcot, which doesn\’t have many rides for their age group.  Hollywood Studios pretty much blows.  Didn\’t make it to the Animal Kingdom.  And Downtown Disney is just a bunch of stores that consolidates all the Mickey Mouse junk you can buy in the parks.

Even though it was 70 degrees and sunny while we were there, I am certainly happy to be home.  Now, after my vacation, I can finally rest.

People who know me know that I\’m certainly no lettuce and granola-chomping hippie.  But I am completely open to being convinced that food companies are trying to kill me.

Today over at WPRI, I posted an article about how government subsidies for certain agricultural crops (such as corn) actually distort the market, making it more appealing to eat crappy food.  Subsidies make sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup more affordable, thus making unhealthy food the most marketable to low-income American citizens.  While most people think the answer to health care is spending more money for care on the back end, it might actually do us some good to spend less money on government subsidies for corn.

If you\’re interested in this topic, I\’d also recommend you watch the movie \”King Corn,\” which follows two recent college graduates as they attempt to become corn farmers.  You can watch it free online if you have Netflix:

This morning, I stopped into a gas station to get a snack.  After I paid, I turned to walk out and noticed a 70 year-old-ish, rugged man coming out of the bathroom holding a newspaper.  He then proceeded to walk over, drop the newspaper on the stack of papers for sale, and leave the gas station.  It appears he was just taking the Wisconsin State Journal for a trial run while in the can.

God bless that guy.  Livin\’ the dream.

Finally, once again, there\’s hope for the hirsute.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I recently spent some time at the State Historical Society combing through old microfilm for some work research.  There really can be no more entertaining endeavor than sitting for hours soaking in the zeitgeist of some past era as told by the newspapers of that time.

In my hours there, I noticed an interesting phenomenon – there appeared to be a pack of elderly gentlemen spending a great deal of time reading old newspapers, but not for any real reason.  They just sat there, hour after hour, quietly reading newspapers from a half a decade ago.  They didn\’t take any notes, and only stood up to pull another reel out of the endless rows of microfilm files on the walls.

It was only after I left that I realized what might be going on here.  These might be old men who are wholly disillusioned with current popular culture, spending time reconnecting with the events of a happier era.  Essentially, if you don\’t like today\’s culture, the miles of microfilm housed at the Historical Society just allows you to pick a new era and live there for a little while.  Little, insignificant stories from your younger days might trip something in your brain that takes you back to a time when things were simpler.  You can just check out of America 2008 and be magically transformed back to the Eisenhower days, before crudity became the cultural standard and kids could actually run a lemonade stand without a permit from the city.

Imagine your life if you\’re a 75 year-old recent widower.  You can hop into the way-back machine for a few hours and comb through the world when you and your future wife had just met.  You can soak your senses in the JC Penney ads that were running when you got up the nerve to ask her out on your first date.  It\’s as close as you can get to the sensation you felt at the time, when the world was your oyster – and you didn\’t realize one day you\’d be spending your days trying to reclaim them by steadily scrolling through faded microfilm.

Of course, this is all speculative on my part.  Maybe they\’re just old men killing time, bored to tears by their retirement years.  But I almost feel like I need to go back and talk to some of these guys, to see if I\’m right.

Going back to the beginning of this post, here\’s an example of what I was talking about when I mentioned the entertainment value of combing through old newspapers.  Here\’s a news analysis that ran in the Wisconsin State Journal in January of 1984.  God bless their hearts.

This afternoon, I had to run to the bank to deposit one of my meager paychecks.  When I got out on the road, I grew very worried.  Every road in Madison was jam-packed with cars.  I wanted to know what I was missing – it looked exactly like it would look if there were an impending nuclear attack on Central Wisconsin and everyone was trying to get out of town at once.  Remember – I was a little kid when the movie \”The Day After\” showed on TV, so I have lived my life in constant fear of a nuclear attack.  If you\’re my age, you\’re generally afraid of three things: the Soviet Union launching a nuclear missle at us, the Japanese taking over the entire auto industry, and having to take Long Duk Dong to your school dance.

Apparently, the only impending threat citizens were under was the threat of not getting an extra dollar off of wool socks.  It appears that all of society just shuts down the entire week of Christmas.

So naturally, as I got to the bank, there was a line about 12 people deep.  The bank had three tellers working – an old lady, a dude, and… well, there\’s no way to beat around the bush on this… a hottie.  She had long brown hair and was wearing a fire red sweater that she likely picked out just for me.

I was aware that I had some time to kill, so I looked at the people ahead of me and ran the odds of me ending up at her window.  It was a complicated formula – I figured the guy with the club foot would take a little extra time, the lady tapping her foot seemed like she was in a hurry.  I suddenly had a plan in place that was only slightly less complicated than the invasion of Normandy.  I was going to get to that window.  (I had about 20 minutes to think about this, as half the people in line seemed to be taking out home mortgages right there at the teller window.)

As I got to the front of the line, the skies opened, the sun shone, and she called me over.  I sauntered toward her window, adopting my best devil-may-care attitude.  I tried to adopt a Don Draper-like persona: calm, cool, and mysterious. (I tried to hide the true intent of my visit to the bank – to put money in my checking account – until the very last minute, just to keep up the aura of mystery.)  I flipped my check and deposit slip onto the desk, cocked my head to the side, paused, and said \”deposit, please,\” as if James Dean himself were there standing in front of her bank terminal.

She smiled, looked at her computer and began typing.  Then she looked at me and leaned forward.  I braced for the seductive verbal bouquet that was about to trickle off her lips.  She began speaking in a hushed tone, and said:

\”Your credit card is delinquent.\”

I grabbed my receipt and shuffled out.  I think I\’ll go through the drive-thru next time.