Today on the Dish, Andrew praised the words of Jason Collins and didn’t buy Charles Barkley’s explanation for why so many athletes stay in the closet. He also pondered America’s next move in Syria in light of the news of chemical weapons, echoed Joe Biden’s call for the torture report, and recognized that the struggle of our time is not against religion but its militant strains. Elsewhere, Andrew, testified to the democratic power of the Internet and sighed at the reunion of Ron Paul and his ugliest comrade, while Brian Phillips’s brush with frosty death touched off Andrew’s own personal story of a friend’s demise.
In political coverage, we parsed the politics of sequestration, gathered reax to Jason Collins’ coming out, and got a better sense of how the upper crust finds work in tough times as Matthew O’Brien despaired over Spain’s labor market. We didn’t find much in the Tsarnaev’s Svengali connection, Bostonians didn’t take kindly to Alex Jones Corps, and Pete Wehner earned an Yglesias Award nomination for calling out Palin-pathos. Rebecca Rosen found a way to bust PR copy in the news, Michael Wolff delivered a prognosis for the NYT Book Review, and Joshua Rothman provided a heuristic account of grad school. Finally, we measured the economic benefits of biodiversity as EJ Graff suggested decentralization for the Boy Scouts’ policy on gays.
In assorted coverage, Graeme Wood took on Sam Harris in jiu-jitsu, Gavin McInnes took a melodramatic trip on pot, and readers asked Rod Dreher where cancer fits into God’s design. We checked Facebook’s status updates en mass, Ann Curzan noted the linguistic significance of ‘slash,’ robots tugged at our heartstrings, and we discovered that good taste is a matter of practice.
Jay Griffiths took William Golding to task, readers wrote in their recommendations for female hitchhiker-lit, and David Mikics relayed the story of history’s final blood libel case. We read an unnerving account of a radically controlling fiancé and registered concern over modern man’s vanishing virility, while Scandinavians glugged the most coffee worldwide. We caught sight of a wounded woman following a gas blast in Prague, an older bro spun tricks for the MHB, and peeked at Pittsburgh for the VFYW.
–B.J.
The Dish 