Search Results for: marcotte

Amanda Marcotte argues there isn't. Among her evidence:

Vasectomies are safer, less invasive, and quicker to heal from than tubal ligations, but the rate of female sterilization in the U.S. is twice the rate of vasectomy. (Actually, according to the CDC, women get sterilized at three times the rate of men.)  If men, on average, were invested in taking responsibility for contraception, we should see those numbers basically reversed, since tubal ligations are more dangerous. 

Provoked by the new Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis flick, Dr. Drew rails against "friends with benefits":

I was giving a lecture at the University of Maryland eight or 10 years ago, and I was describing “friends with benefits,” and I said, “You know, on paper it looks great.” And some kid yelled out, “Yeah, so does communism!” Which is very much the point: that just because something looks good on paper and sounds good intellectually doesn’t mean it’s good for the human experience. Humans don’t operate like that. Inevitably, an attachment occurs, a bond occurs, and feelings develop. Even though people swear off it, somebody develops some kind of feelings. The only scenario where I see it work is when very young screwballs are just kind of messing around, or in two sex addicts acting out together. That can go on for a while. If people are really in trouble emotionally and they’re just mutually exploitative for sex addiction, that kind of works. But, just like every other addiction, it eventually goes down in flames. So it only works for a while.

Amanda Marcotte sighs:

by Zack Beauchamp

Amanda Marcotte reads Harry Potter as a story about privileged jocks:

We're used to the X-Men or Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Scooby Gang, so much so that we don't see that Harry's trajectory is the inverse of Buffy's.  Buffy is a former cheerleader whose magic powers actually make her a geek and an outcast.  Harry is a nobody-special who finds out that he's special, and becomes not just the star athlete and hero of his school, but an actual celebrity.  Sure, there's ups and downs, but his trajectory is away from being the outcast and towards being the homecoming king.  Which may not be as emotionally satisfying as "my greatness makes me an outcast", but is probably more realistic.  In his world, being a badass is appreciated and he's realistically rewarded in his society for it. 

She gets a few things wrong (Ron is not "stereotypically privileged" – his family's poverty is a big deal in the books) and omits a few things (like Harry being an orphan and an outcast before he gets to Hogwarts), but it's an interesting point.  Extra points for the Buffy comparison.  E.D. Kain complicates Marcotte's narrative:

Today on the Dish, Andrew analyzed testosterone as a blessing and a curse (for gay men and straight). We eagerly awaited the Palin emails, the National Review called for an end to the voyeurism, and Palin overpriced her own worth. She also backpedaled her WTF comments, and stole from the lamestream media for her brainwashing … Continue reading The Weekly Wrap

Today on the Dish, Andrew demolished the Republican agenda as a fulfillment of Christian ideals. Conservapedia changed history to support Palin's revisionism, doublethink got a new mascot, and Longfellow shuddered. Amanda Marcotte deconstructed Palin's distorted metaphor using Paul Revere for the Tea Party, and her movie tapped into all the brainwash methods a la Clockwork … Continue reading The Daily Wrap

Amanda Marcotte pins the tail on the elephant: I think it helps to understand that, for right-wing populists, this thing we call "history" is less about real people who did real things in the real world, and more like just the Bible Part II. It's a myth that can be manipulated to suit their purpose, … Continue reading When History Isn’t About History

Tara Parker-Pope summarizes a study finding that American jobs are less and less physically demanding: A sweeping review of shifts in the labor force since 1960 suggests that a sizable portion of the national weight gain can be explained by declining physical activity during the workday. Jobs requiring moderate physical activity, which accounted for 50 … Continue reading An Epidemic Of Sitting

The Dish has grouped liberals and civil liberties libertarians together because reactions from both groups overlap significantly. Charli Carpenter's immediate take:

[T]hey’ve done a masterful job at playing the media and making a huge story and enormous nationalistic success out of a single operation in a vast and endless war, that apparently will have no impact on our foreign policy.

Glenn Greenwald:

Whenever America uses violence in a way that makes its citizens cheer, beam with nationalistic pride, and rally around their leader, more violence is typically guaranteed. Futile decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may temporarily dampen the nationalistic enthusiasm for war, but two shots to the head of Osama bin Laden — and the We are Great and Good proclamations it engenders — can easily rejuvenate that war love. One can already detect the stench of that in how Pakistan is being talked about: did they harbor bin Laden as it seems and, if so, what price should they pay?

Amanda Marcotte:

I understand the urge to silence and shame people for being ecstatic that we finally got Bin Laden.  The fear that jubiliation could turn into nationalism and then to bloodlust has real world evidence to back it up.  But I would argue that liberals do ourselves no favors by shushing and shaming people's joy.  There's another option that is both more humanistic and more productive in the long run: grappling with this celebratory mood and channeling it toward policy goals such as shutting down Gitmo and getting out of Afghanistan.

Katrina vanden Heuvel:

It is time to end the “global war on terror” we have lived with for this last decade. It is time to stop defining the post 9/11 struggle against stateless terrorists a “war.” And it is time to bring an end to the senseless war in Afghanistan that has cost this nation so much in lives and money. … [W]hat we are engaged in is not primarily a military operation. It’s an intelligence-gathering operation, a law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort.

Radley Balko outlines how Osama "won":

Yes, bin Laden the man is dead. But he achieved all he set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more. He forever changed who we are as a country, and for the worse. Mostly because we let him. That isn’t something a special ops team can fix.

Jeralyn Merritt:

The Dish linked to Chris Mooney's defense of his new article but overlooked the article itself. Mooney delves in to the reasons why we find it hard to believe things we don't already know to be true:

Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

Amanda Marcotte connects Mooney's article to the Trig question:

A reader writes:

Well, I suppose cultural forces could be at play, but I KNEW I was marrying wrong (as did everyone who knew me), but I thought he was the one man in the world who would never leave me (20 years later – turns out I was wrong!).  Insecurity and a belief that nobody would "love me forever" led me down the aisle (great sex was a factor, too). I don't feel like I've evolved much over the decades, and still fight my lack of sense of worth, but now I have a daughter of my own and I really, really want her to marry well.

Another writes:

Why are we taking these womens' reporting of their own inner states at face value?