Month: June 2010

Vaughan Bell lectures the press about using the term "neuroplasticity."

The archives of David McRaney's blog on self delusion are well worth picking though. A post from April:

In the 1960s, it took months before someone figured out they could sell tie-dyed shirts and bell bottoms to anyone who wanted to rebel. In the 1990s, it took weeks to start selling flannel shirts and Doc Martens to people in the Deep South. Now, people are hired by corporations to go to bars and clubs and predict what the counter culture is into and have it on the shelves in the cool stores right as it becomes popular.

The counter-culture, the indie fans and the underground stars – they are the driving force behind capitalism. They are the engine.

This brings us to the point – competition among consumers is the turbine of capitalism.

Thomas Frank tackled this subject in his first book, The Conquest of Cool.  Long excerpt here. Dan Geddes reviews:

Frank’s purpose is to demonstrate that Madison Avenue and consumption-based industries such as soda bottlers and men’s wear welcomed the counterculture, realizing that the cult of instant gratification would make the Baby Boomers better consumers than their thrifty parents. Frank even suggests that the Creative Revolution in advertising anticipated and in some ways precipitated the counterculture. Historians of the Sixties have long described the “co-optation” of the movement by the advertising industry: its use of countercultural symbols. Frank’s thesis that Madison Avenue’s critique of “mass society” predated later critiques of the countercultural can warm the hearts of critics of capitalism: That capitalism could could generate a critique of itself in order to fashion a more turbo-charged consumer becomes as satisfying as any conspiracy theory, especially in light of Frank’s meticulous scholarship.

Friedersdorf interviews Alan Jacobs about reading in the digital age and good reasons to memorize poetry:

Tim Bray wrote a fascinating post just the other day in which he pointed out that screen resolution of modern devices is just now approaching the pixel density that approximates print. Once we cross that threshold, many kinds of books, especially those featuring images, will become more plausible candidates for digital presentation.

That said, the paper codex is here to stay — but whether it will remain dominant, well, I'm not so sure about that. And it is being complemented by multiple devices that alter the reading experience. Book-lovers tend to sneer about "the screen" — and some techno-utopians bow down before "the screen" — but in fact there are many different kinds of screens that we respond to, cognitively and emotionally, in very different ways. Reading a novel on a Kindle or a Nook is much closer to the experience of reading it on a paper codex than reading it on your laptop would be: you turn pages rather than scroll, you have no other tabs open, email and Twitter aren't pinging you, there are no (or few) hyperlinks. . . . I actually had the experience of having my reading concentration renewed when I got my Kindle. It helped me to get back to long-form reading, which my online life had made harder for me.

Today on the Dish we looked closely at the supposed al Qaeda-flotilla link, Israelis were found to have strongly supported the raid, Andrew challenged Walter Russell Mead's view of the US-Israel relationship, some Israeli students made a savvy gesture towards Turkey, and Madrid barred gay Israelis from a pride parade. Andrew also dug into a disturbing new report on Gitmo torture and wondered if there is a single anti-Zionist columnist. Dissents of the day here.

In spill coverage, Flowing Data illustrated BP's gross negligence, ProPublica exposed more criminality, and the Onion did its work. Beinart shone a light on American hubris, TNC piled on the White House press corps beach party, Greenwald mocked Limbaugh's fourth marriage, Jim Burroway scrutinized a study of lesbian parents, Jesse Bering studied fag hags, E.D. Kain scrunched his forehead over school choice, and Matt Welch knocked journalist "objectivity."  Foreign Policy commemorated the Green Movement and a rock group dedicated a song to Neda. Word Cup coverage here. Orly Taitz won't go away.

Readers defended atheism, others revolted over male reproductive rights, and another mused over her love for animals. Yeas and Nays scanned the District for gays and the Daily Caller spotted Obama speechwriters shirtless. Beard porn here and creepy ad here. MHB here, Sully MHBs here and here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

The Dish launched its first installment of the VFYW contest (with only a minor hiccup).

— C.B.

Dusk in Provincetown, this evening around 8 pm.

Now this is a better idea: a rival flotilla from Israel to Turkey to bring humanitarian relief to the Kurds, a people deprived of a homeland just as the Palestinians are. See what a little imagination can do in the war of ideas? A lot better than shooting nineteen-year-olds in the head at point blank range.

Julian Sanchez maps the boundaries of science:

I’m glad, of course, that we’ve dispensed with a lot of bogus science that served to rationalize homophobia—that’s a pure scientific victory.  And I’m glad that we no longer classify homosexuality as a disorder—but that’s a choice and, above all, a moral victory. It ultimately stems from the more general recognition that we shouldn’t stigmatize dispositions and behaviors that are neither intrinsically distressing to the subject nor harmful, in the Millian sense, to the rest of us. And that comes across clear as day in the This American Life account: The change in the psychiatric establishment’s bible, the DSM, was partly a function of new scientific information, but it was equally a moral and a political choice.  The test, if we’re trying to keep ourselves honest, is not whether we place some questions beyond the scope of science, but whether we do so in an opportunistic, ad hoc way, depending on whether the science seems to cut for or against our preferred beliefs.

A reader writes:

Airborne Toxic Event has just released a new song and video about Neda, with all proceeds going to Amnesty International.  It's quite moving.

HBO's new Neda documentary is here.

John Sides thinks not.

This breaks one of the Dish's cardinal rules – that we don't cover anything where a ball is involved – but TNR has revived its excellent World Cup blog. Alex Massie is among the commentators. He's not a big fan of Brazil:

I am, you see and I am afraid, bored of Brazil. Bored too of the requirement that we all tug a forelock when confronted by their genius even when, actually, there's been little evidence of any real genius on the actual playing field. This, of course, is linked to the tedious rhapsodies about joga bonito and samba football and all the rest of it that all are compelled to endure every time the men in yellow stroll onto the pitch.

If this ever used to be true—and, to be fair, it did—then it ceased to be some time ago. The sneaky reality is that this Brazilian football team—highly accomplished though they may be—are boring. They're like a German car, which is fine if you're looking for a German car but not if you're searching for football worthy of the praise that's lavished on Brazil.

Jack Shephard provides a layman's guide to the tournament. Image from here.