Timing.

"WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces"...

WooHoo, we're losing about an inch or two of snow cover a day. Plus it rained last night, so there goes a good amount. I think it safe to say, spring is on her way. Off to visit the kids for a few days...

The headline refers to David Brooks' column in today's NYT. I read it right after reading the main story about the Alabama church fires. I'm not so sure Brooks' last sentence holds: For every teenager who gets pregnant and gives away the baby, whose mom didn't build cardboard dollhouses in childhood, you can probably point to a kid who thinks it would be funny to raze a church or two or three, after smoking a little pot. (Watch the drugs get blamed.) I'm glad they study those things, comparative childrearing, though I'm always wary at the conclusions drawn, the winners cited. Especially when the competition hasn't reached halftime (the kids are in their 20s); more accurately, after the first quarter.

The second bad case of timing, seems to me, belongs to the law professor's lawsuit that recently lost in the Supreme Court. These people are smart; they knew the probabilities. I don't think anyone expected to "win". But in this kind of editorial, they did. (USA Today)

The bad timing comes in: I'm guessing the strategy of pursuing litigation was sprouted in peacetime. Pre- our Iraq engagement, probably pre-911. Peacetime, when such discussions are more appropriate, many would say. The critics can be ugly. Some schools may be anti-ROTC, anti-military, but not all. As a protest of Clinton's DADT compromise, as an anti-discrimination statement standing up for all their students who could otherwise meet qualification standards for jobs such as legally defending a wide swath of American servicemen and women, basing disqualification on personal characteristics -- not actions -- is inefficient. It worked. Timing aside, I salute you.