Author: Patrick Appel

by Patrick Appel

Alyssa Rosenberg and Scott Meslow contrast HBO’s Game Of Thrones with its source material:

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Alyssa further ponders the comparison over at her blog:

I absolutely agree that television shows can function like novels, in that they can tell long-arc stories, develop characters in a rich way, and play with large themes. But there are technological divides that separate what they can do. In a book, you can stay within the medium and flip back and forth if you don’t remember who a character is, or need to check back in on an event that happened previously. Increasingly, large books hold character guides and world maps. The entire universe of the story is there in a single volume. And that means you can throw an enormous amount of material at a reader. But in a television show, if the world gets big enough, you may need to venture outside of the medium to refresh yourself, whether you’re checking Wikipedia for a character name, switching disks to see an old scene, or skimming through Netflix to find the right moment. If you can’t remember something, you may have to break the spell.

by Patrick Appel

Bouie takes the long view:

What’s important to remember is that most things in American politics are slow moving; even with a major, galvanizing event the pendulum won’t swing immediately in the other direction. It took more than a decade for “guns” to become an issue that cowed liberals and Democrats. Since 1994, when an activist position on gun control — remember the assault weapon ban? — helped cost Democrats the house, they began retreating from an issue that seemed like a political loser. After Al Gore’s gun position helped cost him New Hampshire, and with it the presidency, in 2000 and wedge cultural issues again benefitted Bush in 2004, Democrats became, pardon the pun, gun shy.

What we need to see with Sandy Hook and its aftermath isn’t whether it yields immediate legislation, but whether it helps build support for future political coalitions that actually have the power to secure new national gun laws.

by Patrick Appel

Brendan Koerner profiles Alfred Anaya, who created hi-tech “traps,” hidden compartments in cars. Making traps, in and of itself, is not illegal, but Anaya is serving a more than 24 year sentence because some of his clients used his traps to transport drugs:

A common hacker refrain is that technology is always morally neutral. The culture’s libertarian ethos holds that creators shouldn’t be faulted if someone uses their gadget or hunk of code to cause harm; the people who build things are under no obligation to meddle in the affairs of the adults who consume their wares.

But Alfred Anaya’s case makes clear that the government rejects that permissive worldview. The technically savvy are on notice that they must be very careful about whom they deal with, since calculated ignorance of illegal activity is not an acceptable excuse. But at what point does a failure to be nosy edge into criminal conduct? In light of what happened to Anaya, that question is nearly impossible to answer.

by Patrick Appel

Bee Wilson enjoyed Mary Roach’s new book, Gulp:

If you’ve ever wondered why some people complain of gassiness after beans, while others eat them with impunity, Roach has the answer. If you’ve never wondered, too bad; Roach is going to tell you anyway. Apparently, half of the population lack a certain enzyme in the colon that is needed to break down the complex carbohydrates in legumes. As a result, they are “troubled by beans.” When the colon inflates, releasing gas, it is a “warning system”: “Because stretching can be a prelude to bursting, your brain is highly motivated to let you know what’s happening down there.”

In an interview about her book, Roach sings the praises of saliva:

[I]n saliva there’s these histatins which help wounds heal. So when someone kisses a baby’s booboo, like a scrape, or when a pet licks its wounds, it’s actually – because you think oh, oh, it’s full of bacteria, don’t do that. But there’s these healing elements. Saliva was a home remedy for cuts and scrapes and shankers and things. People would apply the spittle of a – first-thing-in-the-morning spittle of an old man or something would be, like, the remedy. But there’s some medical sense to it.

by Patrick Appel

Mark Oppenheimer reflects on the aspects of parenting he outsources to others:

Parenting has made me painfully aware of all the skills I don’t have, all that I won’t be able to pass on to my children. Before the children arrived, the future was full of possibilities for the dad I would be: the one who would teach them to play guitar, to garden, to turn table legs with a lathe. All I had to do was learn how to play guitar, to garden, and to turn table legs with a lathe. Also to chant Torah, change the oil, and throw a football with a perfect spiral. And there was plenty of time for all of that.

But then the girls arrived, in short order, all three of them. I found skills I never knew I had, like holding an infant on my forearm, her head in my palm. I once changed a cloth diaper so deftly that my friend Derek was startled to realize it was cloth. “You did that just like a regular diaper!” he said. That was one of my proudest moments. I’ve been known to take all three girls—ages two, four, and six—to the supermarket together, pilfering only one banana and one plastic carton of blackberries to keep them in line. (Shamed by the empty carton and the empty peel, I paid up.) But for all the skills I never expected I’d have, there are more that I know I’ll never acquire.