The rest of Bill’s videos are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Search Results For: mckibben
In October, Bill spoke to Marlene Spoerri of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs about his views on nuclear power:
I don’t foresee, especially post-Fukushima, a kind of political system in most of the world that would let it happen. Even before Fukushima, it wasn’t happening. The reason basically had to do with cost. Environmentalists helped shut down nuclear power, but really it was Wall Street that pulled the plug on it. It’s too expensive. It’s like burning $20 bills to generate electricity. It requires, if you’re going to do it, massive government subsidy. If you’re going to apply that subsidy, you’re better off doing it with other things that will generate more kilowatt hours per buck.
Now, that said, we should keep trying to figure out if there are some ways to do it that are more acceptable than the ones we’ve got now. You read about developments on the fringes, Thorium reactors and so on and so forth. But my guess is that in the timeframe we’ve got this is not going to be the place we go.
Bill’s previous videos are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Bill recently wrote in the Washington Post about the Keystone pipeline and taxing carbon:
Those oil barons, certain they will prevail, have kept pouring money into Washington. Just last month, a New York Times profile of a presidential confidante, Anita Dunn, revealed that her lobbying firm was on the Keystone payroll. In other words, in Washington terms, the pipeline is still wired. One oil executive, the morning after Tuesday’s election, was quoted as saying, “We expect it will be approved.”
If that happens, it will mean the president doesn’t understand that his legacy requires dealing with climate change — and that dealing with climate change requires leaving carbon in the ground. There are lots of other actions that will be necessary, too: A serious tax on carbon, for instance, has long been the sine qua non of real progress. But that requires getting House Majority Leader John Boehner and the House Republicans on board. The truth is, we’ve got to do it all, and it will be hard, harder than anything else the administration is considering, since it runs straight up against the richest industry on Earth.
Bill’s previous videos are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.Read some of his Sandy-related coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here. His campaign against the fossil fuel industry, Do The Math, is catching fire across the country.
Bill recently spoke with Marc Maximov about the attention we’re not paying to the ocean:
The ocean is already 30 percent more acid, and that’s causing havoc already with marine creatures. One oceanographer last month at the close of the big conference on ocean acidification in California said that by century’s end, at this pace, the oceans of the world will be “hot, sour and breathless.” Which seemed to me a pretty powerful statement. Most frozen things will have melted or be in the process of melting. And we’ll see a huge increase in severe weather, to the point where my guess would be that civilization will just be a series of emergency responses to things.
Bill’s previous videos are here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Read some of his Sandy-related coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here. His campaign against the fossil fuel industry, Do The Math, is catching fire across the country.
Bill recently spoke with Marc Maximov about the most important thing someone can do:
Organize. It’s important to change your lightbulb, but it’s less important than coming together with other people to try and change the system.
Other things that can help:
[S]olar panels are great. They’re highly technical, and they allow you to have a very spread-out, diffuse, democratic power grid. I’ve got them all over my roof, and they work great even in Vermont. Imagine how well they’d work in North Carolina. But there’s lots of other technology, too, that we sometimes forget about when we think about technology. When I was last in Copenhagen for that ridiculous failed climate meeting, the one really good thing was watching the fact that 40 percent of people in that very advanced city have adopted the bicycle as their way of getting to and from work. The bicycle is as technological as the airplane. And probably a lot better for you.
Bill’s previous videos are here, here, here, here, here and here. Read some of his Sandy-related coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here. McKibben’s campaign against the fossil fuel industry, Do The Math, is catching fire across the country.
Bill recently spoke with Marc Maximov about the subject of species extinction:
I think that the standard scientific assessment, at least for the last seven or eight years, is someplace between 40 and 70 percent of species would go extinct in a rapid warming scenario like the one we’re entering. As I recall, that was the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] account of a three-and-a-half-degree rise in temperature. …
A certain amount of climate change is clearly already baked in, and some of the effects are brutal. You know, this summer we saw the catastrophic melt of the Arctic. We’ve broken one of the world’s biggest physical features. But if we do what we need to do now to get off coal and gas and oil, then we can limit the damage. There’s still the possibility of keeping the rise of the planet’s temperature below two degrees, which is the line that governments have drawn as the red line. But that would take an all-out, focused, wartime-footing kind of effort, and most of all it would take ending the political power of the fossil fuel industry that’s forever delayed change.
Bill’s previous videos are here, here, here, here and here. Read some of his Sandy-related coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here. McKibben’s campaign against the fossil fuel industry, Do The Math, is catching fire across the country.
In a recent profile of McKibben’s post-election plans, Coral Davenport rehashed the Keystone fight:
In 2011, as Washington’s green groups licked their wounds over their failure to push Congress to pass a climate-change bill, McKibben organized thousands of protesters to rally outside the White House against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile conduit for oil from Canada’s tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.
Hundreds were arrested—including McKibben himself—during the multi-day rallies, in which protesters stood four and five deep as they wound a black plastic “pipeline” around the White House. But it worked—McKibben successfully marshaled President Obama’s political base of young people and environmentalists to send a message to the White House that approving the pipeline would freeze their support for him in 2012. And the Obama administration, which had been on track to approve the pipeline, put the project on ice until after the election—at a cost of frequent pillorying by Republicans.
Soon after, The Boston Globe profiled McKibben in a story headlined “The Man Who Crushed the Keystone Pipeline.” And his influence has grown since then: In July, he wrote a story for Rolling Stone, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” which went viral and became one of the most widely read and shared stories on the magazine’s website. Now he’s planning his next campaign.
McKibben is currently on a “Do The Math” campaign around the country. Stephen Lacey explains:
Do The Math is modeled after a divestment campaign in the 1980?s that put pressure on American colleges and universities to pull money out of South Africa — a strategy credited with helping put an end to the country’s apartheid system. Environmental groups want to characterize fossil fuel companies in the same way.
“It is high time for us to play offense. These companies have lost their social license,” said McKibben to the crowd. “This is a rogue industry.” Vilifying and boycotting fossil fuel companies is not exactly a new strategy. But this campaign is unique. It’s the first time that any environmental organization has attempted a divestment strategy of this scale. And the targets outlined by McKibben — the actual math in “Do The Math” — creates a very clear case for campaigners when putting pressure on institutions to wind down their investments.
Meanwhile, senators are still pushing for the pipeline. Bill’s previous videos are here, here, here and here. Read some of his Sandy-related coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here.
Bill McKibben is one of the world’s leading environmentalists and writers:
In 2009, he led the organization of 350.org, which organized what Foreign Policy magazine called “the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind,” with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. The magazine named him to its inaugural list of the 100 most important global thinkers, and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009.
Bill’s previous videos are here, here and here. Read some of his Sandy-related coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here.
Bill McKibben is one of the world’s leading environmentalists and writers:
In 2009, he led the organization of 350.org, which organized what Foreign Policy magazine called “the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind,” with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. The magazine named him to its inaugural list of the 100 most important global thinkers, and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009.
Bill’s previous videos are here and here. Read some of his Sandy coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here.
Our feature returns at last:
Bill McKibben is one of the world’s leading environmentalists and writers:
In 2009, he led the organization of 350.org, which organized what Foreign Policy magazine called “the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind,” with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. The magazine named him to its inaugural list of the 100 most important global thinkers, and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009.
Our first video with Bill is here. Read some of his Sandy coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here.
Bill McKibben is one of the world’s leading environmentalists and writers:
In 2009, he led the organization of 350.org, which organized what Foreign Policy magazine called “the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind,” with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. The magazine named him to its inaugural list of the 100 most important global thinkers, and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009.
On Friday, McKibben expressed his fears over the Frankenstorm. This morning we posted his lament over the submerged subway caused by Sandy.
[Updated with many more questions added by readers - a huge response] Bill McKibben is one of the world’s leading environmentalists and writers:
In 2009, he led the organization of 350.org, which organized what Foreign Policy magazine called “the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind,” with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. The magazine named him to its inaugural list of the 100 most important global thinkers, and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009.
For more, check out Rowan Jacobsen’s profile of the man and his mission:
McKibben was just 27 when he wrote The End of Nature. It gave him a reputation as a sort of eco-Scrooge, but it’s not the screed people tend to remember. “Its heart is a philosophical essay,” says McKibben, “and its dominant emotion is sadness, not outrage.”
So have the forces rallied after McKibben’s notable Rolling Stone piece on global warming?
“Movements are very odd things,” he said as we crossed a quiet brook that, during the long night of Irene, had become an improbable scourge. “They tend to be beneath the surface for a while as they gather strength. Look at the civil-rights movement. We tend to compress history in our minds, but there were basically five years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott when nothing happened. The movement was building all the time, it just wasn’t strong enough yet.”
A few weeks after our walk, Colorado spontaneously combusted. Midwest corn rolled up its leaves and died. In June alone, 3,282 temperature records were broken or tied across the U.S. A rare megastorm called a derecho tore a 700-mile path from Indiana to Washington, D.C., knocking out the air conditioning of 4.3 million people. McKibben helped everyone connect the dots.
You know the drill by now: To submit a question for Bill, simply enter it into the field at the top of the Urtak poll (ignore the “YES or NO question” aspect and simply enter any open-ended question). We primed the poll with questions you can vote on right away – click “Yes” if you have a strong interest in seeing him answer the question or “No” if you don’t particularly care. Thanks to everyone for participating.
Readers continue it:
I’ve been following Josh Fox’s “Ask Anything” series with particular interest. As a native Pennsylvanian, I’ve been outraged by the gas industry’s aggressive and arrogant rush to turn Pennsylvania’s forests and farmlands into industrial areas. As recently documented by this USGS report, this rapid industrialization of Pennsylvania’s forests with so many new roads and pipelines is fragmenting habitat that is really important for wildlife (among other apparently expendable things like clean water, air, public recreation, solitude, etc.). The USGS released another report in March about the habitat fragmentation issue, which receives almost no coverage whatsoever.
A reader complained that “it’s obvious that Fox isn’t at all interested in presenting a fair (but biased) assessment.” That may be true. But I’m fairly more concerned about the gas industry’s propaganda that permeates the media. You cannot turn on cable TV without seeing an ad about the amazing benefits of “clean” natural gas. Give me a break. You may be able to say that burning natural gas is “cleaner” than coal or oil, but it is certainly not “clean,” particularly when you consider the process of exploration, development, production and transportation.
As for Mr. Fox’s presentation, full disclosure: I’ve never seen Gasland, so I’m not sure how the issues were presented. But the reason I never saw Gasland is because I’ve lived Gasland.
I grew up in the oil and gas fields of northwestern Pennsylvania. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when the oil and gas industry infiltrates and dominates your area. Anyone wanting to know how good turning your region over to the oil and gas industry is need look no further than the “incredibly prosperous” towns of Oil City, Warren, and Bradford in northwestern Pennsylvania. I invite anyone to visit these towns to see the rewards that await you if you only sign over your mineral rights for some short-sighted profits.
Unfortunately, the rest of Pennsylvania is getting to know all too well the reality that has existed in northwestern Pennsylvania for more than a century thanks to the oil and gas industry. So much of Pennsylvania’s state forests in the north-central part of the state have been leased to the oil and gas industry over the last several years that the agency charged with managing those state forests, the DCNR, is concerned about its ability to maintain its status as a “sustainably managed” system by the Forest Stewardship Council. Between Governors Rendell (a Democrat) and Corbett (a Republican), there’s been a bipartisan appeasement to the oil and gas industry that simply sacrificed hundreds of thousands of acres of state forest land, consequences be damned.
Finally, you state that “if it provides energy while lowering carbon emissions, I’m for it.” Please, get out of Manhattan and for god’s sake visit some of the areas in Pennsylvania where “fracking” is allegedly “lowering” our “carbon emissions.” I guarantee you it will take no longer than 10 minutes to see how ridiculous a statement that is. Regardless, Bill McKibben repeatedly cautions that the only number that matters is the global amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Thus, even if America allegedly reduces its emissions by transitioning away from coal to natural gas, that reduction only matters if that coal remains in the ground and is not dug up and shipped overseas to be burned. Do you think the coal industry is just going to stop extracting coal because America relies more on natural gas?
Another suggests:
The dissenters that you published may want to read this article, “Fracking Would Emit Large Quantities of Greenhouse Gases,” in Scientific American.
Another reader:
I’m opposed to fracking. When I was still working for a newspaper, I did a couple of stories about people who were investigating fracking, so I wasn’t dealing directly with sources who were doing fracking or having their landfracked. I am intrigued by fracking because I took a couple of courses in geology in high school and so the actual process of fracking was something I wanted to know more about. I became opposed to fracking for several reasons.
First, I don’t like the way fracking disregards property lines on the surface, so that it’s difficult to allocate where the natural gas comes from and who should profit; I don’t like the unsettled law and I don’t like having mineral rights separated from surface rights (mostly because I grew up in a state where there wasn’t much mining or oil drilling).
Second, I don’t like the way fracking pumps undisclosed chemicals into geological strata to free up natural gas. Iffracking used water and say, baking soda, I’d say fine, go for it. Those are known quantities over the long run. But I am seriously concerned about water quality and have been for years, and I worry that we don’t know enough about how all aquifers are recharged to say with authority that fracking chemicals won’t circulate into aquifers eventually. I am very conservative about messing with water sources.
Third, I don’t trust regulation or corporations in general in the long run. Fracking advocates say the casings for the wells are securely enclosed and will last for years, protecting the water supply. That may be true. But there will be fracking contractors who don’t adhere to state-of-the-art standards and there will be weak or unethical regulators, so there will be instances of failure. Until we know how costly failure will be – in terms of water resources damaged, maintenance and containment of fracking fluids, and maintenance and containment offracking wells 50 to 100 years from now, I don’t trust fracking. I would want to see long-term bonds posted for each individual well-head, and I would also want to see regulators who don’t make mistakes or get complacent by doing active research on maintaining water quality and mitigating well failures.
My problems with fracking are that I can’t trust government to take in enough money to pay for problems caused by fracking many years from now. I can’t trust government to keep that money only for dealing with fracking without wasting it. I can’t trust corporations to always put water quality and public safety above profit margins, and I don’t trust lawyers, lawmakers or the courts to protect the rights of individuals when it comes to profits from resource extraction that can’t be tracked in ways that reflect the ownership interests of people who own the land at the surface, whether or not they always owned the mineral rights, never owned the mineral rights, or sold the mineral rights.
I think protecting the water supply is more important than lowering carbon emissions through fracking, but that leads to another discussion I won’t get into here – my bias is toward solar-powered roofs on every house and solar-powered skins on vehicles, with distributed energy production that decreases reliance on a grid powered by fossil fuels; I also favor funding more research into nuclear power production through fusion rather than fission.
Previous Dish on fracking here.
Bill McKibben claims ”the hardest part of the Keystone pipeline fight has been figuring out what in the world to do about the Democrats.” He acknowledges that, “taken as a whole, they’re better than the Republicans”:
[A]s I turn this problem over and over in my head, I keep coming to the same conclusion: We probably need to think, most of the time, about how to change the country, not the Democrats. If we build a movement strong enough to transform the national mood, then perhaps the trembling leaders of the Democrats will eventually follow. I mean, “evolve.” At which point we’ll get an end to things like the Keystone pipeline, and maybe even a price on carbon. That seems to be the lesson of Stonewall and of Selma. The movement is what matters; the Democrats are, at best, the eventual vehicle for closing the deal.
The greatest error of almost all important social movements is to look for and follow the politicians for success. The politicians are often the last people to get it. That was the underlying principle behind the marriage equality movement – we would change hearts and minds on the ground first. Then after 25 years of that, we have a sudden Senate majority for equality. In a couple of months. That pattern can tell you a lot.
Here are all the guests that have been featured in our Ask Anything video series. They first appear alphabetically below, then reverse chronologically after that.
Andrew’s Ask Anything answers are here.
Guests:
Spencer Ackerman
Bruce Bartlett
Peter Beinart
Jesse Bering
Mark Bowden
Steven Brill
Tina Brown
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tyler Cowen
Rod Dreher
Josh Fox
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
Maggie Gallagher
Sister Jeannine Gramick
Sue Halpern
John Hodgman
Jim Holt
Scott Horton
Daniel Klaidman
David Kuo
Eli Lake
Jonah Lehrer
Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett
Jim Manzi
Dina Martina
Alex Massie
Jane Mayer
Bill McKibben
Michael C. Moynihan
Charles Murray
Steven Pinker
Jay Rosen
Hanna Rosin
Jennifer Rubin
Veronique de Rugy
Christopher Ryan
Reihan Salam
• What has most surprised you about spending time in a nursing home?
• What made you want to train your dog Pransky as a therapy dog, and what does that training entail?
• How did residents at the nursing home respond to your therapy dog team? Any particularly emotional memories?
• What do you think is the most prominent difference between people who are content in old age and those who are not?
• How has working at a nursing home changed your perspective on how we care for the elderly?
Sue Halpern is the editor of the The New York Review of Books‘ ebook series NYRB Lit and a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College. She is the author of six books, including Can’t Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Frontlines of Memory Research and Migrations to Solitude: The Quest for Privacy in a Crowded World. Her most recent one is A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher.
• What triggered your mission to fight fracking?
• Do you believe that fracking is the lesser evil compared to coal and
oil extraction?
• How realistic are wind and solar as sufficient forms of energy for the US?
• With the proper regulations in place, can you conceive of an
environmentally sound form of fracking?
• What was the most shocking finding in the course of researching your new film?
• Why should conservatives and libertarians be concerned about fracking?
• How do mineral rights play into the fracking debate?
Josh Fox is an American filmmaker and environmental activist. He is the writer/director of the Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary, Gasland, and has subsequently become one of the nation’s most prominent critics of hydraulic fracturing. His new film, Gasland Part II recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will air on HBO this summer.
• Why is US health care so expensive, and what was the most surprising thing you learned which researching your Time cover story?
• How have non-profit hospitals become so profitable? With a follow-up about how difficult it was for Steven to decode medical bills.
• How does the US health care system rank compared to other developed nations? With the follow-up: Which free market-based reforms we should pursue to help remedy that?
• Which aspect of Obamacare do you wish got more attention?
Steven Brill is an American journalist who has written for Newsweek, The New Yorker, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Harpers and Time. He is also the founder of CourtTV and American Lawyer magazine. Brill’s most recent venture is the business Journalism Online, which he sold to RR Donnelley in 2011 for a reported $45 million and now has more than 400 publications using its Press+ service to charge for digital content. He also founded Verified Identity Pass, Inc., a New York-based company that operated the Clear airport security fast-pass, a pre-cursor to the current Federal Trusted Traveler program.
Here at the Dish we are big fans of his recent 36-page Time cover-story, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us”, which the we covered here, here and here.
• How do you reconcile your sister’s cancer with God’s plan?
• Do you still consider yourself a Republican?
• Do we over-treat cancer?
• Which stereotypes about small towns and the South do you find most offensive?
• What would you say to people who left their hometowns because they really didn’t fit in – and what about people who grew up rootless or who don’t have a community to return to?
• What should we learn from your sister Ruthie’s example?
Rod Dreher is a blogger at The American Conservative as well as the author of the book: The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life.
Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett
• What would be the ideal position for Obama to take on Iran and why hasn’t he taken it?
• How much longer will Iran stay a theocracy?
• Are Israel’s fears of a nuclear Iran overblown?
• Do you think Iran’s enrichment of uranium is legitimate?
• What’s your view of the Ahmadinejad’s regime?
• Is there still a rift between the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad?
• What’s the biggest misconception about Iran you encounter on a regular basis?
Flynt Leverett teaches international affairs at Pennsylvania State University and is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. Hillary Mann Leverett teaches international affairs at Yale and American University. During the Iranian uprising of 2009, the Dish continuously clashed with Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, the most well-known skeptics of the Green Movement. The husband and wife team continue to blog at The Race for Iran.
• What were your first thoughts upon hearing your diagnosis?
• Do you fear death?
• How have your prayers changed since your illness?
• Is faith for fools?
• Has your illness shaped the way you see the national health care debate?
• What were the worst and best the Bush administration?
• What major change is necessary for conservatism to revive itself?
Andrew: I’ve known David Kuo since he worked in the Bush White House as Deputy Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. When he was working there, he suffered a brain seizure while driving and, without his extraordinary wife, Kim, taking the wheels from him, they might both never have survived.
But they have. David was diagnosed with brain cancer and left the Bush administration, reflecting in his conscience on his work there. The result was a book, Tempting Faith, that came out at almost the same time as The Conservative Soul. We found ourselves estranged from modern Republicanism and united by faith in Jesus. Thus a friendship was born, and it’s one I have treasured deeply. We have talked together, joked together, laughed together and prayed together. And the cancer has come and gone and come back again. When I saw him last, he had difficulty walking very far. … He has helped me so much over the years in my own spiritual journey; and it would be true to say simply that I love him and am proud to have him here.
• What do you think is the biggest misconception of libertarianism?
• Why do you call Noam Chomsky a junk historian?
• What do you miss most about Christopher Hitchens?
• What’s the biggest lesson you learned from the Jonah Lehrer debacle?
• Do you have any regrets about “Draw Mohammad Day”?
• What do you make of Glenn Beck’s new media empire?
• Are there libertarian solutions to large collective-action problems (such as global warming)?
Michael C. Moynihan is an American journalist and the cultural news editor for The Daily Beast/Newsweek and formally the managing editor of Vice magazine. Before that he was a senior editor of the libertarian magazine Reason.
• How do you talk to climate change skeptics?
• Is it too late to adequately prevent climate change?
• What can individuals do, regardless of public policy, to help the environment?
• Which species’ extinction concerns you the most?
• Why are you so opposed to the Keystone Pipeline?
• What is the greatest environmental victory of the past ten years?
• What’s the scariest environmental problem that isn’t being talked about enough?
• What are the ways market capitalism can aid the fight against global warming?
• What is your opinion of nuclear energy?
• How do you prepare your children and grandchildren for a worst-case environmental scenario?
Bill McKibben is one of the world’s leading environmentalists and writers. He is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. Time Magazine called him ‘the planet’s best green journalist’ and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was ‘probably the country’s most important environmentalist.’
• Is the political climate in the UK more civil than in the US?
• Would the U.S. be better off under a parliamentary system?
• Would you rather have Obamacare or the British NHS?
• Would you explain the “Plebgate” scandal that led to British Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell’s resignation?
• What are the pros and cons of covering US politics from across the Pond?
• What’s your take on independence for Scotland?
Alex Massie a conservative Scottish journalist, blogger at The Spectator, and former Washington correspondent for The Scotsman. He was short-listed for the 2012 Orwell Prize for his blogging.
• What’s your take on the current state of the drug war?
• What most impressed you about Obama?
• Why was Bush unable to get Bin Laden?
• What impact has Osama Bin Laden’s death had on terrorism?
• What’s the biggest surprise you came across during your reporting for The Finish?
Mark Bowden is a writer and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books including Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War; Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw; Worm: The First Digital World War; and most recently, The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden
• Which city is better: DC or NYC?
• What is the best policy idea that no one is talking about?
• How Could Obama Have Improved The Economy?
• Who should lead the GOP?
• Is the GOP in demographic trouble?
• Which 2012 presidential candidate has the better tax plan?
• What is the conservative approach to inequality?
Reihan Salam is a conservative political commentator, columnist and author. He is a columnist for The Daily and lead writer of The Agenda blog at National Review, as well as a policy adviser at e21 and a contributing editor at National Affairs.
• Why are women louder during sex?
• What’s is gangbang porn so popular?
• How did agriculture change sex?
• Why do humans have more sex than animals? And why are so many marriages sexless?
• What was the most surprising discoveries you made while researching your book? (hint: WWII swingers)
• What is the most unorthodox culture with regards to sex?
• Where does jealousy come from?
Christopher Ryan, Ph.D., is a psychologist, teacher, and author. Together with his wife, Cacilda Jethá, M.D., he is a co-author of the New York Times best seller, Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. Chris just launched a podcast called “Tangentially Speaking” and is developing a social networking site, KōTangle – for a “sexy, intelligent community without the sleaze and shame typical of many conventional dating or swingers sites.”
• What’s been the most unfair criticism of your book?
• How can Obama help Israel and Palestine?
• What’s your take on the Jewish generational divide?
• Is Netanyahu trying to get Romney elected?
• Why is it worth preserving Israel as a democratic Jewish state?
• How is Zionism in crisis?
• Will Israel soon bomb Iran?
Peter Beinart is a senior political columnist at The Daily Beast where he is the editor of Open Zion. He is also a former editor of The New Republic and has written for Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books among other periodicals, and is the author of three books, including The Crisis of Zionism.
• What is your favorite song?
• What are your thoughts on Occupy Wall Street?
• What were your first impression of Provincetown?
• What is your idea of the perfect day off?
• What’s it like raising a child in Las Vegas? (also which public figure do you most admire?)
Dina Martina is an American performer of whom everyone at the Dish is a massive fan.
• When were you most disappointed in President Obama?
• What did the Trayvon Martin story mean to you?
• Which black figures hinder race relations?
• Why do we love violent sports like football?
• How do you talk to your son about race?
• Do you think the GOP is racially motivated?
• Do you still play Dungeons & Dragons?
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle.
• Why all the doomsday fear-mongering?
• How are you preparing for the apocalypse?
• What’s the best part about working for The Daily Show?
• Who is the funniest person in the world?
• What’s your advice to those who can’t grow a proper mustache?
• What’s your summary of human knowledge in three minutes or less?
• Why aren’t you ‘The World’s Most Interesting Man’?
• Which party’s 2012 political convention was “comedically” better?
• What are your thoughts on Clint Eastwood’s 2012 RNC speech?
John Hodgman is an author, actor, and humorist. He has written numerous books, including The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All. He has also appears regularly on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
• Is today’s hookup culture a positive thing? Also, this answer led to a long thread of reader responses here.
• Is ‘The End Of Men’ good for women?
• What’s wrong with a male-biased blog?
• Have minority women surpassed men?
• Are we heading towards a matriarchy?
• What are your thoughts on the GOP’s abortion stance?
• Why are boys doing so badly?
• To what extent is the wage gap due to discrimination? Other factors? Readers responded to this answer here.
Hanna Rosin is senior editor at The Atlantic and a founder and editor at DoubleX, Slate’s women’s section. She is also the author of the book The End of Men based on her story in the July/August 2010 Atlantic.
Why is the penis shaped like that?
What role does the foreskin play?
• Why is the prostate a source of pleasure?
• Why is the vagina shaped like that?
• What’s your take on the mystery of female ejaculation?
• Is there an evolutionary advantage to being gay?
• Is there an evolutionary advantage to believing in God?
• Is homosexuality nature or nurture?
• What’s the most controversial thing you’ve written?
• Has writing about sex affected your sex life?
Jesse Bering Ph.D. is the author of The Belief Instinct and Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? and is a regular contributor to Scientific American, Slate, and Das Magazin (Switzerland). His writing has also been featured in many other sources, including New York Magazine, The Guardian, Discover, The New Republic, NPR, and the BBC. Bering is the former director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen’s University, Belfast and began his career as a psychology professor at the University of Arkansas. His next book will be on the curiously scandalous science of human sexuality.
• How was your wedding?
• What are your plans post-congress?
• What’s your biggest regret while in Congress?
• In Congress getting worse?
• When will we see the end of DOMA?
• How are Dodd-Frank’s critics wrong?
• How could Democrats have prevented the housing crisis?
• What’s the most outrageous thing Andrew has ever said?
• Who is your favorite Republican colleague?
• Over your career, which political event or scandal has most shocked you?
• What’s your biggest criticism of Obama? Biggest plaudit?
• What did you make of Romney back in Massachusetts?
Barnett “Barney” Frank has been the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district since January 1981. He is the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee (2007–2011) and is considered the most prominent gay politician in the United States.
• What idea presented in your book gives you the most existential angst?
• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• Who is your favorite philosopher?
• Any favorite religious jokes?
• What do you make of the ‘New Atheists’?
Jim Holt a prominent essayist and critic on philosophy, mathematics, and science, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books. He is the author of two books, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes and Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story - additional Dish coverage of that book is here, here and here.
• What’s been your strangest discovery about outside spending?
• What is the sneakiest form of campaign finance?
• What is your biggest worry about Citizens United?
• Should Bush administration officials be tried for war crimes?
Jane Mayer is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1995. She is the author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. She has most recently reported on the powerful Koch brothers and the raving lunatic Bryan Fischer, and has written extensively on the influence of outside money this political season. Catch up on her work here.
• What does political journalism get wrong/right?
• How can we improve the Sunday morning political shows?
• Which journalist should people read more?
• What’s your take on WikiLeaks?
Jay Rosen teaches journalism at NYU, where he directs the Studio 20 program and writes the blog PressThink. He also streams his press criticism through Twitter and Tumblr. His ideas have been featured on the Dish numerous times, some highlights of which are here, here, here and here.
• Who is behind Obama’s Af-Pak policy?
• What are the ties between the drug war and Afghanistan?
• How hands on is Obama with Drone warfare?
• Is it better to kill or capture our enemies?
• Is the ‘Fast and Furious’ for real?
Daniel Klaidman’s is a special correspondent for Newsweek, where he has worked since 1996, serving as investigative reporter, Middle East correspondent, Washington bureau chief, and managing editor, before his current position. After 9/11 he led Newsweek‘s award-winning coverage of the attacks and their aftermath. He is the author of Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency.
• What role should the government have in the private sector?
• Why are you against tighter financial regulations?
• Why didn’t the Bush tax cuts succeed?
• How is Paul Krugman wrong?
• Hasn’t austerity is Europe failed?
• How will the Euro crisis affect the 2012 US election?
Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Her primary research interests include the U.S. economy, federal budget, homeland security, taxation, tax competition, and financial privacy issues. She has testified numerous times in front of Congress on the effects of fiscal stimulus, debt and deficits, and regulation on the economy. de Rugy writes regular columns for Reason magazine, the Washington Examiner, and blogs about economics at National Review Online’s The Corner.
• Why should Catholics stay in the church?
• How would you reform the Catholic church?
• Should women be allowed into the priesthood?
• What was the most disheartening moment during the Vatican’s ongoing effort to silence you?
• Do you agree with the Vatican’s criticism of American nuns?
• Where do you stand on the contraception battle?
• What do the Bishops say about civil marriage and what’s your response?
• Do you think civil marriage should be available for gay and lesbian couples?
• What in the Bible backs gay rights?
Sister Jeannine Gramick is a Roman Catholic religious sister and a co-founder of the activist organization New Ways Ministry, a Catholic social justice center working for justice and reconciliation of lesbian and gay people with the institutional Catholic Church. After a review of her public activities on behalf of the Church that concluded in a finding of grave doctrinal error, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) declared in 1999 that she should no longer be engaged in pastoral work with lesbian and gay persons. In 2000, her congregation, in an attempt to thwart further conflict with the Vatican, commanded her not to speak publicly about homosexuality. She responded by saying, “I choose not to collaborate in my own oppression by restricting a basic human right [to speak]. To me this is a matter of conscience.”
• Should we get rid of the DEA?
• What are your biggest civil liberty fears?
• Is Obama worse than Bush on civil liberties?
• How bad is Obama’s record on whistleblowers?
• Will Bush officials ever be tried for torture?
Scott Horton is a contributing editor of Harper’s who blogs about civil liberties at No Comment. If you haven’t yet read his award-winning piece “The Guantánamo ‘Suicides‘”, you should definitely do so. Here is my long take on the report.
• How has your opinion of Princess Diana changed?
• What was the best moment in at the Women In The World Conference?
• What was your most satisfying achievement at The New Yorker?
• What is the worst thing about living in England?
• Which controversial Newsweek cover did you kill?
Tina Brown is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. She is the current editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek and the former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.
• How has Obama dealt with Israel?
• Will Israel attack Iran – and should it?
• What do you think of rap music today?
• Can hip hop be conservative?
• How powerful is AIPAC?
• Is torture ever justifiable?
• What doesn’t suck about Beltway culture? (a rebuttal to Ackerman)
Eli Lake, is the national security correspondent for Newsweek/The Daily Beast and a frequent contributor to the Bloggingheads.tv. He previously covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times. Lake has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic since 2008 and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
• Which country has the best tax system?
• When will Republicans become sane again?
• What’s one of the biggest myths about the American tax system?
• What’s a VAT and why do we need it?
• What is the biggest misconception about Reaganomics?
• What do you think of Paul Ryan and the GOP’s fiscal future?
Bruce Bartlett is an American historian whose area of expertise is supply-side economics. He served as a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and as a Treasury official under President George H. W. Bush; he also served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”
• Has your opinion of violence changed?
• What most endangers the trend towards world peace?
• What was the most violent period ever?
• Does income inequality create crime?
• Does organized religion help or hurt global peace?
• Would you erase all nuclear weapons?
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author. He is a Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.The Dish has extensively aired and debated aspects of his most recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. A sizable sample of that debate here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
• Where should you eat in an unfamiliar city?
• What’s the best American and, er, British food?
• What is the healthiest cuisine in the world?
• What ethnic foods should Americans be eating?
• Why is cheap food better than expensive food?
• Should we feat genetically modified foods?
Tyler Cowen is an American economist, academic, and writer. He occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. He also writes for such publications as The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, and the Wilson Quarterly.
• What’s the GOP’s biggest delusion?
• How should the GOP treat climate skeptics?
• Should we increase taxes to fix the deficit?
• Was the stimulus a failure or a success?
• How should we respond to a recession?
• How do you fix a problem like entitlements?
Jim Manzi, perhaps most sane and thoughtful voice at National Review, has had a regular presence on the Dish for many years. Jim is the founder and Chairman of Applied Predictive Technologies, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author of the book Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society.
• What harm has same-sex marriage caused?
• Should religious institutions accept gay marriage?
• Can millennials be persuaded against gay marriage?
• How do your critics most misrepresent you?
• What’s the difference between gay marriage and interracial marriage?
• How did your experience as a single mom shape your views?
• Why is gay marriage worse than heterosexual divorce?
Maggie Gallagher is a conservative commentator and co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage, the leading organization opposed to same sex marriage.
• What do you hate about Beltway culture? (Eli Lake’s rebuttal is here)
• What has been your most memorable experience in a war zone?
• Is Afghanistan screwed?
• What’s your biggest beef with Obama?
• Is closing Gitmo still worth it?
Spencer Ackerman is an American national security reporter and blogger. He began his career at The New Republic and currently writes for Wired magazine’s national security blog, Danger Room.
• What was W’s biggest mistake? (and readers responded here.)
• Could Obama ever get your vote?
• How should the GOP approach female voters?
• What would you change about the GOP?
• How is Iran different from reports of WMDs in Iraq?
Jennifer Rubin is an American conservative columnist and a blogger for the Washington Post.
• What changed your mind on marriage equality?
• Would you support affirmative action based on class?
• Why do the wealthy stay married more than the poor?
• Why not redistribute income?
• What criticism of the bell curve did you most take to heart?
• Has the drug war affected class divisions?
Charles Murray is an American libertarian political scientist, author, columnist, and pundit currently working as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 and the co-author of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.
• What makes you more creative?
• Are creative types prone to mental illness?
• Is the Internet killing creativity?
• Is ADD good for creativity?
• Does cannabis increase creativity?
• What’s the most profound study you know?
Jonah Lehrer is an American author and journalist who writes on the topics of psychology, neuroscience, and the relationship between science and the humanities.
Friday on the Dish, Andrew accepted Bill Clinton’s DOMA stance without absolving him of past actions, gawked at the contortions to which Catholics would go to oppose gay rights, and remained hopeful at the chance of a Grand Bargain. He looked into the online media abyss with Michael Wolf and gave us a “talking-heads-up” for Sunday. In politics, we cautiously cheered the recent jobs report, contemporary constitutions excluded the right to bear arms, and Alan Abramovitz made an argument for the Voting Rights Act that didn’t rely on race. Internationally, hawks loved Rand Paul’s contrariness even as they disagreed with him, Sam Roggeveen contributed to the growing Iraq War retrospective, Marc Lynch dreaded the effects of Iran’s declining popularity, and the Harlem Shake meme took on a revolutionary tone.
In assorted news and views, Arthur Nelson worried about a Boomer-initiated housing bubble and Ryan Healey stripped down the effects of ending Canada’s pole-dancing visa, and Freidersdorf called out Breitbart and O’Keefe. Virginia Hughes felt ill at the idea that lobbying would trump science in allocating money to disease research while Google doled out prescription advice and Dr. Rob Lamberts experimented with his own subscription model in health care. Kevin Charles Redmon cultivated the argument for farmed Rhino horns to thwart extinction, fracking hogged scarce water resources in the West, and
Heading into the weekend, Grandpa pwned and was happier for it and Don Ward pointed out how badly our shoes need shining. George Packer updated his notion of the bare necessities, Colin McSwiggen blamed his tools, and Jill Filipovic exercised her individuality by keeping her surname. Cat Rohr helped ex-cons climb the corporate ladder and readers leaned into the discussion on Sheryl Sandberg’s new book. David Haglund noted a definition that has been around literally forever, Alice Jones fretted over the dissolving fourth wall, and Rich Juzwiak opted for the most generic hookup music possible. We previewed a brutally honest teen-party movie in the MHB, piloted a drone in the FOTD, and peeked through the blinds at Buenos Aires in the VFYW.
- D.A.
Rest of the week below the jump.
Thursday on the Dish, Andrew applauded Rand Paul’s righteous filibuster while we rounded up other reactions to the 13-hour dose of awesome, and recognized the decline of christianist influence thought in their inability to engage in secular debate. He dubbed Clinton’s DOMA announcement a “BFD” and stood in awe at the progress of gay rights during his lifetime,
In the political realm, Ponnuru looked forward to 2016 debates featuring Rand Paul, Chait found the paragon of truthiness, and we welcomed the blossoming of more conservative sanity. Readers shared their own stories from the lead-up to the Iraq War, Republicans sought “permission” to support marriage equality, and Evan Soltas declared the sequester overhyped. Overseas, the US weighed the odds in Syria, we eagerly awaited a peaceful outcome for the Kenyan election, and bookies pontificated about the next pontiff.
In miscellaneous coverage, a reader blurred the line between work and play for reporters, NPR considered all things about the Dish model, Hairpin offered Amazon alternatives, and freelancers measured payment against pageviews. Drum cast about for an explanation of the public’s climate ennui, soccer kept the lights on, stoners reclaimed 3-D printers for peaceful purposes, and a Yellow Lab chilled with some herbal help. Andrea Swensson passed on SXSW, Douthat ignored the Hathaway haters, and Peter Orszag challenged colleges to close to dropout gap.
Eslewhere, readers threw in their thoughts on san men, city-dwellers were sad (but there’s an app for that), and Harold Pollack calculated that substance abuse treatment for the mentally ill was definitely worth it. As Donnie Collins navigated the health insurance market, Gwynn Guilford solved to China’s bachelor problem, and Lauren Drain proposed that sex might be straining WBC’s ties, We compiled rude awakenings in the MHB, our hair stood on end at the adorableness of the next generation of orangutan in the FOTD, snow fell on Old Dominion in our VFYW.
Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew recalled the emotional influence of 9/11 in the lead up to the Iraq War, watched Rumsfeld’s war crimes pile up, and insisted that the government to release the Torture Memos to bring evidence to the debate surrounding torture. He lauded Israel’s airing of debate, hit Republicans for their hypocrisy on weapons expenditures and their suicidal spite on the sequester while agreeing with PM Carpenter on the shifting GOP, and declared the empirical and civil debates over marriage equality dead. In media coverage, Andrew waved as the Daily Caller left reality behind, walked us through the reasoning behind The Dish’s use of Amazon’s Affiliate program, and a reader took NBC to task for its “sponsored content”.
In politics, we gathered reactions to Chavez’s death, including some of Hitch’s words from beyond the grave, Latin America countries diverged in their agreement with the US, and Jeb Bush erred on Evangelical Latinos. Noah Millman joined the discussion on the Iraq war and Congress started to come around on DOMA. Meanwhile, Charles Hurt’s voodoo rant garnered him a Hewitt nomination, we wrestled with visualizing inequality, and Obama’s Energy nominee walked the tightrope on fracking.
In assorted coverage, Till Roenneberg pushed for high schoolers to be able to sleep in, ADHD sufferers paid a price later in life, and Sheryl Sandberg’s views on women in the workplace stoked controversy among feminists. We rummaged through reader responses on recycling, Roger Goodell presaged an on-field death for the NFL, Kevin Ashton followed Coke across borders, and Rob Horning climbed a mountain of paperwork in pursuit of fairness.
Russell Brand gave up drugs in favor of reality, Mark Oppenheimer turned the blame on TV watchers and a reader encouraged us to suspend our disbelief when reading the gospels. Bill Gates brutalized the book Why Nations Fail, the NYT shuttered its Green blog, and negativity dominated Twitter. Frank Underwood invaded the Conclave in the MHB, NYC showed us a dreary, drizzly day in the VFYW, and we turned our gaze on police violence in India in the FOTD.
Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew meditated on the origins of modern conservative thought, saw spectres of the past in Israel’s segregated bus lines, and questioned the recent announcement of a baby “cured” of HIV. In home news, he wrapped up the first 30 days of the new Dish model.
In political coverage, Ta-Nehisi regretted his perceived powerlessness in the march to the Iraq war, while Dreher’s emotions swayed him in favor of it. Peter Person ascribed the slowdown in healthcare costs to the ACA, Adam Gopnik probed the limits of the market, and Jeb jumped back from his published stance on immigration. Seth Masket deliberated over politician perceptions, the GOP gave little ground in their latest budget, while Ponnuru made room in the party for Chris Christie. Scarborough pwned Krugman and the Daily Caller channeled Family Guy in its Ashley Judd coverage. Abroad, the Tories tussled with a perception problem and Syria schools felt the effects of the extended conflict.
In assorted coverage, Seattle weighed a tax on bikes, the cost of flying fell without our noticing, and Vince Beiser pushed back against the idea of “peak oil”. Readers continued the thread on doctor salaries while surgeons honed their skills on their smartphones, Lori Rotenberk went to DIY University, and Judith Glaser tried to wean us off of arguing. Dylan Bergeson dug through archaeological findings in the West Bank, chimpanzees savored their first taste of freedom, and luck loomed large in Hong Kong. Ruth Clark praised Jell-O’s ability to preserve and Evgeny Morozov protested Big Data-influenced punk.
Meanwhile, journalists sold their services to Malaysia, Marie Chaix found inspiration in pain, Madhavankutty Pillai chronicled the troubles of bringing great novels to the big screen, and Twain posed topless. We resorted to the tiebreaker for our Kagoshima VFYW contest and awoke to a Cancun sunrise in the VFYW, Spidey’s romance got the BLR treatment in the MHB, and Misao Okawa celebrated the big 1-1-5 in the FOTD.
Monday on the Dish, Andrew continued his look back at his arguments for the Iraq War, pitted Cardinal O’Brien against himself and wondered if the Curia would recognize their hypocrisy. He saw apples and oranges in the South Park-Arrested Development debate, provided the latest numbers on the new Dish model, and debated marriage equality in a battle of beards. In the final installment of the “After Dark” series, Sully and Hitch contested the existence of any factual basis for the gospels.
In political news and views, Jacob Heilbrunn sounded an alarm over epistemic closure on the right, legislators’ perceptions of their constituencies skewed conservative, and TNC examined the wave of public opinion that Obama rode to power. We muddled through the data on gun violence in America, Cass Sunstein worried about coercive paternalism, the Golden State flipped on marriage equality in under 30 years, and McKibben called for colleges to green their portfolios. The sequester showed no signs of going anywhere soon, but Israel escaped its effects as Tom Doran sought a way forward in the increasingly segregated West Bank. Readers clarified the charges against Bradley Manning while the government focused on low-level leakers, the military continued to struggle with sexual assaults, and Tony Blair was unrepentant 10 years after the Iraq invasion.
In assorted coverage, Austin Considine broke down the research on BPA, MIT scientists visualized the invisible, Google Glass threatened to take away our last shred of privacy, and Ross Andersen predicted a Skynet devoid of empathy. We tracked drug prices from cultivation to distribution, Scott James waded through a same-sex couple’s tax return, and the working poor sought redemption by collecting recyclables. Don McCullin struggled to find value in his war photography, Marin Cogan’s sources failed to recognize the line between work and play, readers pointed us to other examples of “sponsored content” around the web, and we eulogized Emerson’s Atlantic.
Elsewhere, Jessica Love lamented Gladwell’s effect on social science, and Linda Besner uncovered bullies of all ages. Charles Ornstein faced a real-life situation he’d only written about before, Colm Tóibín perused Proust’s notebooks, and ”nuns” shut down an Irish bar. We took a gander at the Gateway to the West in the VFYW, London spring came early in the FOTD, and babies battled it out (break-dance style) in the MHB.
(By Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.)
Last weekend on the Dish, Andrew saw signs of hope that the Right might be inching away from theoconservatism and revisited his own misguided commentary on Iraq from a decade ago. We also provided our usual eclectic mix of religious, books, and cultural coverage. In matters of faith, doubt, and philosophy, Noah Millman unpacked the problem with natural law arguments, George Saunders described his Roman Catholic childhood, and David Runciman reminded us of Hobbes’s audacious religious writing. Bryan Appleyard critiqued A.C. Grayling’s treatment of religion, Sarah Ngu explained how evil is parasitic on the good, and Hans Küng hoped for a modern pope. David Foster Wallace reached the other side of boredom, Charles Bukowski waited for the words to come, and Mahzarin Banaji considered how to overcome our hidden prejudices.
In literary and arts coverage, Ramona Ausubel relished the messiness of first drafts, Sam Sacks detailed why writers became suspicious of the visual arts, and Rose Tremain revealed how a smell inspired her to be a writer. Brad Leithauser celebrated concise writing, Justin Nobel explored the last years of Jack Kerouac, Ellen Handler Spitz asked how Maurice Sendak’s sexuality might illuminate his books, and Ron Rosenbaum reviewed Bernard Bailyn’s harrowing new book on how barbarous America was in the 17th century. Jeff Lin remembered Ang Lee’s lean years, Hannah Goldfield pondered what Amour taught her about her own grandparents, and Sophie Pinkham pointed to a fascinating new exhibit about the Cold War and homosexuality. Read Saturday’s poem here and Sunday’s here.
Fittingly for the weekend, sex and drugs were in the mix. Ferris Jabr visited a penis museum in Iceland, Jason G. Goldman highlighted the kinks of the animal kingdom, Ann Friedman continued the elusive search for a hetero Grindr, and Brett Aho mused on the connection between drug use and intelligence. In assorted news and views, Isabel V. Sawhill argued that we need more immigrants more than we need more babies, Lindsay Abrams continued the discussion on rising healthcare costs, and Khalil A. Cassimally reported on the prospect of “drone journalism.” Audrey Carlsen found that civilization was bad for your teeth, Lisa Hix caught up with collectors of African-Americans dolls, and an amazing story of adoption and marriage provided your Sunday cry. MHBs here and here, FOTDs here and here, VFYWs here and here, and the latest window contest here.
- D.A. & M.S.
Vince Beiser paints an ugly picture for fossil fuel fighters such as McKibben:
The widely circulated fears of a few years ago that we were approaching “peak oil” have turned out to be completely wrong. From the Arctic to Africa, nanoengineered materials, underwater robots, side-scanning 3-D sonar, specially engineered lubricants, and myriad other advances are opening up titanic new supplies of fossil fuels, many of them in unexpected places—Brazil, Australia, and, perhaps most significantly, North America. “Contrary to what most people believe,” declares a recent study from the Harvard Kennedy School, “oil supply capacity is growing worldwide at such an unprecedented level that it might outpace consumption.” …
[T]he problem has never been exactly about supply; it’s always been about our ability to profitably tap that supply.
We human beings have consumed, over our entire history, about a trillion barrels of oil. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there is still seven to eight times that much left in the ground. The oil that’s left is just more difficult, and therefore more expensive, to get to. But that sets the invisible hand of the market into motion. Every time known reserves start looking tight, the price goes up, which incentivizes investment in research and development, which yields more sophisticated technologies, which unearth new supplies—often in places we’d scarcely even thought to look before.
Frum points to the next emerging market:
Mexican oil production has been declining over the past decade, mostly because of under-investment and mismanagement by the state oil monopoly, Pemex. … In October, Pemex announced discovery of a big new field in the Gulf of Mexico. Newly elected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is urging his country to amend its constitution to allow foreign investment in Mexican oil fields. Experts assess that opening the Mexican oil industry to global investment will revive Mexican oil production and boost Mexico’s economic growth by potentially 2 points a year. Nieto’s PRI party — the very party that nationalized Mexican oil 80 years ago — is expected to vote this weekend to approve the new policy.
Today on the Dish, Andrew continued his look back at his arguments for the Iraq War, pitted Cardinal O’Brien against himself and wondered if the Curia would recognize their hypocrisy. He saw apples and oranges in the South Park-Arrested Development debate, provided the latest numbers on the new Dish model, and debated marriage equality in a battle of beards. In the final installment of the “After Dark” series, Sully and Hitch contested the existence of any factual basis for the gospels.
In political news and views, Jacob Heilbrunn sounded an alarm over epistemic closure on the right, legislators’ perceptions of their constituencies skewed conservative, and TNC examined the wave of public opinion that Obama rode to power. We muddled through the data on gun violence in America, Cass Sunstein worried about coercive paternalism, the Golden State flipped on marriage equality in under 30 years, and McKibben called for colleges to green their portfolios. The sequester showed no signs of going anywhere soon, but Israel escaped its effects as Tom Doran sought a way forward in the increasingly segregated West Bank. Readers clarified the charges against Bradley Manning while the government focused on low-level leakers, the military continued to struggle with sexual assaults, and Tony Blair was unrepentant 10 years after the Iraq invasion.
In assorted coverage, Austin Considine broke down the research on BPA, MIT scientists visualized the invisible, Google Glass threatened to take away our last shred of privacy, and Ross Andersen predicted a Skynet devoid of empathy. We tracked drug prices from cultivation to distribution, Scott James waded through a same-sex couple’s tax return, and the working poor sought redemption by collecting recyclables. Don McCullin struggled to find value in his war photography, Marin Cogan’s sources failed to recognize the line between work and play, readers pointed us to other examples of “sponsored content” around the web, and we eulogized Emerson’s Atlantic.
Elsewhere, Jessica Love lamented Gladwell’s effect on social science, and Linda Besner uncovered bullies of all ages. Charles Ornstein faced a real-life situation he’d only written about before, Colm Tóibín perused Proust’s notebooks, and ”nuns” shut down an Irish bar. We took a gander at the Gateway to the West in the VFYW, London spring came early in the FOTD, and babies battled it out (break-dance style) in the MHB.
- D.A.
Bill McKibben continues his crusade against fossil fuels, making the case for divestment at college campuses:
In the 1980s, 156 colleges divested from companies that did business in apartheid South Africa, a stand that Nelson Mandela credited with providing a great boost to the liberation struggle. “I remember those days well,” says James Powell, who served as president of Oberlin, Franklin and Marshall, and Reed College. “Trustees at first said our only job was to maximize returns, that we don’t do anything else. They had to be persuaded there were some practices colleges simply shouldn’t be associated with, things that involved the oppression of people.” Since then, colleges have taken stances with their endowments on issues from Sudan to sweatshops. When Harvard divested from tobacco stocks in 1990, then-president Derek Bok said the university did not want “to be associated with companies whose products create a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm to other human beings.”
Given that the most recent data indicates fossil fuel pollution could kill 100 million by 2030, the coal, oil and gas industry would seem to pass that test pretty easily; it’s also on the edge of setting off the 6th great extinction crisis, so everyone over in the biology lab studying non-human beings has a stake too.
Christian Parenti believes that divestment is only a first step:
“If you actually look at the details of previous struggles you will see that symbolic power [of divestment] has to eventually crystallize as government action,” Parenti tells In These Times. “Take tobacco. The moral spectacle of dumping tobacco stock was itself not economically painful. But once that moral power was crystallized as legal power in the form of anti-tobacco laws, then consumption of tobacco and tobacco profits began to decline.”
Watch McKibben’s video series on the Dish here.
Is Keystone Pipeline really good idea?Bringing lots of heavy, dirty oil across country, when fracked ,cheaper, cleaner energy available
— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) February 15, 2013
Michael Grunwald sticks up for the anti-Keystone activists, who a few weeks ago held, in the words of Bill McKibben, “the biggest global warming rally in history”:
[There's] an emerging consensus-among newspaper editorial boards, respectable-centrist pundits, even the magazine Nature – that the rabble-rousing activists who have tied themselves to the White House gate and clamored for President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline are picking the wrong fight. Stopping Keystone, these critics point out, wouldn’t prevent catastrophic warming. It might not even prevent the extraction from Canada’s dirty tar sands. It wouldn’t cut emissions as much as new coal regulations or clean-energy subsidies or carbon pricing. Meanwhile, approving the pipeline would create jobs and reduce our dependence on petro-dictators while signaling that Obama isn’t as radical as the tree huggers protesting outside his house.
Well, I’m with the tree huggers. The pipeline isn’t the worst threat to the climate, but it’s a threat. Keystone isn’t the best fight to have over fossil fuels, but it’s the fight we’re having. Now is the time to choose sides. It’s always easy to quibble with the politics of radical protest: Did ACT UP need to be so obnoxious? Didn’t the tax evasion optics of the Boston Tea Party muddle the anti-imperial message? But if we’re in a war to stop global warming — a war TIME declared on a green-bordered cover five years ago — then we need to fight it on the beaches, the landing zones and the carbon-spewing tar sands of Alberta.
Mari Hernandez highlights an alternative to Keystone: Canadian hydropower.
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