Misc.

Fr. Tucker has some recent posts pointing to interesting articles.

First up, this one from the WaPo:

Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States. . .

Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person they can confide in. But if people face trouble in that relationship, or if a spouse falls sick, that means these people have no one to turn to for help, Smith-Lovin said.

"We know these close ties are what people depend on in bad times," she said. "We're not saying people are completely isolated. They may have 600 friends on Facebook.com [a popular networking Web site] and e-mail 25 people a day, but they are not discussing matters that are personally important." . . .

Smith-Lovin said increased professional responsibilities, including working two or more jobs to make ends meet, and long commutes leave many people too exhausted to seek social -- as well as family -- connections: "Maybe sitting around watching 'Desperate Housewives' . . . is what counts for family interaction."

Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard and the author of "Bowling Alone," a book about increasing social isolation in the United States, said the new study supports what he has been saying for years to skeptical audiences in the academy. . . .

I'd have to say that the study's findings hold true in my case, for exactly the reasons identified by Smith-Lovin.

Then there's this Townhall.com article by Walter Williams, which discusses -- among other things -- Karl Marx's virulent racism.  Fr. Tucker comments, "racism doesn't seem to mix too well with all that equality that Communists always talk about."  Yes.  Isn't that always the way with Communists, though?  The reality never matches the talk.

The other day I heard the old Phil Collins song, "Sussudio," from his 1985 release, No Jacket Required, on one of the local, er, "oldies" stations.  Considering that it was released when I was in high school, I don't know how it could possibly be considered an "oldie."  But in any event, hearing the song reminded me that in the twenty-one years that I've been listening to that song, I've never found a satisfactory answer to this one essential question: What the hell kind of name is Sussudio?  It's always sounded vaguely Japanese to me, but perhaps that impression arises, through some some inscrutable chain of subconscious reasoning, from the samurai vs. ninjas vignette in the video for "Don't Lose My Number," which also was on No Jacket Required and was easily my favorite song on the album.  (And by the way, that video is, in retrospect, one of the funniest takedowns of the entire genre ever made.  Of course if you were born after 1975 or so -- or prior to about 1967 -- you probably won't get most of the references.)