Month: September 2009

As Kottke says, "this is about as creepy as you can make an apple:"

Ecological apple (experimental short) from Andreas Soderberg on Vimeo.

Ambers' take:

[T]riumphalism over Jones's exit is misplaced. Jones was many things, but he wasn't the fascist that reactionaries insisted on calling him. And he was never terribly powerful. In fact, his departure makes it easier for the administration to press ahead with its Green Jobs initiative — no longer do opponents have Van Jones to kick around anymore. That Jones was even the target of vitriol is more evidence of paranoia; the Bush administration used "czar" in a tongue-in-cheek fashion; the Obama press shop was casual in its early descriptions of administration advisers who were given certain portfolios; suddenly, "czar" became czar — as if these folks had actual power and malevolent influence — and not only that, as if they worked in concert to take over the government and impose their evil world ways.

What does it tell you about our culture that someone like Marc has to respond to the insanity of Glenn Beck?

How to pick your new favorite indie band:

(Hat tip: Daily What)

I'm with Bruce.

I wrote archaic camp that believes it is the job of a liberal president to expand such coverage and the job of a conservative opposition to propose ways to afford it. Instead, the chairman of the GOP is making the Republican position on Medicare indistinguishable from the most cynical Democratic scare tactics, and complaining about any attempt to curtail costs. If you have to strip out of a bill a mere conversation with seniors about powers-of-attorney for end-of-life decisions, you are not interested in a serious conversation about curtailing healthcare costs.

I agree with most everything David Brooks has written on this subject. If we had a functional and serious conservative movement in this country – instead of a Poujadist mob of cynical know-nothings – we would be talking about the kind of questions David Goldhill discusses in the best single piece on the debate I have yet read – the cover-story in the current Atlantic. We'd be talking about re-thinking the insurance model for large parts of medical care, we'd be cutting subsidies for employers, we'd be empowering patients to seek better coverage with better value and providing the tools to help them make informed decisions. Instead, we're talking Hitler and Oligarhy and "taking the country back".

Anyway, my column is here. It's bullish on Obama, as I remain.

Ben Nelson tipped his hand in a way today that suggests what I think we'll end up with – which will be a huge step forward on the accessibility front, if not on costs. (But we can come back on costs, and must, in a broader context of fundamental fiscal reform). My view of the president remains what it was two years ago: We're still lucky to have this small voice of reason in this nutty time. And if he becomes the first Democratic president to initiate universal healthcare access in his first year, he will indeed be transformational on a core domestic question.

Hang in there, Mr President. I have a feeling that the forces that elected you are re-grouping now we know exactly how determined and incoherent the opponents of change on all fronts have become. Above all, remember the discipline you showed in your campaign. You won through a combination of persistence, strategy and a refusal to take the bait. Don't take the bait, Mr President. The degenerate right (a better one will come along in time) only knows Rovian cultural warfare. They want you to fight back on their terrain. Don't. Just move forward. Talk to the country as a serious president should – about the problems we face and the debate we need to have to confront them.

Because this has nothing to do with Christianity:

"[T]he Pet Shop Boys don't do the royal family. We're republicans. Republicans in the English sense, not the American sense. We've been invited to [royal] things before but we don't go to them. Although, secretly I quite admire the queen," – Neil Tennant, once again seeming to mind-read me.

I wanted to see Pandemonium but bought tickets online via Ticketsnow, where I was directed from Ticketmaster. I wasn't being too skeptical – I take Ticketmaster to be a responsible company – so I didn't read the small print and was scammed into buying a $40 ticket for $223. The ticket even had someone else's name on it. I also had a bad case of Cape Cod crud and felt under the weather. But I'd be careful with Ticketsnow. It's a scalping scam under a respectable umbrella. So I missed my idols' concert.

It's good to be back. Did I keep my promise to stay off the web? Almost. I don't count personal emails or the weather on the Cape, ok? I broke my pledge on torture and Levi, but some subjects demand dedicated attention even on vacation. We have no television here so I was also cable-free. Removed from this news cycle, I missed the moment when the punditariat shifted its narrative from The One to The Doomed, but since I never believed Obama was either of those, and since August turned sublime on the Cape in its second half, it didn't really penetrate my consciousness.

What did penetrate was the long-term cost to spending the majority of your waking hours on a laptop and modem communicating with people you rarely see, and processing reams and reams of stories and data at lightning speed morning, noon and night. I do not see the web as Leon Wieseltier does from the vantage point of his towering pedestal (who on earth approximates his lofty genius?), but I do see its dangers the longer I hang around in it. It took weeks to unwind enough to do the things I used to do with no real effort: socialize, chill, make new friends, catch up with old ones, let the mind wander, let the soul breathe with a little less concern for contemporaneity, read the paper because you're mildly interested in what's gong on in the wider world. 

A few things made this possible: my editor, James Bennet, who gave me time off and gives me and this blog a freedom and support most writers would die for; Patrick and Chris, who have now close to put me out of a job, and maintained the Dishness like old-timers, and to the guest-bloggers who, I'm proud to say, represent some of the most fun and firepower on the web; I tried not to read the Dish while I was in detox, but whenever I surrendered, it felt like home. Thanks, thanks, thanks (especially to Chris and Patrick).

Which leads me to one small observation about this web experiment as it enters its tenth continuous year.

The Dish has evolved almost every day it has existed. I made this up as I've gone along, but along the way, some features lingered, others blossomed and a few expired. At the Atlantic, for the first time, I had interns, and those interns are now assistant editors (although "underblogger" is my preferred neologism), and the Dish's range of sources, ideas, images, videos, and information has grown and grown and grown with their help and yours.

What made these four weeks so satisfying was not just getting back my private life a little, but also noticing that this little page now has a life of its own: sustained by you, the readers, in a great conversation with some of the best minds out there in our fast-forming collective e-brain. I have no idea where this is headed – I have no plan but to keep pursuing the intimations – but I do know that on a journey like this, one of the most memorable moments is stopping up a long climbing hill and being surprised how far you've traveled, and how your fellow pilgrims are now carrying you along as well.

Thanks for still being there.

by Patrick Appel

Andrew returns tomorrow morning tonight. Many, many thanks to Jim Manzi, Julian Sanchez and Jonah Lehrer for their hard work this past week. Please visit Jim over at The American Scene and at National Review. If you enjoyed Jonah's posts, I'm sure he would love it if you picked up a copy of his excellent new book and kept him company over at The Frontal Cortex. Julian Sanchez can be found over at JulianSanchez.com and, I assume, over at Cato's blog sometime in the not-so-distant future.

As this is my last post before Andrew returns, I'd also like to thank Bob Wright, Conor Clarke, Peter Suderman, Conor Friedersdorf, Hanna Rosin and Chris Bodenner for the blogging they did over the past month. Though it is impossible to replace Andrew's voice during his breaks, this blog has become more than just a soapbox for Andrew's quickly composed thoughts. The online cocktail Andrew has created endures in his absence: one part political musings, one part reader e-mails, and two parts highlights from the best of the web. Before I return to the recesses of the Andrew-Sullivan-Industrial-Complex, I'd like to express my sincere thanks to Andrew for entrusting me with his bully pulpit and to the readership for keeping us on our toes.

I assume that a disappointed otter is an acceptable parting gift.

by Chris Bodenner

Why must you disappoint the otter?

(Image by Carli Davidson/Oregon Zoo)