Month: July 2010

Jacksonville, Florida, 1.30 pm

The New Statesman interviews Rowan Williams:

If religion is pushed into private spaces, as increasingly it tends to be by our public discourse, we lose one of the most emotionally and imaginatively resourceful ways of seeing human behaviour; we lose something of the sense that certain acts may be good independently of whether they are sensible or successful in the world's terms. I suppose you could say that we lose the "contemplative" dimension to ethics, the belief that some things are worth ­admiring in themselves.

If you haven't read Marilynne Robinson's "Absence Of Mind", it speaks powerfully to the civilizational loss that a failure to grapple with. let alone understand, religious discourse and culture can bring. If you see the world as something to be understood, you will seek to understand it through many voices, idioms and perspectives. To dismiss all religion as mere anachronistic bunk is a closure of the mind, not an opening.

From Vice magazine's "Still Lifes" series. Photo by Tanyth Berkeley.

Scott Adams keeps talking:

As a general rule, the more dangerous or inappropriate the conversation, the more interesting it is. You'll have to use your judgment to know when you've crossed the line.

Also as a general rule, conversations about how people have or will interact are interesting, and conversations about objects are dull. So steer toward topics that involve human perceptions and feelings, and away from objects and things.

You also want to avoid any topic that falls into the "you had to be there" category. For example, if someone is describing a vacation, avoid asking about the food. Nothing is more boring than a description of food. Ask instead if the person answered email from the beach. That gets to how a person thinks, and how hard it is to release a habit. And it could provide an escape route to move the conversation to yet another place. Sometimes it takes two or three bounces to get someplace of mutual interest.

My thoughts here.

E.D. Kain seconds Timothy Lee:

If there was ever an item so ripe for liberal-libertarian cooperation, this is it. Really, this strikes me as a human concern, and one which members of whatever political stripe should be up in arms over. Whether there is much that can be done to repair the damage already wrought on American cities is another question.

Haifa, Israel, 10 am

A reader writes:

I completely agree with you on the importance of this issue and the discredit that the lack of inquiry places on the journalistic profession. However, I cannot agree with your recent suggestion (not the first time) that the story may boil down to a simple exaggeration of the facts of the "wild ride."

While it is certain that her tale is not credible, it is not just the wild ride aspect of the story that raises eyebrows; this has to be taken in the context of all the other things that don't add up about her story. The lack of a pregnant physique, and then the impossibly-morphing body shapes. The fact that no one knew. The timing of the announcement. The odd story of the too-early amniocentesis. The disappearance of Bristol, her pregnant appearance and substantiated claims that she was pregnant in 2007. The lack of any documentation whatsoever of the birth. The changing details. The fact that neither the doctor, nor the hospital, were qualified and certified to perform this high-risk delivery, known to have at least 6 high-risk factors — and neither ever verified the birth story. The odd discrepancies in the letter released by the McCain-Palin campaign late on election eve. The inability of ADN to disprove the rumors, despite trying. Sarah's long history of lying. Heather Bruce's confirmation that Bristol lived with her while pregnant, which had to be earlier than the pregnancy with Tripp.

And this is not all! This is a preponderance of credible evidence that the story is a lie. As the would-be whistleblower on Bernie Madoff said (paraphrasing), "there was no smoking gun, but too many things just didn't add up." That is the hallmark of a hoax.

I think this series of facts is telling. It's what has dragged me back into this again and again. But without any hard evidence, I do think we have reached an impasse here. I am glad to have aired all this in ways others haven't. But the task is now up to reporters, not bloggers like me. All I can do is not hide my own skepticism.

And one thing about "reputation", "ethics", etc. I have not written a column on this in the Atlantic or the Sunday Times, because I don't have the facts to back up any substantive alternative theory to Palin's story-line. But on a blog, I take the responsibility seriously not to bullshit my readers, not to adopt a professional persona that obscures my real-time thoughts. I think a blog exists to air things you cannot nail down in a more formal journalistic context. And I think many of my critics do not get or simply disagree with this understanding of the relationship of blogging to journalism.

All I can say is that this is my understanding of the place of blogging – a conversation where nothing is forbidden, a zone of truly free speech, exercized responsibly, but open to any and all views and theories and questions. I don't think I'm partisan on this. Elena Kagan can testify to that.

I don't believe Palin's current story. But since I don't have the facts and sources to construct an alternative, my task is now over. I will stay vigilant for any and all new facts that we may get; and I sure won't let this go if more comes to light. But we're going around in circles now.

Lori Fradkin explains it:

The job has its perks—an accumulation of random knowledge, for instance—but it also has its side effects when you unintentionally drink the copy Kool-Aid. Once you train yourself to spot errors, you can’t not spot them. You can’t simply shut off the careful reading when you leave the office. You notice typos in novels, missing words in other magazines, incorrect punctuation on billboards. You have nightmares that your oversight turned Mayor Bloomberg into a "pubic" figure. You walk by a beauty salon the morning after you had sex for the first time with a guy you’ve been seeing and point out that there’s no such thing as “lazer” hair removal, realizing that this may not be the best way to get to have sex with him again.

Texas In Africa is on the verge of pulling out her hair.