David McElroy

Is life full of second chances? Or do our bad choices doom us to live with ugly consequences? Maybe the second chances are always there. Maybe we tend to doom ourselves.

It seems as though we’re all going to make serious mistakes, but life frequently gives us chances to make better choices later. If we learn from our mistakes and choose differently, we can break out of ugly patterns. But if we refuse to learn — if we blame everyone else and keep making the same mistakes instead — we end up suffering consequences over and over and over again, even though we have the power to change our own lives.

I’ve been thinking about second chances and life’s tradeoffs over the past four days, and it started with a happy family that I saw at dinner Wednesday night.

I’m not sure what caught my attention about this family. Maybe it was because they all seemed happy and the parents were both strongly engaged with the children and with each other. There were three young children in addition to the parents, two young girls and a slightly older boy. For whatever reason, they were the very picture of what I want for myself.

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I don’t wear shirts with sexually suggestive drawings of women. (Or men, either, for that matter.) Call me a prude or a conservative, but I think it’s inappropriate and tasteless. Besides that, it’s disrespectful to the people you’re going to be around, especially women.

I don’t like the shirt that English scientist Matt Taylor wore Wednesday at an ESA briefing about the Rosetta mission. It’s ugly and the stylized artwork of scantily clad women is boorish and tasteless. Nobody working for me would be allowed to wear it for work. It’s unprofessional.

But the media firestorm attacking him is just as distasteful. Some people are calling it “misogyny” and saying this is why women allegedly feel unwelcome in science. Others are saying it creates a hostile environment for women. And on and on and on. (Do a Twitter search for #ThatShirt or #ShirtStorm.)

I object to the shirt on the grounds of taste and good judgment, but the hysterical objections I’m reading seem really overblown. The thing that bothers me most about the firestorm, though, is the obvious double standard.

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When I became a libertarian two decades ago, one of the first people I met was Mark Bodenhausen. Back in the days when Jimmy Blake was chair of the Alabama Libertarian Party, Mark was one of the small group who would gather regularly at Jimmy’s house for discussion and planning about how to spread our gospel of small government.

Over the years, I came to know Mark as a brilliant nerd, a principled libertarian, a pragmatic political thinker and as a caring human being. He went on to serve the Alabama Libertarian Party as its chair and as a candidate for a variety of offices. I was very saddened to learn that Mark died Thursday after a long illness.

I knew that Mark was sick, but I had no idea how serious the problem was. Last Sunday, former Alabama Libertarian Party vice chair Mike Rster posted a note on Facebook updating us about Mark. It sounded very serious, but I assumed it meant good news.

“The past 19 days have been trying,” Mike wrote. “Due to an aneurysm that caused two catastrophic bleeds in Mark’s brain, the doctors inserted a tube into his brain to relieve the pressure. In the course of the Mark’s treatment his liver failed and then his kidneys. He remained unresponsive for the 17 days.

“Two days ago he nodded yes and no for the first time since the initial bleed. His kidneys have stabilized although he still might require further dialysis. His liver is causing a problem with blood clotting. He has had multiple units of blood and blood products. Once his blood platelet count is sufficient he is scheduled for three surgeries….

“We anticipate a lengthy recovery and rehabilitation period for Mark. He still has a long way to go.”

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