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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 05:24pm Jul 13, 2003 EST (# 12992 of 13003)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Is it significant that CR is female?

It is. To me, to James Bond - and to essentially everybody else. In a lot of ways.

The fact that Condoleeza Rice is female has some effect on everything she does. On how her interactions with other people go. On her expectations about herself, and on the expectations others have of her.

She is a lady - and expects to be treated as a lady. (And a boss lady, too.)

Males and females are different - for fundamental, primal, and emotionally important reasons - and we have to accomodate that fact - not ignore it. Men and women are different. And the differences count. Some very good takes on the differences, and their consequences, appear in articles by Natalie Angier , who is something of a specialist in the discussion of the biology of reproductive behavior - and especially primate and human sex roles. The year she got her Pulitzer in Beat Reporting - her articles were largely about that, as they have been since. She knows very well how different men and women are - and will always be. We may improve our interactions and conventions - but key differences (thank God) will remain. Here are some of Natalie Angier's articles, well worth purchasing and reading:

SCIENTISTS AT WORK / AMY VEDDER AND BILL WEBER Joy in Rwanda: Signing On With the Gorillas http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/15/science/life/15GORI.html

Bully for You: Why Push Comes to Shove http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/weekinreview/20ANGI.html

Mating Dances Go On and On http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/science/10MATE.html

Pay Gap Remains for Women in Life Sciences http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/science/life/16SALA.html

In the Movies, Women Age Faster http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/09/weekinreview/09ANGI.html

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE said that there are seven ages of man: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon and second childishness. Goldie Hawn said that, in Hollywood, there are three ages of woman: babe, district attorney and "Driving Miss Daisy."

We need to deal more gracefully with the differences between men and women. It would be good if both men and women adjusted to each other better. But yes, it does make a difference when people working together are of the same or different sexes.

Anybody who's ever been to a James Bond movie is likely to know that there are differences in dialog between men and men and men and women. The interactions are different. I was interested to read

Thus Spake 007: From Übermensch To Psychosexual Fetish Object By THOMAS VINCIGUERRA http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/weekinreview/13WORD.html

I've invoked the question "what would James Bond do?" myself.

12527 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.A1CXbq3bpXW.1130595@.f28e622/14182

Some of the things I've said the NYT can readly check - thought of course different people have different recollections. For example, in September 2000, I met at the big art museum on the Washington Mall with a NYT reporter who I'd expected to meet - and another who I hadn't expected. From time to time, people, including NYT editorial writers, use the phrase "what would Jesus do?" - or "what would Jesus have done?"

One can ask similar questions of other characters who inhabit our consciousness. I think it is interesting to ask, o

rshow55 - 05:26pm Jul 13, 2003 EST (# 12993 of 13003)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

One can ask similar questions of other characters who inhabit our consciousness. I think it is interesting to ask, of that meeting, which went awkwardly, what James Bond might have done in my place.

I feel sure James Bond http://www.bondsupp.freeserve.co.uk/movie/drno.htm would have gone to that meeting, as I did - but at a "moment of truth" - I wonder how he would have behaved.

I think he might have behaved very much as I did - and might have gotten no better results.

But he might have laughed about it more spontaneously than I did at the time

Conventions between male and female matter.

12534-7 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.A1CXbq3bpXW.1130595@.f28e622/14189 includes this:

"I asked Natalie Angier, in a way that I thought was gentle, polite, and not too awkward, if she was Natale Angier. She said no.

"I asked if she knew Natalie Angier. She said she didn't know her, had never heard of her.

I was stumped. James Bond would have been stumped, too. Because of conventions that are sex dependent. Had a James Angier taken that position I would have had no problem about what to do.

I would have said:

" Yes you are, too . . . "

That little "switching code difference" would have changed a lot that has happened to me since.

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