Month: November 2008

The Onion bids Ron Paul farewell:

After piling the last of his Campaign for Liberty signs in the back of a beat-up Ford truck Thursday, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) once again abandoned his candidacy for president and rode on out toward the low western sun, but not before vowing to come back to Washington "when [the country] is ready."

"When the river swirls and the wind blows, and when uncontrollable inflation forces us to revert to the gold standard, and the Federal Reserve bank is exposed as the unconstitutional, neofascist cabal it really is, you’ll see me coming over that hill," said Paul, leaving a dusty cowboy hat and a stack of "no" votes on his seat in the House of Representatives. "But don’t you fret, America. If you ever feel like your government is getting too big or too intrusive, just give a little whistle, and there I’ll be. I’ll be there quicker’n you can spit." Although no one has seen or heard from the Texas congressman since Thursday, sources report the Ron Paul for President campaign has gained an additional $2.3 million in contributions since his disappearance.

Seth Godin vents against publishing

The market doesn’t care a whit about maintaining your industry. The lesson from Napster and iTunes is that there’s even MORE music than there was before. What got hurt was Tower and the guys in the suits and the unlimited budgets for groupies and drugs. The music will keep coming. Same thing is true with books. So you can decide to hassle your readers (oh, I mean your customers) and you can decide that a book on a Kindle SHOULD cost $15 because it replaces a $15 book, and if you do, we (the readers) will just walk away. Or, you could say, “if books on the Kindle were $1, perhaps we could create a vast audience of people who buy books like candy, all the time, and read more and don’t pirate stuff cause it’s convenient and cheap…” I’m a pessimist that the book industry will learn from music. How are you betting?

(Hat tip: BookSquare)

Thomas Laqueur reviews Dagmar Herzog’s book on sex and politics:

The problem with the Evangelical agenda that Herzog exposes in all its detail is not primarily, as she suggests, that it will reverse or has already reversed the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Americans are having as much or more premarital and extramarital sex as they ever were; what people do in bed is remarkably resilient in the face of all but the most concerted state efforts. (Pro-natalism, for example, almost never works; an anti-natalist campaign with the full panoply of punitive measures, as in China, perhaps does.)

At the core of Sex in Crisis is a debate about what kind of a world Americans want to live in.

An Evangelical “babe” on the ticket of a major political party as a candidate to be “a heartbeat away” from the presidency suggests that the debate is going in one direction. The fact that Proposition 8, an effort to amend the California constitution so as to prohibit gay marriage, is failing in the polls – especially now that it has been rephrased on the ballot as a question of taking away a right that people already have – gives hope that it is tilting in the other. Dagmar Herzog’s book really is about what her subtitle claims: “the future of American politics”.

Paul Bloom looks at new happiness research. He has a theory as to why atheists in America have been found to be less happy than the devout:

The sorry state of American atheists…may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.

Loneliness takes a toll:

People do like to be alone sometimes. But no one likes to feel lonely – to feel that they are alone against their will, or that the social contacts they do have are without deeper meaning. According to Cacioppo and Patrick the feeling of loneliness is the least of it. They present scientific evidence suggesting that loneliness seriously burdens human health. By middle age, the lonely are less likely to exercise and more likely to eat a high-fat diet, and they report experiencing a greater number of stressful events. Loneliness correlates with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s. During a four-year study, lonely senior citizens were more likely to end up in nursing homes; during a nine-year study, people with fewer social ties were two to three times more likely to die.

Dan Kois isn’t sure that it can survive:

…in one eventful day, the prototypical Daily Show viewer has been transformed: Once disaffected and angry at Washington’s power structure, he’s now delighted and hopeful about the new president and all that he symbolizes. And if you’re an Obama fan — eager to give Barack the benefit of the doubt, and proud and excited about the change you’ve helped bring the nation — do you really want Jon Stewart sitting on the sidelines, taking potshots at your hero?

Beyond the problem of audiences souring on Obama jokes is the question of whether Jon Stewart even wants to make Obama jokes.

I think Stewart and Colbert are highly capable of self-reinvention. Joe Carter doesn’t. He has a suggestion:

…why doesn’t Comedy Central replace them with a hip, young right-leaning audience who would love to spend the next few years laughing at the foibles of the Obama administration? They could turn the reins over to Dennis Miller and let the current host go back to The Jon Stewart Show.

Um, didn’t Fox News try that already?

Rogue River, Oregon, 4.30 pm.

William Voegeli on reforming big government:

It would be a good conversation to have, not just for Democratic economists, but for the whole country. Each of our two ideological adversaries has a firm grip on one end of the domestic policy wishbone. Liberals speak to and for the public’s aversion to a smaller welfare state. Conservatives speak to and for the public’s aversion to higher taxes. It’s not possible for them to go on pulling in opposite directions indefinitely without guaranteeing bad luck for everyone.

Neither side, however, wants to relinquish its hold on that part of public opinion that is the source of its own political strength. Both hope that the tension inherent in the public’s desire for a welfare state that confers generous benefits while imposing modest taxes will ultimately be resolved in its own favor.