I’m well aware that they refer non-constituents to their own reps/senators all the time, but no one until now has said that they are doing this because it would be against the law to deal with a non-constituent.

What law did they cite to you?

I find it hard to believe it’s against the law for McCaskill or Gillibrand to respond to a non-constituent. What law did these letters cite to you?

And turn it around for a minute. Are you saying that if McCaskill or Gillibrand put out a call for people to come forward to tell their stories of abuse, and they went on to deal with folks who live outside of MO and NY, they’d be breaking the law because these aren’t their constituents? Sorry, but that doesn’t pass the smell test.

Similarly, lobbyists can walk into any office on Capitol Hill and make their pitch, regardless of who their actual senator or representative is, and I haven’t heard of a single arrest.

I can easily see how a senator or representative would brush you off because they wouldn’t want to step on the toes of whoever your senators are, or how they might feel they’ve got enough to do responding to their own constituents, but I have a tough time seeing it being against the law.

You might want to bring this case to Claire McCaskill or Kirsten Gillibrand (both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee) who have been pushing for addressing events like this, or go to your own senator/representative. Given the climate right now around sexual abuse in the military, having someone in Congress asking difficult questions of the DOD might get more attention than having a journalist ask them.

Hmmm . . . in the supplemental information page of NOM Inc.’s 990 (pdf p. 28), it says that Brian Brown and Neil Corkery also serve on the board of ActRight Action.

Going to ActRight Action’s 990 for 2011, on page 7 it shows Brown works another 6 hours a week for them — with no compensation.

Back to the calculator . . .

No days off: 12.29 hrs/day
1 day off a week: 14.33 hrs/day
2 days off a week: 17.2 hrs/day

If I didn’t know better, I’d almost get the idea that someone is double counting his work hours.

Interestingly, on page 7 of those two 990s, Brian Brown is listed as working 40 hours a week for both NOM, Inc. and NOM Education Fund.

*pulling out the calculator*

Let’s see . . .

If he never takes a day off, then 80 hours a week, divided by 7 days comes to almost 11.5 hours/day.

If he takes one day off a week, then 80 hours a week divided by 6 days comes to 13.3 hours/day.

If he gets a whole weekend off each week, then it comes to 16 hours/day.

He’s either very busy, or someone at NOM has serious problems with math.

My “great progressive Obama”? Where’d you come up with that?

I’ve called Obama many things, but “great progressive” has never been on the list.

Maybe in some cases speakers are chosen to further debate, but not in this case. As the president himself said in the stories linked to above, Ryan was chosen because the president and Weigel (and several bishops) see Ryan as the model of a good Catholic politician. The only challenge being put forward was by the president to the students: “You students should listen to him and be more like him, because he’s doing what good Catholics do.”

I — and perhaps St Benedict — beg to differ.

Yes, there was a small group of protesters that lined the street approaching the campus, but no disruption of the ceremonies or anything like that.

I’ve got to run, but before I go, I want to offer my thanks once more for this wonderful book!

Yeah — When I got to that part of the book, I did a double take, then a bit of Googling around to sort it out.

Different Plum Island.

That’s PI, New York, and this one is in Massachusetts.

Bill, when I look at today’s political battles over science — like HHS and the approval of Plan B over the counter, or the NIH and the CDC and various AIDS debates and research on stem cells — what would be one or two lessons that today’s scientists in government could learn from Carson?

Agreed. I almost spilled the beverage at my elbow when I read that!

“Hard to define” certainly fits with what I came away with after reading the book. Yes, there’s something very strong between the two of them, but you tried to be careful about what you could and could not claim beyond that based on the evidence before you. Though I want to know more, I’m grateful you would only go as far as you thought the evidence would take you.

I had the sense throughout the book that Carson was an introvert — much happier on her own than in the midst of a crowd, more delighted in having deep one-on-one conversations than in making grand public speeches, and more energized by quiet moments alone or with one or two others than loud and boisterous events with throngs of thousands.

Actually, the “ideology vs science” phrase sounds much like the battle Carson was fighting back then. Then, it was “we’ve got to kill off wolves and other big predators as well as prairie dogs and other vermin to make the land safe for farming and ranching” — and the pitfalls of this ideological mindset are things that science is still documenting. Similarly, Carson’s work at Plum Island came to mind. As I read your account of Carson and that mindset, I immediately thought of our present battles of corporate/private/parochial interests vs broader science.

When can we look forward to that?

(Bev, take note of the answer, please . . .)

How did I miss that?!?!

Let me recommend visiting Monterey, for the aquarium there and also Ed Ricketts’ home/lab. I didn’t realize the connection between Ricketts and Carson, but in retrospect I’m not at all surprised. If you can’t visit, at least read Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

I am a footnote junky, and was thrilled to see all the notes at the end describing not only where you found certain items but also the little asides, like the story of the search for an unredacted copy of the two page memo about FBI’s investigation into Carson as a potential communists, for example.

In the course of all your research, what interview, memo, or document grabbed you the hardest and made you step back and say “Wow! I never realized . . .”?

And neither is the government. Carson, as a former government employee, would be suspect on those grounds as well.

On the other hand, she could WRITE. Not just string subjects and verbs into sentences with a few adjectives and prepositional phrase to break things up, but write. She could — and did — tell stories that drew her readers in, sometimes so well that they didn’t see it coming.

I had not realized she entered college as an English major before later switching to biology, until reading this book. If more scientists and government bureaucrats could write well, the world would be a much different place.