A recent study put the question to German eBay customers who had offered a neutral or negative evaluation of a transaction:
One-third of the unhappy customers received a message that included the sentence: “I would like to apologize and ask whether you might withdraw your evaluation.” The others were offered, in place of expression of regret, either 2.5 or 5 euros “as a goodwill gesture.” Writing in the journal Economics Letters, the researchers report nearly 45 percent of those given the apology withdrew their evaluation, compared to only 21 percent of those offered cash. A direct apology: priceless.
Vitamin supplements would be bad enough if they were merely useless, he says. The money Americans spend yearly on vitamins—some $25 billion—is sorely needed elsewhere in the medical system. They aren’t getting much for their money now. Consider claims that vitamin D significantly cuts cancer risks and that three-quarters of the U.S. population had insufficient levels of it. For Agus, these results are found in not very high-grade studies; for one thing, he’s at a loss to understand how anyone can claim to have established the correct dose for appropriate D levels. The bone disease rickets is long gone and age-related fractures are not on the rise, meaning that by the only indications we have, the population has quite enough vitamin D.
Gregory Ferenstein details Agus' other prescriptions:
[W]e combat weight loss by driving to the gym to walk on a treadmill--and then return to hunch over laptops for hours on end. "Sitting at your desk is akin to smoking a cigarette," he says. Prolonged sitting, independent of physical exercise, he writes, "has been shown to have significant metabolic consequences," influencing everything from cholesterol levels to blood sugar.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
The poem continues. Amit Majmudar analyzes the work of T.S. and Kay Ryan as the two major philosophical poets.
Annalise Koltun shares his experiences with kosher and non-kosher Israeli cuisine. An aside on Israeli agriculture:
For most of its history, Israel’s produce was watered, weeded, and picked by Palestinian workers who crossed over each day from the West Bank or Gaza. Since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, however, Israeli has closed its borders to most of these workers. And since few or no Israelis are willing to work in the hot sun for minimum wage, Israel now imports workers from Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. There are hundreds of thousands of these foreigners in Israel; in 2010, the first victim of a Hamas rocket attack after the previous year’s Gaza War was a man named Manee Singueanphon, not Moshe Cohen.
Alyssa Rosenberg applauds the above short film for debunking the fears of the privileged class:
The shopkeeper is angry at a robot who is physically smaller than he is, who is annoying rather than intimidating. He commits an act of terrible violence against that much more vulnerable actor. And then he discovers that things he’s conditioned to want to protect and find adorable—kittens—are emotionally dependent on the robot, who has been stealing milk to feed them. It’s a narrative that questions the shopkeeper’s prejudices and assumptions, rather than suggesting he’s right to be angry and afraid of a new element in his environment.
One reasons Blade Runner was so interesting and complex was the very reason Alyssa enjoyed the above short: it turned the fear of the power robot Other on its head, and granted them their humanity and their frailty, and ours.
Julie Sedivy reiterates the cognitive benefits of knowing two languages:
[A]n intriguing Israeli study led by Esther Adi-Japha found that the drawings of bilingual kindergarten-age kids were different from their monolingual peers. When asked to draw a picture of a flower that does not exist, monolingual children were fairly unadventurous, drawing perhaps a flower that was missing its leaves, or a flower with only one petal. Bilingual children, on the other hand, incorporated elements from completely different objects—producing for instance, a flower with a tail, or a flower with teeth. This kind of cross-category mixing in children’s drawings tends not to occur until kids are about eight years old, putting the bilingual kids on an accelerated timeline for this particular skill.
Mormons believe in three heavens and one hell. The celestial kingdom is the most desirable:
There are also different sub-degrees of glory within the celestial kingdom, and the highest degree can be reached only by couples who are married together in the temple, and in which the husband has joined what Mormons call the “Melchizedek priesthood." (Pretty much every devout male Mormon joins the priesthood by the time he’s married.) Those who attain the highest degree become gods in the afterlife, meaning that they can bear new children in heaven, and may even have their own planets.
When Greg Bottoms' older brother was 25, he tried to burn down his family's house when his family was inside. After fifteen years in a prison psychiatric treatment facility, the brother tried to contact the family:
I told the social worker I could not speak to him, nor could my mother, who is in her 60s now, living a peaceful life after many years of a damn difficult one. Call me cold, but our problem—his problem, but ours by extension—is intractable. I wish I could offer some kind of easy prescription here—something to do with politics and policy, with therapeutic philosophies or biochemical treatment protocols. But the mystery of mental anguish, of the mind on the outs with itself, of a version of hell made manifest in a suburban living room, is the one thing in my life that has brought me to the point where my only option seemed to be to pray. To reengage my brother would be suicidal. What choice do I have? The past comes flooding back. I cut him loose to survive.
We revere Star Wars because to our minds—modern machines that equate religion with superstition and are willing to disregard imperfections in science but never in dogma—the movies represent transcendentalist humanism at its best, a perfect manifestation of that noxious label, “spiritual,” that people use to describe themselves when they’re too dull to believe in religion and too dim to understand science. This is why the Force has become the organizing metaphor of our time; there’s no better one for those who believe that if we only open our hearts and understand people are all the same and all good we’d be enlightened enough to lift rocks with a tilt of our heads.
You can build a temple to anything that's positive and good. That could mean: a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective. Why should religious people have the most beautiful buildings in the land? It's time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals. A beautiful building is an indispensable part of getting your message across. Books alone won't do it.
Cullen Murphy traces how intolerance and persecution took on an institutional life:
The inquisitors shared an outlook of moral certainty. In a world of moral certainty, the unthinkable becomes permissible. The sanctity of private conscience is no longer deemed inviolate. ... It all sounds very medieval. But it’s not merely medieval. Scholars may debate whether there truly is such a thing as a “totalitarian” state, and what its characteristics are, but the desire to control the thoughts and behaviour of others – joined to a belief that God or history will render an approving judgement – underlies much of the sad narrative of the past hundred years: the police states, the dirty wars, the ethnic cleansing, the internments, the renditions, the Red Scares, the fatwas, the special prosecutors, the electronic surveillance, the encroachments accomplished in name of national security.
More on the Inquisition as predecessor to today's acceptance of torture here.
I post this here because I suspect he represents a very widely held set of notions among Millennials. These are the young folks who not only don’t darken the doors of churches, but don’t see any reason for doing so. As they see it, the Christian churches’ concerns simply don’t mesh with their concerns.
CBS interviewed Bethke earlier this week. Another young Christian created a response video defending the Catholic Church:
Carlos Fraenkel analyzes the consequences of Brazil's decision to mandate that all high schools teach philosophy:
[C]an philosophy really become part of ordinary life? Wasn’t Socrates executed for trying? Athenians didn’t thank him for guiding them to the examined life, but instead accused him of spreading moral corruption and atheism. Plato concurs: Socrates failed because most citizens just aren’t philosophers in his view.
Ari Kohen reflects on touring "the most terrible place I have ever been in my life:"
Having been to Buchenwald, it all seems so much harder to believe than it was when I was listening to survivors’ stories, learning about it in school, or going to a museum. But it becomes almost unthinkable to travel here, a few miles from the Goethe and Schiller houses, and to try to imagine how people could build a place like this one, let alone how they could live in its shadow. They went to the neighborhood bakeries, they read great literature, they played with their children, they walked in the local parks. It is unimaginable to me, especially when I think that these were regular people and not devils. We want them to be monsters because only monsters should be capable of this; but that is one of the principle lessons, I suppose: regular people perpetrated these monstrous crimes and so it is regular people — us, all of us — about whom we must think.
Tracy Clark-Flory seeks out couples who have not only survived an affair but became stronger as a result:
Sarah, co-founder of the online support group Survive Infidelity, says that she rarely sees couples recover from an affair unless there’s "virtually full disclosure within two to three conversations" — no fibs to protect the other’s feelings, or one’s own image. But Perel emphasizes that "trust isn’t knowing all the details." Sometimes, in fact, it means "living with what you’ll never know." She says, "It’s the people who are able to switch from a detective mode to an investigative mode who are successful. It’s not, ‘What did you do, where did you go, what bed did you sleep in, how often did you fuck him and what position?’ but more, ‘What did it mean for you? What did you find there? Why did you think you were able to experience that there and not here?" ...
Roman winemakers found that boiling of unfermented grape juice created a sweeter liquid known as defrutum or sapa. Defrutum is created by boiling off half the volume of wine, while sapa is the result of a reduction to one-third the original volume of wine. ... The boiling process involved long hours and high temperatures, causing lead to seep out of the container, inadvertently artificially sweetening the sapa. ... A modern attempt to re-create the sapa using lead vessels resulted in a liquid with a lead content of 2,900 parts per billion — one thousand times the acceptable dose in most countries.
Somali Roy reports from the 20th World Orchid Conference:
Orchids are seducers. They trick animals into pollinating them and usually give nothing in exchange. Some orchid species mimic nectar-producing flowers to lure bees; others emit the fetid smell of rotting meat to attract carrion flies. In China, Dendrobium sinense orchids release a chemical normally broadcast by bees in distress; the scent attracts bee-eating hornets expecting an easy meal. The scent of Cymbidium serratum entices a wild mountain mouse, which spreads pollen from flower to flower with its snout. And around the world, orchid species have evolved to look or smell like female insects; males try to mate with the flowers but gather and deposit pollen, which they carry on their flight from deception to deception.
Paul Hiebert grabs a great interview with Kerry Burke, a New York Daily News crime reporter featured in the short-lived reality show "Tabloid Wars":
Have you ever had to break the news of a crime to the victim's friends or family?
I have lost count of the times I've done that. I know a lot of reporters who won't do it, and I understand and respect that call. But one, someone's got to tell them, and two, I do it with as much grace and empathy as I can summon. Frankly, I need their story. I do my damnedest to do justice to the family and to their lost one.
Do you ever receive angry calls or emails after a story's been published?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anybody see you. there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he’s in there.
It wasn’t until 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 73rd Congress passed a series of laws repealing the Volstead Act, that American Can again took up the cause of canned beer. Working at a rapid pace, its engineers solved the exploding-can problem that September, producing the world’s first beer can. In addition to traditional tin, they reinforced the can with steel, which proved able to hold up to beer’s pressure. Drinkers opened the can with a "church-key" opener, a slice of metal with a sharp bill to punch a hole in the can’s flat top. But with this innovation arose more problems. Designers had to find a way to combat the fact that beer packaged in metal began to taste metallic or tinny. To counteract this, American Can inventors slathered the inside of the cans with brewer’s pitch, made from pine tar. The pitch insulated the can walls from the beer just like the inside of a keg; thus, their cans came to be known as "keglined."
"My creative process is like making a wild ferment. It starts with the process of making the conditions correct. The next moment is some kind of magic thing, not unlike how ideas form or creative impulses arrive. The Invisible Allies, or microscopic "insects," come and enliven the condition. At this point, the work enters a different stage and it becomes more about making the idea happen and doing the steps to follow the creative idea-notion. It becomes much more concrete, but still with room for not knowing and playing, and things find their place," - Sartoria, a featured Etsy seller.
Mike Barthel traces the beginnings to Jamaica in the 1960s:
The island's extremely strong local music culture enabled a tight interplay between the people who made records and the people who listened and danced to them. As DJ/producers like Lee "Scratch" Perry saw that crowds were interested in longer musical experiences than they could provide with the single format (the 7" vinyl disc on which singles came was generally only able to hold four minutes' worth of music without suffering a drop in sound quality), they produced new versions which they referred to as "versions." ... Since Jamaican producers tended to be owner-operators, both recording and distributing their own music, they had access to the multi-track masters at a time when American musicians didn't. In the United States (and other industrialized countries), the master recordings were owned by the record company, making it much more difficult for artists to get their hands on their own recordings, let alone legally release remixes.
(Video: a remix of Yelle’s "Comme un Enfant," starring Nathan Barnatt)
On the one side, ladies and gentlemen, Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, and Elliott Abrams. On the other, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh. And Abrams' Drudge-hyped claim that Newt was once a Reagan-basher seems to have been the final straw. After all, what is this GOP election in 2011 all about if not replaying the fantasy of 1980 - without Reagan and without high inflation and without Carter? Putting Romney before Gingrich as the Reagan heir was just a mite too much for the Newties.
Palin's Facebook screed is a classic of the backlash genre. For her, all mainstream media is the same - which means Brian Ross and National Review are now in cahoots. And she is trying to reframe the race as one between the Tea Party base and the Republican Establishment. Somehow, a former Speaker who called the Ryan plan "right-wing social engineering" and pioneered the individual healthcare mandate is now the Tea Party insurgent. But this was never about issues; it was about identity and class. And that's what makes it so dangerous for the GOP. Money quote:
Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this.
Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps it’s possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romney’s conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up.
That suggests to me that this is going to get even nastier, as long as Shelly can keep up the funding and Palin can keep up the attention. And here's Palin's definition of what's going on right now:
This whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.
Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guard’s choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the “wisdom” of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 who didn’t win. Well, here’s a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.
From RNC head, to primaries, now the primary, the GOP establishment consistently uses all its power to stomp down any conservative. Conservatives are fast approaching a breaking point. The GOP believes it will be fine because it will be all Obama come November. They are wrong. Mitt Romney has gone from unlikeable, to detestable and some of us are not going to forget it simply because the GOP thinks it can blow dog whistles around Obama.
The fix is in for Romney, which just means when he is crushed by Barack Obama a lot of Republicans will have a lot of explaining to do. Newt may not be able to win. But Romney sure as hell can’t beat Obama either if Newt can’t win. The problem remains — Gingrich supporters intrinsically know this to be so and are happy to die fighting. Romney’s supporters are still deluding themselves.
This is a level of rhetorical bile that didn't even occur in the Obama-Clinton dust-up. I don't know if it will give Newt a final wind beneath his wings. But it's possible. A new large sample auto-telephone poll this morning shows a dead heat - while most polls show a comfy Romney margin. But the establishment might have over-panicked a little and given the Newt-Palin forces a way back into the fight. That may weigh especially in the Florida panhandle. Who knows?
What we do know, I think, is that Newt will not bow out if he loses Florida and may go on a scorched earth Palinite crusade to stop Mitt on Super Tuesday. And what we also know is that Palin is fanning the flames. If Newt were to do better than expected in Florida, her clout as a king-maker soars. And the chance that she would lead a Tea Party revolt at the Convention grows.
I mean what if Newt and Romney are so damaged by the end of this that neither has a chance. Could Queen Esther return?
(Photo: Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin speaks during the Republican Party of Florida's fundraising event at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort on November 3, 2011 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. About 800 people attended the fundraiser to listen to Palin speak, along with Governor Rick Scott and the Attorney General Pam Bondi. By Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images.)
The social networking giant recently revealed its ability to censor certain tweets in countries with speech-restricting laws, provoking a coordinated boycott of the site. Jillian C. York wants everyone to calm down:
Let’s be clear: This is censorship. There’s no way around that. But alas, Twitter is not above the law. Just about every company hosting user-generated content has, at one point or another, gotten an order or government request to take down content. Google lays out its orders in its Transparency Report. Other companies are less forthright. In any case, Twitter has two options in the event of a request: Fail to comply, and risk being blocked by the government in question, or comply (read: censor). And if they have "boots on the ground", so to speak, in the country in question? No choice.
But the censorship is incredibly easy to circumvent, which makes Zeynep Tufekci think the policy is Twitter's way of getting around speech laws. Mathew Ingram steps back:
[Twitter, Google, and Facebook] are businesses with corporate interests, not triumphant defenders of free speech — and they each provide the bulk of their services for free, and make money by selling their users’ attention to advertisers.
You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
The always-interesting Francis Fukuyama has a great interview on the financial crisis. Money quote:
What I thought was most interesting about Michael Lewis's book, "The Big Short," was that there is, to this day, a view about the whole pathology of collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) – these highly complex, packaged mortgage securities – as well as the credit default swaps – the insurance contracts written on those securities – that Wall Street created them and they simply got out of hand. They didn’t anticipate it would be hard to value them, how they would be misused, and so forth. What Michael Lewis points out very forcefully is that they were deliberately created by Wall Street banks in order to produce non-transparent securities that could not be adequately evaluated by the rating agencies, which then could be sold to less sophisticated investors, who would buy the idea that this junk debt actually had triple A ratings. So what this book does quite brilliantly is show that there was actually a high degree of intentionality in creating the crisis.
In the wake of a controversial radio appearance, the blogosphere has not looked kindly on Caitlin Flanagan's new book, Girl Land, which aims to shield adolescent girls from a sexualized mass culture. Irin Carmon, who debated Flanagan in the segment, recaps her experience:
Specifically, she tried to use me as an example of the perils of having the Internet in your room as an adolescent, because I didn’t happen to meet a great guy to date in high school. The remedy? More princess movies.
One waits in vain for Flanagan to get to the most interesting fact about the sex lives of teenage girls: that sexual vulnerability goes hand in hand with their own burgeoning desire—and the means to act on it. Instead, she informs us that "obviously" most adolescent girls would never type the word "porn" into a search engine (has she actually ever met a teenage girl?) and suggests that one reason girls can be so voluble is that they’re afraid of male attention. But is there any reason to think that girls don’t feel the same electric sexual charges—the same careless, intoxicated desire—boys do?
What’s most disheartening about all this alarmist rhetoric about girls is also what’s most predictable: It continues to define them as the objects of their erotic experience rather than as the agents of it.
Heather Havrilesky offers a qualified defense of the lightning rod:
The term is a bit of a misnomer, since swallowing is actually the last thing you want to do with a sharp blade, since it involves contraction of numerous muscles; instead, the idea is to completely relax the throat and turn it into one long "living scabbard."
David Wheeler shows how antiquated the written signature is:
While signatures remain America's chosen method of authorization, PIN-code transactions are much less susceptible to fraud. "Fraud rates on credit or debit cards that are signature-based are much higher than on cards with PIN protection," notes Chris Hawkins in his book A History of Signatures: From Cave Paintings to Robo-Signings. In 2005, a consulting firm found that signature-based debit card fraud rates were 15 times higher than PIN-based fraud rates.
[E]ating meat in small doses — around once a week — gives me a deep sense of appreciation for it, too. I doubt this would be the case if my palate were weakened by its constant presence in my meals. Absence makes the taste buds grow fonder. Studies have been showing that Americans are eating less and less meat today, and while there are differing takes on why this might be, there is a growing indifference about the necessity of meat on every plate. This is surely good news for the environment. But what about the average household? Maybe they’re also rediscovering a simple rule: We appreciate meat more when we can’t have it all the time.
A new study presented liberals and conservatives with a variety of positive and negative images (i.e. kittens, car wrecks):
Our evolution as human beings has programmed all of us to pay heightened attention to threatening or frightening stimuli. But conservatives were drawn to the negative images almost twice as fast as the liberals were. And they fixated there longer, too. This suggests that there exists not only a physiological difference, but also a cognitive one in how political partisans react to such pictures. ...
What made Libya a "pure" intervention was that we acted not because our vital interests were threatened but in spite of the fact that they were not. For me, this was yet one more reason to laud it. Libya provided us an opportunity to begin the difficult work of re-orienting U.S. foreign policy, to align ourselves, finally, with our own ideals.
For me, Syria is part of this bigger debate; what role does the United States seek for itself in a rapidly changing world, a world in which activists and rebels still long for an America that will recognize the struggle and come to the aid of their revolutions? The rising democracies of Brazil and India cannot offer this. Russia and China certainly cannot.
A foreign policy that has no relationship toward national interests is not a foreign policy. The United States should always support, encourage, trade with, talk to, and buoy democratizng countries. But if we haven't learned by now that sending bombs and tanks is unaffordable, given our debt, and inherently compromised, given our lack of control over what happens next, then we have learned nothing.
(Photo: Syrian soldiers who defected join protesters in the al-Khaldiya neighborhood of the restive city of Homs on January 26, 2012. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army launched an offensive on Thursday evening in the Karm al-Zeitoun district of Homs, killing 26 civilians, including nine children, and wounding dozens. By STR/AFP/Getty Images.)
The full version of "Blood Money," funded by the pro-Gingrich PAC Winning Our Future:
Ben Johnson wonders if the web ad will have an impact:
While Romney was never personally implicated in the scandal that embroiled Damon Corp, fact-checking site PolitiFact has rated a separate ad drawing the same connections as “Mostly True.” Will the seven-minute negative ad do damage? After what pundits are calling his best debate performances thus far, Romney is ahead of Gingrich in the latest Florida polling. But national polls have Gingrich pulling ahead as far as 10 points. The sunshine state may not be the end, and it could still get bloodier.
The latest from Newt's own campaign, which we previewed earlier today, is below:
Friday on the Dish, Andrew pinpointed Romney's achilles heel on taxes, pronounced the primary "not yet over," and reacted to the bombshell report that Paul edited his racist newsletters (follow-up here). He also excoriated Grover's plan to impeach Obama over taxes, lauded Corey Booker's defense of marriage equality, explained the sense in sexuality was like religion, inveighed against circumcision, and opened up about his first theatrical role.
Newt appeared to be gearing up for a vicious ad campaign, got defended on the bucket weirdness, continued to employ Alinksyite tactics, wanted to legalize medical pot (in 1982), and might have been suffering from narcissism-induced stress. Romney lied about "blind" investments and may well have packed the debate audience, Santorum appeared to have supported the individual mandate, Obama polled well enough on clean energy that it ought to be a campaign issue, and SuperPACs were arguably not all that scary.
We collected reax to the meh GDP numbers, decided manufacturing jobs were gone for good, debated the US-to-Europe comparison on social mobility, worried the government couldn't fix the housing market, and found a Grand Bargain inevitable if the US wanted to fix its deficit woes. Many of the uninsured were the unemployed, the mandate's unpopularity theoretically rested on the possibility it might be undone, Israel wasn't America, and defense wonks had an obligation to explain the truth about defense cuts. Mickey D's was chichi in France, American elites were culturally out of touch, a new photo of Earth amazed, and "Pink Triangle" was super ironic. Readers debated JoePa's legacy and race in Hollywood. Correction of the Day here, Von Hoffman nominee here, Yglesias nominee here, Cool Ad here, Ad War update here, VFYW here, FOTD here, and MHB here.
By Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images
Thursday on the Dish, Andrew liveblogged Romney's triumph at the Jacksonville debate (insta-fact check here and reax here), explained why it was so critical to the primary, named something he would appreciate about a Romney presidency, picked out Dole and Drudge's parts in the establishment anti-Newt backlash, pitted Newt's cultural populism againt Obama's economic populism, and demolished Mitt's "Obama is a European socialist" line. Andrew also hoped Obama could buck his party on tax reform, loved his defense against the class warfare canard, saw his economic fortunes rising, examined homosociality, and found former RNC chair Ken Mehlman out-front on the marriage equality debate.
Debates might have been a bad way to vet candidates while tonight's was heavily anticipated. Romney retook the lead in Florida, Frum issued an apologia for Mitt's lying, and corporate taxes likely didn't up his tax rate to 50%. Gingrich took us to the moon (twice), obsessed over Saul Alinsky (despite their similarities), owed his success to Citizens United (and the press), terrified GOP elites (though they might not be able to stop him) engaged on the Reagan debate, and looked EXACTLY like Dwight Schrute. The GOP was whitewashing the 50s and the general shaped up to be nasty.
Calls for intervention in Syria kept coming, brinksmanship with China was (possibly) counterproductve, and the internet spread lies. A man married a lesbian and the origins of heterosexuality were uncovered. A venture capitalist (quixotically) went after Hollywood, an industry that condescended on race. Finally, readers sounded off over Paterno's legacy and the morality of the 1%. Yglesias Nominee here, Malkin Nominee here, Quote for the Day here, Ad War Updates here and here, MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.
Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew reexplained his disappointment with Obama's failure to tackle tax reform and still didn't like the tax breaks that were in the State of the Union, but took back his harsh broader characterization from last night and recognized that he got meep-meeped. Andrew also agreed with the RNC about the SOTU, defended the claim that male and female sexuality were different, "enjoyed" the life of the one percent, and posted his Colbert appearance with a bonus spot the underbloggers game. Bloggers had more to say about the SOTU, got angry about the speech's moral blindness, and noticed a distinct lack of health care discussion as compared to previous years. Readers hated Daniels' response but loved seeing Andrew think and write in real time. Roundup of last night's coverage here.
Newt was the narrow 538 favorite in Florida, pushed for the Hispanic vote there, had some absurd ideas (a shock, I know) about the debate schedule, seemed likely to produce great TV in the general, faced ballot access issues, and constantly invoked Reagan even though he trashed the president when he was in office. The myth of a Mitch Daniels candidacy was - again - debunked, it wouldn't have mattered much even if someone like Daniels had been running, self-deportation got explained, and the February debate schedule was mercifully light. Obama's record was defended on both libertarian and pro-Israel grounds.
America failed to decline and our moral understanding of war crime failed to be clear. The 1% found a champion, reblogging had market value, and the future of cars was considered. Readers debated the SAT and teacher intelligence, homeless shelters with alcohol succeeded, and science accounted for night terrors. Ad War Update here, Tweet of the Day here, FOTD here, VYFW here, and MHB here.
Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew developed a blueprint for Obama to attack Romney and save the country in the State of the Union (hint: tax reform), expanded on its political importance, prepared for disappointment in the actual speech after a chat with the White House, liveblogged it, preferred Daniels' response to Obama's speech, and clarified his disappointment. Your take on SOTU here, here and here. Blogger reax here.
Earlier in the day, Andrew knew hope about the future of marriage equality, flagged a particularly incisive piece on Romney's taxes, heralded a small victory for beards at Disney, spotted a gayer YouTubed version of his Newsweek piece, and recapped coverage of last night's debate. We grabbed blogger reax to Romney's 13.9% tax rate, scored some hits on Romney's electability argument, noted Mitt's vulnerability to free market populism, found out his tax rate depended on the election results, and fact-checked him on the size of the Navy. Newt's campaign was a book tour gone wrong, the man had grandiose albeit totally silly ideas, and today's candidates seemed to be calling Adam Smith a socialist. Pundits guessed at the SOTU message (occasionally by parsing the guest list), prepared for a lackluster address, wondered if Daniels' response would wreck his "fantasy candidate" status, thought the speech was worthless. Also, the campaign got awesomely autotuned.
Hamas' purported moderation was questionable at best and defense spending (protected by the GOP) retarded strategic growth. Readers sounded off on Obama's birth control decision, Chris Christie seemed afrad to veto marriage equality, baby-kissing went way back in American politics, Paterno's tarnished legacy cast a new light on our own lives, and church groups took the largest chunk of charity. Dating shifted spending habits, regulations upped the rent, small colleges handled diversity better than big state schools, and some kinds of teachers were (debatably) smarter than others. Fantasy novels put women in absurd positions, the relationship between intelligence and alien life was complex, and a chart broke down the streaming/DVD availability of 2011's top films.
Chart of the Day here, FOTD here, Hewitt Nominee here, Yglesias Nominee here, VFYW here, VFYW contest winner here, MHB here, Quote for the Day here, and Correction of the Day here.
Havana, Cuba, 8 am
Monday on the Dish, Andrew pronounced Gingrich the favorite in Florida, liveblogged the (somewhat off-kilter, no?) Republican debate with reax here, diagnosed the ailment in the GOP that allows Newt to flourish, blasted the politics of his bankroller Sheldon Adelson, and advised him to grow a beard. Andrew also defended the Newsweek piece against Hot Air's critiques on taxes and health care, flagged some criticism from the left, ran down the article's readership, continued to emphasize Bain's importance to the campaign, didn't think the tax issue was played out, and enjoyed the Romney meltdown.
We compiled reax to the South Carolina victory (weekend coverage here), saw evidence of a lead in Florida, tracked another tworounds of "full unconcealed panic" about Newt in the GOP, thought Romney's blitz could kill Newt in Florida, pinpointed Newt's appeal, marvelled at his chutzpah, wondered why he didn't call Bush a "food stamp president," and dug up his crazy views about pot and Iran. Romney was given free advice, people disliked him for reasons other than his wealth, the GOP was not and will not be saved by a late entry, its current candidates ran for President of red America, and managed to alienate hispanic America in the process.
Beyond the campaign, Egypt's new parliament began working, Bosnia pulled itself apart in its educational system, and morality didn't sink with the Titanic. Gabby Giffords retired with class, Obama pushed for birth control coverage, the defeat of SOPA had interesting political implications, and the construction industry needed fixing. Animals trained people, our conception of what people in stories are created the uncanny valley, and we also liked to smell each other. Reality check here, Quotes for the Day here and here, Ad War update here, VFYW here, FOTD here, and MHB here.
E.D. Kain makes related points while countering Chait:
[W]hy should we be more concerned with the influence of one billionaire over the decisions of a hypothetical president Newt Gingrich than with the amassed influence of corporations over the Republican party itself? After all, if Gingrich did anything explicitly to help Sheldon Adelson we’d know about it rather quickly. Everyone would be paying close attention. But the machinations of the Republican party itself and the money which keeps the back-scratching mutual between the party and its benefactors is largely opaque – a perpetual process that, like breathing, we barely notice at all.
In 1982, before he wanted to execute pot importers, Congressman Gingrich wrote a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association:
We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply deprives them of medical supervision and access to a regulated medical substance. Physicians are often forced to choose between their ethical responsibilities to the patient and their legal liabilities to federal bureaucrats.
Richard Metzger digs up more highlights from Newt's past. What he once told the Wall Street Journal:
[Toking] was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era. See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.
"Pink Triangle" is a great ode to unrequited love because it so wryly captures the absurdity and pain of loving someone who will never - or in the case of Pink Triangle Girl, can never - love you back. So I was amused to learn in this 2009 Fresh Air interview with Rivers Cuomo that the woman who inspired the song was actually straight, and that the pink triangle was a show of support for gay rights. Rivers missed the boat!
I think we in the defense analysis community have to do a better job explaining some things to the public, such as why, in the event of a major war, you can recruit and train new infantry battalions quicker than you can design and build ships, and also how much of the budget is eaten up by personnel costs. If you are a member of the Congress, meanwhile, I think you will find that you have more support to cut the defense budget than you might have previously thought. It will be up to you, though, to explain to your constituents why some cuts are smarter than others and why some "obvious" cuts are not as smart on second glance as they are at first.
His main contribution, at least in the terms Gingrich and the right talk about, is that he was all about destroying his "enemies". Alinsky used the word "enemy" to describe almost everyone who wasn't a lefty. He also in practice believed that since conservative, business, and the right were his enemies, the ends justified the means. From his book:
The eleventh rule is: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside. … The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. (P.126 -129B)
Another asks:
Didn’t Hillary Clinton write her college thesis on Alinsky?
It’s an unpopular answer, but the best thing for government to do right now, for the housing market, is not very much. Prices may have reached their bottom in any case. A better monetary policy still could improve the economy and wise investments in human capital will pave the way for longer-run growth and new household formation. There is a common attitude of "something must be done," but the U.S. public sector already has screwed up housing, and not every problem can be fixed by further government tinkering.
Aaron Carroll studies the connection between unemployment and lack of health insurance:
Many people like to think that being uninsured is a “choice”. And they’re correct, in the sense that you can “choose” not to buy insurance. I get that. But many people “choose” not to buy insurance for the sole reason that it’s crazy expensive. The average – not gold plated, but average – employer sponsored insurance plan for an individual plan in the United States last year was $5429. And that was just the premium. It didn’t include deductibles, co-pays, or co-insurance. The average family plan was $15,073. The median salary in the US, on the other hand, was less than $50,000 for households. For individuals, the median paycheck is $26,364. When you’re making that amount, and you lose your job, paying for that insurance plan is no longer possible.
Earlier this week, Gallup reported that the uninsured population continued to grow last year.
