Month: July 2010

Today on the Dish, a longtime CNN journalist, Octavia Nasr, was canned for a controversial tweet. Juan Cole pointed his finger at the Israel Lobby, Stephen Walt also sided with Nasr, Greenwald asked if any reporters have been fired for anti-Arab/Muslim sentiment, and David Carr was on edge. A federal judge ruled against the Defense of Marriage Act. More great news on HIV treatment and some bad news out of Iraq.

In Palin news, she launched her first campaign ad, GOP insiders loved it, and readers observed a lack of ethnic appearances. Doug Mataconis explained how potentially new primary rules could hurt her chances with the nomination, Andrew highlighted her intransigence on defense spending, a reader tore into her special needs record, and Gail Collins noted the creepiness of Levi and Bristol's latest statements.

Andrew went after WaPo for its use of "torture" and showed the consequences of newspapers not calling it like it is. He also sided with Coulter over Steele's comments. Andy Bacevich leveled a serious charge at Obama, James Gibney made the case for ending aid to Egypt and Israel, Yglesias preferred to cut Medicare over Social Security, Reihan tackled sugar taxes, and readers broached sugar subsidies. 

Dan Savage joined the monogamy debate, Stephanie Mencimer checked in on NOM, Lindy West told us WTF is up with Gallagher, Dana McCourt commented on why Americans don't watch the World Cup, and a reader had a deep thought about AC. Hathos here. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

— C.B.

It seems the British ambassador to Lebanon – as well as US allies King Abdullah of Jordan and prime minister Maliki of Iraq – are terror-supporters as well. I have absolutely no brief for Fadlillah – but to make a complicated point about a man who supported terrorism and who stood up for some modicum of dignity for women in Islam does not seem a firing offense to me. As Stephen Walt puts it:

This incident is also distressing because CNN was essentially caving into a black/white, us vs. them, good vs. absolute evil view of the world. Because the United States had labeled Fadlallah a "terrorist," expressing any sort of positive comment about him was a firing offense. But the real world is more complicated than that: people who support some good things sometimes embrace bad things too, and we ought to be able to acknowledge and "respect" them for their positive actions while recognizing and condemning their errors or flaws. Nasr is correct to have expressed regret for having tweeted on a subject that requires more nuance, but her firing will only reinforce the simplistic stereotypes that already prevail in mainstream political commentary.

She really should be given back her job. The precedent this sets is chilling in the extreme.

Yes, he was very, very excited to see two rainbows. But then he seems very excited to see wild turkeys too. I conclude that the Discovery Channel has a new host – if they're going for the Burning Man demographic.

It took a federal judge to put two and two together. The Defense of Marriage Act was an assault on the core right of the states to define civil marriage as each sees fit; it was … drum-roll please … an assault on the Tenth Amendment! Money quote from the AP story:

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro on Thursday ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA.

The state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

Tauro agreed, and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.

"The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statute is invalid," Tauro wrote in a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley.

And so one of the principles held most dearly by some of the tea-partiers must logically hold DOMA unconstitutional. Much more on this tomorrow. But let me note right now the political ironies of this. The right is hoist on their own federalist petard and will now have to choose whether states' rights or marriage inequality is more important to them. The Obama administration, meanwhile, now has to decide whether it will further defend DOMA in the courts, fighting against the principles of the tenth amendment so dear to conservatives or the fifth amendment so dear to liberals. The incoherence of the Republicans and the cowardice of the Democrats are now exposed more than ever.

Or they could both listen to Ted Olson. This issue is neither right nor left; it is about human dignity, civil equality and civil rights. And it is way past time the American polity grappled with this, instead of exploiting it for mutual partisan purposes.

(Photo: David McNew/Getty.)

Lindy West tracks down the watermelon-smasher:

Gallagher is—how best to put this?—a paranoid, delusional, right-wing religious maniac. I HAD NO IDEA.

"Hey, President Obama," he spits out the name like a mouthful of burning hair. "You ain't black. I don't care what you say—you're a latte. You're half whole-milk. It could be goat milk—you could be a terrorist!" I am too busy losing my mind to catch the next joke, which is about Ted Kennedy's brain cancer. Aaaaand we're off.

Ben Casnocha has set out to experience things that scare him. This qualifies:

One year ago I received an epic, unforgettable Chinese massage in Beijing. The short version of a Chinese massage is you're thrown into a co-ed room with others, the lights are bright, you lie on a futon naked, an overweight old woman comes in and slaps your ass, stuffs her fingers into your ears, pounds your head with clenched fists, grabs your balls, gives you scalding hot tea halfway through, and then 10 seconds after she finishes she hands you a feedback form to fill in on what you thought of the experience.

A reader writes:

The RAND corporation put out a similar study, specifically parsing whether a small tax or larger tax would be preferable in order to achieve the supposed reduction in caloric intake.

Another writes:

Talk of taxing soda and sweets misses the bigger economic distortion caused by the roughly $20 billion dollars the federal government spends on agricultural subsidies, most of which goes to large agribusiness – not small family farms. Here’s a conservative idea from a Seattle liberal: Cut the total agricultural subsidies in half and save the money from administering another tax. Production of corn goes down, the price of soda and sweets goes up, consumption might go down, and liberty and freedom from taxes reigns. Who would oppose this? (I mean, other than the Senators from rural states and agribusiness, both of whom milk the current system.)

Another:

Rather than a tax, how about we get rid of the U.S. Sugar Program?  Yes, there is a US Department of Agriculture program that subsidizes the production of sugar!

Another:

And eliminate the sugar tariffs while we're at it, so I don't have to go out of my way to buy Coca-Cola from Mexico, where REAL sugar is used.

Contrary to the Urlesque video above, Dana McCourt has a theory:

It’s not that the game is low-scoring; fans of baseball were raving this month or last that a bad call cost a pitcher a perfect game, which is one in which quite literally nothing happens. People watch golf, and apparently have been known to be entertained by it.  It’s also not that the game is terribly complicated or taxing for American brains.  There are basically three rules, and one of them is that you can’t use your hands.  We got this.  Moreover, it’s not as though Americans have never heard of soccer.  Among other things, it’s the middle class suburban pastime for children, largely because you don’t need much equipment, there are basically three rules, and anything that wears out the little rugrats so they sleep is welcomed.

What we don’t have in the U.S. is a large tradition of watching good soccer. 

And this hurts soccer’s popularity during the World Cup, and I suspect more generally, because soccer is a game that is mostly about flow. A game that is about flow is a game where elegant control of the ball-like object leads to the creation of chances to achieve the goal in the game; the opposing team stops them by interrupting them, and taking over.  Soccer, basketball, hockey, and were I in the mood for a challenge I’d argue NASCAR (um, minus the ball bit), are games like this.  Games of flow can be contrasted with games of plays, where one team tries to do something to get points, and the other team is defending.   Football and baseball are games like this.

Stephanie Mencimer profiles Maggie Gallagher's outfit:

In the past month alone, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and its allies have suffered a series of significant legal setbacks, culminating with last week's nearly unanimous Supreme Court ruling in a case arising from a Washington State ballot measure. Collectively, these defeats, in states from California to Maine, could make it much harder for these activists to wage war on gay marriage. For this, New Jersey-based NOM really has no one to blame but itself. That's largely because in its quest to fend off gay marriage, it has engaged in a host of potentially illegal stealth campaign tactics and waged legal battles to shield its supporters from public exposure.

A reader writes:

I think AC is an abomination because I would always freeze in the summer – in stores, in offices – which caused me to have to carry around a wool sweater in August.  Yuck.

On a more philosophical note, air-conditioning has only exacerbated a go-go, workaholic, culture. There's also an arrogant and distasteful, conspicuously wasteful "domination of nature" aspect to it, as epitomized by the indoor ski slopes in Dubai. In more "slow" locales like Italy and Spain, there's not a lot of AC, but there are siestas, and virtually everyone takes the whole of August off, fleeing the blazing asphalt and concrete of the cities. There's something to be said for allowing the environment to lead us to pause and have time for reflection, time to spend resting or reading, or eating and drinking and conversing with family and friends.

There's also something to be said for moderation and the ability to avoid heat-stroke. I can't converse with anyone in 90 degree humidity.