NEWS YOU CAN USE: Being fat in middle age reduces risk of developing dementia, researchers say. “Underweight people had a 34 percent higher risk of developing dementia than those of a normal weight, the study found, while the very obese had a 29 percent lower risk of becoming forgetful and confused and showing other signs of senility.”

OUCH: How I learned to stop loving Obama and worry about the bomb: The Times of Israel’s military correspondent takes stock, six years after writing a heartfelt letter in support of the presidential candidacy of a young senator from Illinois.

Or as we say here in InstaPunditland, “another rube self-identifies.”

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Return of Traditional Values.

True, both Downton Abbey and American Sniper are well crafted, nicely produced, and have fine actors. But dozens of other movies and television shows meet those criteria too. So why would postmodern Westerners stay glued to their televisions on Sunday nights to enjoy the daily lives of the prewar English manorial class and their hordes of obedient and often well-adjusted and patriotic servants? Stranger yet, why are the Granthams for the most part portrayed as decent people, their servants relatively happy—and, in this age of cynicism, sarcasm, and nihilism, why is the reactionary idea of noblesse oblige taken seriously?

In a very different vein, why would Americans identify with a combat veteran who—as Michael Moore reminded us— blew apart indigenous people with a sniper rifle, in a war that for a decade Hollywood, the media, and most of the Democratic Party insisted was unwise, unwarranted, and unethical? The public senses something in these two vastly different works that it silently, and in the guilt-free privacy of the movie theater or living room, appreciates.

Each in its own way resonates with a public’s nostalgic sense of loss. They are like Virgil’s Aeneid—finished in 19 BC in the final death throes of the rural Italian Roman Republic as it transmogrified into a vast Mediterranean globalized empire—which sought to remind Romans of who they had been, where they had come from, and what was lost and not coming back. Both Downton Abbey and American Sniper bring to mind Hesiod’s age-old theme of the ethical regress that accompanies material progress.

For this generation of contemporary Westerners, is there is a fascination in watching people, even rich lords and ladies, sit and speak as they dine together rather than eat on couches in sweat pants in front of the television each evening? Amid Facebook and Twitter, do cocooned Westerners miss things like attending clubs, socials, and community councils? In an age when most Americans cannot name their great-grandparents, is the public curious about a lost age when one measured his worth in terms of not dishonoring his ancestors and ensuring that whatever he inherited he added to rather than consumed? How can a poor Irishman like the widowed Tom Branson admire his in-law English aristocrats, as if they were fellow decent humans rather than class oppressors? Are formalities that we now write off as minor or irrelevant—how one shakes hands, the lost arts like etiquette and pleasant diction, a rich vocabulary, the avoidance of slang and profanity—not that really minor after all?

Hmm. Read the whole thing.

SELF-ESTEEM GONE AWRY: Revisiting The Psychology Of Narcissistic Entitlement.

I WONDER WHY IT’S A SPECIAL INTEREST OF HERS? Valerie Jarrett Leading White House Efforts to Stop Sexual-Orientation Conversion Therapy.

FROM A GENETIC/EVOLUTIONARY STANDPOINT, THIS SEEMS UNFORTUNATE: Ladies, The Smarter You Are, The More Likely You Are To Be Single.

MACS AREN’T BULLETPROOF: Latest Version of OSX Closes Backdoor-Like Bug That Gives Attackers Root.

HARRY REID AND HILLARY CLINTON WERE UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: For Older Adults, a Rising Risk of Subdural Hematoma. Heavy drinking is a risk factor, unsurprisingly.

SO BASICALLY, IF YOU SEE A “HATE CRIME,” YOU CAN PRETTY MUCH ASSUME IT’S FAKE — OR, ANYWAY, PERPETRATED BY A LEFTY: At U of Michigan, a Muslim Student Unmasks the Hypocrite He Says Vandalized His Apartment: The perpetrator was a liberal activist and decorated campus Muslim leader who said American Sniper promoted violence.

You know what promotes violence? Leftist social-justice-war ideology.

And look at this sad tweet from Zeinab Khalil, the Michigan vandal mentioned above: “Spent 4 yrs at @umich doing anti-oppressive work; admins used me to educate campus. this is what i get in return as exhausted/exploited alum.”

“Admins used me” is the key phrase. But note the illiterate presentation. Maybe she should have spent more time in English class, less on “anti-oppressive work.”

Related: Duke sure went silent on that whole noose thing, huh?

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21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “I’m a heel striker, hitting the ground with my heel first, something I suspect has led to pain in my feet, calves, lower back and shoulders. But it wasn’t until it started affecting my marriage that I decided enough was enough.”

TERRORISTS FOILED AGAIN: Airport Security Stole Nursing Mother Alyssa Milano’s Breastmilk.

FUNNY, I WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT THIS WITH SOMEONE FROM ROCHESTER: How high taxes and regulation are killing one of the most prosperous states in the nation. “The difference is that upstate New York is tethered to New York City, whose residents overwhelmingly support higher taxes, stricter regulation and bigger spending than the national averages. Those policies are blamed for upstate’s economic woes by many in the region.”

You know, although the “one-man-one-vote” formula of Baker v. Carr may have been required by the 14th amendment (emphasis on the “may”) I wonder if such domination of entire states by the population of a geographically small urban area (something you also see in places like Illinois, California, and Washington State) doesn’t violate the guaranty clause, justifying action by Congress. Back when states could — like the federal government — apportion one of their houses geographically as opposed to by population, there was more protection against tyranny of the majority. But now people who live quite differently can intrusively govern the lives of people who, because of the density of urban areas, can’t do anything about it.

I WONDER IF THAT’S PART OF THE APPEAL OF BOTOX? Women: Keep Your Stress Low By Maintaining A ‘Dominant Face.’

THIS SEEMS RIGHT: Walter Scott’s Family Asks Al Sharpton to Keep His ‘Circus’ Away from the Funeral.

SCENES FROM THE NRA EXHIBIT HALL: Photos by Liz Sheld at the PJ Tatler, with a cameo appearance from NRO’s Jim Geraghty.

FLYING: Airline Pilots Manually Fly Airplanes For 3.5-7 Minutes Per Flight.

AT AMAZON, deals galore at the Men’s Denim Store.

Plus, deals on Hunting & Tactical Knives.

And please remember: InstaPundit is an Amazon affiliate. When you do your shopping through the Amazon links on this page, including the “Shop Amazon” tab at the top or the searchbox in the right sidebar, you support this blog at no cost to yourself. Just click on the Amazon link, then shop as usual. I very much appreciate it when you do.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Married, With Roommates. “From the point of view of couples, the cash collected from a roommate can outweigh the trade-offs as rents in the city continue to rise. The median monthly rent in March in Manhattan was $3,395, up 6.1 percent over the same period in 2014, the second highest level reached in more than seven years, according to the appraiser Jonathan J. Miller in a report for Douglas Elliman. And renters aren’t finding much relief in Brooklyn or Queens, where rents have been increasing for some time.”

Plus:

“If we were living in any other city,” said Dr. Gill, 30, an attending physician at SUNY Downstate, “the situation would not exist: a married couple living with a roommate and his boyfriend. It’s New York City.”

The rent is too damned high.

VIDEO: Watch SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Launches in Stunning 4K.

TECHNOLOGY: This is What the History of Camera Sales Looks Like with Smartphones Included.

OPEN UP SOME SHELF SPACE, AND GET PAID, with the Amazon trade-in program.

JUSTICE: Shoplifter Hiding In Grocery Store Ceiling After Allegedly Stealing $8 Worth Of Stuff Prompts SWAT Response.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: This Is What Sex After 70 Is Really Like.

DAVID RIVKIN & ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY: Gay Rights, Religious Freedom and the Law: There is a better route to protections than the battle in Indiana.

There is no federal law prohibiting private discrimination based on sexual orientation. An executive order by President Obama in 2014 bans such discrimination only for federal workers and contractors. About 20 states and some municipalities prohibit sexual-orientation discrimination in workplaces and public accommodations. But the majority of states still don’t proscribe discrimination based on sexual orientation, though discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity or national origin is banned.

The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities and signed by President Clinton in 1993. It represented a backlash against the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith. That decision held that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause doesn’t allow a religious exemption from laws of general applicability—e.g., compulsory military service, or prohibitions on drug use or animal cruelty—even if those laws substantially burden religious exercise.

The federal RFRA law supplanted Smith, declaring that the government could substantially burden religious exercise only upon proving a “compelling” government interest for doing so, and using only the “least restrictive means” of furthering that interest. The Supreme Court, for example, recently affirmed that the federal RFRA allowed Hobby Lobby, a corporation closely held by religious owners, to refuse participation in ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate, which would have required the company to provide contraceptives that may destroy an already-fertilized egg.

Because the federal RFRA applies only to federal actions, 20 states have passed their own religious-freedom laws designed to provide the same protection against state-imposed religious burdens. Another 11 states have implemented similar protections through court decisions, based on state constitutions.

So why have the latest religious-freedom laws been so controversial? RFRA has become a political focal point for pent-up anger over the paucity of legal protections against LGBT discrimination. A specific controversy is over the application of such laws to lawsuits between private parties.

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