Thursday evening roundup

Meacham on Douthat on Christian morality.

Respect for the military doesn't mean blind glorification.

A Fox News anchor has a sick sense of humor.

Get your neoMcCarthyism coverage here, here, and here. Also, here's another, local case of cross-partisan decency.

This letter to Carolyn makes me so sad. I just want to say to this woman, own your look and you'll be fine. Nobody will be thinking, "who's that one bridesmaid that's heavier than the others?" Unless they're jerks. Play it right, and people will look up and say, "who's that beautiful, glowing woman who holds her own with a different style than the others?"

The Post's Master of the Obvious strikes again. Remember when she said that when you get unannounced vegan guests, you can serve them vegetables? Now she has advice for gardening on a hot day: work earlier in the day and keep something chilled to drink in the fridge. Man, do you think I could get paid to give freelance advice along the lines of, "when there are dark clouds in the sky, why not grab your umbrella?" Did the Post gut its investigative journalism division so it could pay for this stuff? Oh, wait, it gets worse: someone's getting paid to tell us that fresh food is better than processed food. Only it's worse, because she makes it about fresh vs. frozen, which is not the issue (frozen fruit and vegetables are quite good for you). So it's simultaneously obvious and misguided. That's no small feat.

Speaking of obvious misguided, y'all know how I feel about the lie that healthy food--or healthy living, for that matter--is more expensive. I'm glad someone else is pointing out the absurdity of dollar-per-calorie as a measure, but if you need someone to tell you to eat in and comparison shop, you probably need someone to tell you to take an umbrella when you see dark clouds. Also, there are so many things wrong with this sentence:

However, it’s one thing to understand that grains and legumes are a cheaper source of protein than free-range chicken; it’s quite another to try to get my meat-loving husband to have rice and beans for dinner every night.

Between this and the Post entries discussed above, I wonder if we've crowdsourced journalism to the point of making it meaningless. When did this article become about people's habits, rather than the comparative costs of eating healthily? And I know she's just throwing an example out there, but rice and beans? Every night? For the record, I, a vegan, have rice and beans (as a meal) about never.

Since we're trading in the obvious: there's even more research to support the fact that exercise is really good for you.